[Papi34]

Originally Posted by parch

Spoiler!

I didn't even think of it being his father. I totally thought it was just some random creepy stalker pedo man. I may have misread it, but when they mentioned that his hair was dyed, I assumed that was done before, and the man mistakenly took Josh thinking it was the narrator (like he said earlier, the mother used to joke that the only way she could tell them apart was by their hair). It being the father makes more sense though now you mention it, but how would it have worked out that it was his father who got the narrators balloon?

Spoiler!

I thought of this situation as well and its kind of the missing link for me, i think there is a chance that the stalker was stalking him well before kindergarten so he would have known the balloon thing was happening in advance and that was how he discovered the address for the kid and the stalking intensified. This is all just theory i could be completely wrong i really wish i could know the authors thoughts but it was just an idea i had. it just seems to make most sense. The other thing i thought of was that the narrator was a product of rape and thats why the father was never mentioned. just in the end when the mother turned him over and said something along the lines of expecting to see someone much more demonic and not so normal leads me to that conclusion. Again just my theory could be 100% wrong. The Narrator also mentioned in footsteps that he heard "footsteps" long before he woke up in the woods so its reasonable to think the stalker was stalking on a much lower degree well before kindergarten. I also believe that the anonymous calls about josh's missings were from the mother being anonymous to protect her son. The timeline of 6 years fits pretty perfectly with this.