My father is the scariest man I’ve ever known and when armed with a bottle of beer he reaches nightmare levels. Just the crackle of his belt or rise in his voice was enough to make me shake like a leaf.

One night, while I struggled to get comfortable in bed from the bruises and sounds of my mom’s crying, I hatched an ingenious idea to stop the pain and suffering: scare dad. Clearly he just didn’t know how his actions made us feel, but if I scared him like he scared us, maybe then he would change his ways.

I tried anything I could think of to produce some fright and scare dad straight. I would hide and jump out at him, but he didn’t even flinch. I placed a toy snake in the toilet, but that only resulted in a beating for me.

Finally, I thought of destroying his alcohol. I know that people become scared when they lose something they love, so one by one I poured my dad’s bottles down the drain and eagerly awaited his reaction. I knew this would be it, this would be the thing to scare him!

That night, I remember my father discovering the empty bottles and becoming angrier than I’ve ever seen him. I remember him wrecking the house. I remember him storming into my room. I remember his hands around my neck and me seeing black.

Luckily, my planning and hard work that night paid off though! Today, my father lives in a constant state of fear. I’m always watching him, how timid and nervous he is at all times. Whenever I pay him a visit his complexion turns a pasty white, his body shivers like I used to and he breaks into a cold sweat.

I scared my father so good, you would think he saw a ghost.