The car

“Dad, I can’t find my laptop charger. Can you help me find it?”, the young girl calls to her father
who is downstairs watching a show on the TV. “Yeah honey, do you remember where you last
saw it?”, the dad inquires, calling back to his daughter. She hollers back to him, “I was watching
Netflix when I was doing my homework earlier, it might have fallen out of my backpack down
there somewhere.” The dad climbs off of the couch to the ground, it’s probably fallen between
the cushions or under the couch. He pulls the couch cushions off and tosses them aside, as he
runs his hands along the edges of the couch, nothing but crumbs, hidden candy wrappers, and
half used batteries from the kids gaming controllers. He lays on the floor to peer under the
couch, it’s too dark to see anything under there. He begins to slide his hand along the floor
under the couch when it brushes against something. It doesn’t feel like a laptop charger. There’s
no cords attached. It’s small and feels metallic, as he grabs it and pulls it out he realizes what it
is he is holding and suddenly there’s a flash of blinding light.

‘That was weird’, the dad thinks to himself as he sits and looks down at the small, metal,
superhero Hot Wheels car in the palm of his hand. It’s dusty and faded blue, with a small
Captain America shield painted on the roof. The hood of the car has a white “A” scrolled across
it. He remembers his son playing with this car. Then, suddenly, a small voice calls out to him,
“You found it daddy, my Captain Car!”, his son’s voice screams in excitement. Startled he holds
it out for the boy to see. He barely remembers his son so young. ‘I must have bumped my head
on the coffee table and started hallucinating’, he thinks to himself. Then the young boy wraps his
tiny arms around his dad’s neck. He feels the warmth from the tiny arms on as his son squeezes
as tight as he can. It’s so real! The boy kisses his dad on the head, and as he grabs the car from
his fathers open hand, another blinding flash of light.

“Dad, helloo, dad are you there?”, he hears his daughter call distantly as he stares blankly
ahead. “What is that in your hand? Did you find my charger?”, she asks him. He hears her voice
more clearly now, as he regains his senses. “Uh um, no, I didn’t. It’s a car, a um Hot Wheels
car.”, he says as he blinks several times and shakes his head. “Hey, that was Beans. Where did
you find that old thing?”, she says reaching for the car. “Under the couch”, the dad says as he
clinches it in his hand and turns away. He feels the tears start to well up in his eyes. A secret
present left there by his son before he passed 3 years ago. The dad closes his eyes tightly and
tries to create that flash again.