12: Dad

                                    

                                          
I wanted to let everything out. I wanted to stuff my face in with a pillow, lie down sideways and cry with all my heart.
I couldn't even do that.
Slowly, though, I felt my heart rate slowing down. My eye lids felt heavy, until I realized that they were long shut. Then, I stopped trying to think.
And then, time began to slow down. I drifted away.
* * *
Ah, welcome back.
Hmm... it looks like your mind is in a better state, but your heart isn't quite.
Someone was in front of me, but I couldn't make out anything about them.
Curiously, I opened my mouth.
But my voice wouldn't come out.
Hmm, I see.
Your eyes...they seem angered.
You had a fight with someone, girl?
He kept talking, but I still couldn't talk. I kept mouthing out words, but nothing would come out.
It felt like déjà vu.
Why? I wondered.
He smiled.
Then, it started to rain.
I hadn't paid attention to what surrounded that person and I, but now it was somewhere. It rained, harder and colder with each second.
I covered my ears.
"Daddy! Faster!" I cried even harder than I already was and slammed my hands on my father's head.
'I'...?
"Alright now. It's gonna be fine!" He tried to console me, but for me what mattered was that I was still dripping wet from a storm above me.
'Me'...
He turned a corner, then suddenly the streets looked oh-so familiar. "There! Daddy, there!" Gleefully pointing at our house in the distance, I started settling down.
'Our house'. It was our house.
Then, an unbearably bright light at the front covered everything but his shadow-covered back.
His shoulders were so broad, I thought.
Then, things went by in a flash.
"Mama..." she'd feed me, then go to her room for hours without coming out. I knew what she always did there.
All of a sudden, she dressed me up in a dress as pretty as her and as dark as her room when she went in there.
It didn't make me feel happy at all.
We went to a place where everyone stared at me, and then there was a picture of him.
I didn't know what was going on.
Then when we got home, I asked, "Mama, when is daddy coming home?"
She started crying and wailing.
I did too, with her.
Then, one day, I overheard her.
"I... can't handle this anymore."
"Every time."
"I go out, I see the traces of his death. I look at my daughter and she reminds me so much of him I can hardly look at her without wanting to cry."