Fellas…

By midday, the enemy had not yet breached the walls. Yet somehow the castle was already losing ground. Captain Aldren first noticed it when the eastern tower ran out of arrows.

The quartermaster swore they had enough for three months. The archers swore they had received only half their allotment.

Both men were certain. Neither man could explain the difference. A gate runner arrives carrying an urgent message.

The captain reads it. The message says the western wall is under attack. He sends reinforcements.

The valley below the castle had become a moving field of iron.

Where grass had grown the evening before, now stood rows of men with shields lifted shoulder to shoulder. Their banners hung heavy in the air.

Their horses stamped and tossed their heads, troubled by the smell of smoke and coming blood. Behind them rose the castle.

It did not look like something built by men. It looked as though the mountain itself had pushed stone out and shaped it into walls. Great towers stood at each corner. The gatehouse sat in the center. Upon the wall, the defenders waited.

Archers stood along the top of the wall, protected by the stone defenses. Bows strung, eyes fixed upon the opposing army. Men with swords and round shields stood near the inner wall, ready for the moment when the enemy would reach the top and the battle would become hand to hand.

Then the horn sounded from the enemy line.

Shields rose. Ladders came forward. Archers in the field aimed their bows toward the wall. The sound of their volley was like rain. Arrows climbed into the sky, darkened the day, and fell upon the castle in a whispering storm.

Men ducked behind stone. Arrows struck wood and flesh. A boy carrying water froze in the open until an old spearman seized him by the collar and pulled him down.

“Move when the arrows move,” the old man growled. “Stand still and they find you.”

The defenders answered.

Their archers rose from behind the wall and let loose together. Bowstrings snapped like a hundred doors closing at once. Arrows flew downward into the advancing soldiers. Some found the gaps between helmets and breastplates. Some struck the men carrying ladders.

Still the enemy came.

The first ladders struck the wall. Men began to climb.

From the towers, defenders pushed long forked poles against the ladders, grunting as they forced them backward. Another ladder took its place. Then another.

The reinforcements returned from the western wall. There had been no attack. The message had been false. Before leaving, an archer captain searched the supply yard beneath the western tower.

There he found the missing crates of arrows intended for the eastern wall. Every man denied moving the shipment.

“Oil!” shouted the captain above the gate.

The barrels were tipped.

Black oil poured through the murder holes and ran down the face of the gatehouse in shining streams.

Men below screamed and scattered. A torch was lowered. Flame leapt where the oil had fallen.

The enemy line broke around the gate, but only for a moment.

Beyond the flames, more men waited.

They had brought a ram.

Men bent beneath the shelter and pushed it toward the gate, step by step, through smoke and shouting.

The first strike shook the doors. The sound traveled through the castle like thunder.

The ram struck again. and again. Dust fell from the stones above the archway.

Inside the gatehouse, men braced beams against the doors. They pressed shoulders to wood. They wedged iron bars into sockets. Their boots slid against the floor as each blow landed from the other side. If they failed, the castle would open.

So they stood strong, breathing dust, listening to the beast strike again and again.

In the courtyard, messengers ran between towers with news that changed before it arrived.

“They are breaking at the west!”

“No, the west holds!”

The castle held because each man had been given a place to stand and a task to perform. The archer did not run to the gate. The swordsman did not abandon the wall to carry water.

The men beneath the gatehouse did not ask whether their labor was seen. Each one held his part of the defense. And yet something was wrong.

Throughout the day, small failures appeared where none should have existed.

The battle continued into the evening. No one yet knew whether the castle would stand or fall. But one truth had already become impossible to ignore.

The greatest damage was no longer coming from outside the walls. Something inside the castle had begun helping the enemy.

Fellas, every one of us is defending a castle. For some, that castle is our marriage. For others, it's our peace.

For many reading this, it's the relationship we're trying to rebuild with our children. Every day something pushes against those walls.

Some attacks are obvious.

A divorce.

A custody hearing.

A difficult exchange in a parking lot.

A lawyer's letter arriving in the mail.

A child who suddenly doesn't return your calls.

Those are the battering rams; you see them coming. You prepare for them as best you can.

Other attacks are quieter. A passing comment from an in-law. A coworker asking questions that aren't really questions.

Friends who slowly stop calling. Someone casually referring to you as a "weekend dad."

Those are the arrows. They don't usually knock the walls down. But enough of them will leave their mark.

Then there are the attacks that don't come from outside the walls at all.

Those are the ones we rarely prepare for. The voice that says maybe they're right.

Maybe I've already lost my child. Maybe one mistake erased a hundred good decisions.

That voice walks through the front gate carrying the enemy's message. The moment you begin repeating them to yourself.

That's when the enemy no longer has to attack the wall. You've opened the gate.

A father misses one wrestling match because of work. Years later he still apologizes. His son barely remembers missing it.

The father has carried that guilt for twelve years. The child carried it for twelve days.

Who's keeping the wound alive?

A father loses his temper once during a custody exchange. He spends years telling himself,

Meanwhile, his daughter remembers the hundreds of nights he read bedtime stories.

Who's rewriting history?

Not the daughter.

A father worries that because his teenage son doesn't text often, the relationship is dying. Meanwhile, the son still tells his friends,

Every day you wake up with a limited amount of currency.

You can spend it. You can invest it. Or you can hand it away.

The court will ask for some.

The lawyers will ask for some.

Conflict will ask for some.

Your regrets and fears will ask for some.

Your children need what's left. So don't give away what belongs to them. The defenders were already fighting archers. They didn't need someone inside the walls carrying arrows to the enemy.

You are already carrying enough. You don’t need to carry the opinions of people who aren't raising your children.

You don’t need to carry labels like "deadbeat" simply because someone used them.

Every unnecessary burden is another crate of arrows delivered to the wrong tower, another message handed to the enemy.

Every hour spent arguing with someone is another soldier pulled from the wall. The greatest danger to your castle isn't always the army outside its walls.

It's the voice inside that keeps opening gates your child has already forgotten were broken. That voice doesn't begin as your own.

It borrows its words from a judge who questioned your character. An attorney who reduced your life to paperwork. An ex who spoke from hurt. A friend who chose a side. A stranger who knew only part of the story. Even your own past mistakes.

At first they're just opinions. Then they're repeated often enough that they become beliefs.

Eventually, they become your thoughts.

That's the spy.

The enemy no longer has to convince you that you're failing. The spy does it for them.

He reminds you of every mistake and quietly ignores every bedtime story, every school pickup, every difficult conversation you handled well, every promise you kept, every ordinary moment your child quietly built their trust upon.

Meanwhile, your child may have already moved on from the very things you're still carrying.

They're waiting for you in the present while you're defending yourself against a past they've already left behind.

So guard your castle. Because the strongest castles are not the ones that never come under attack.

They're the ones that learn which voices deserve to remain inside the walls.

Until next time

Barkim

P.S. Castles weren't defended alone, and neither is fatherhood. If someone came to mind while reading this letter, send it to him. The share buttons are at the top left.

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