Where is my father?

Where is my father?”

See the little house down there, the one with old slate roof and mossy bricks, that’s it. Our house, my father’s house.

The windows are now gaping holes for the wind to rush in and out through. We would stand there for hours and he would point at the broken twig , the curled up petals, the omnipresent sky and I would gaze in amazement, hiding the bored expression. The door is now hung on its hinges at a jaunty angle, although it has now become a frame.

We have tethered pieces of memories circled around it. Every time my teenage self would grow emotional and aggressive, he would stand by the door mouthing words of comfort while I sat with red puffed eyes on the other side. Every inch poured memories of childhood summers.

I take in every detail, however small it might be. To find the trail of your bread crumbs is better than finding nothing at all.

The winter appraoches and I can’t find a reason to call this ‘home’ again. I sink in the lost warmth, lost since before the season turned to fall. To see you running behind my seven year old self with a bowl of curd is better than seeing nothing at all.

I breathe in the scent of the paint, the mud. To remember you beating a eleven year old boy for having spoiled the freshly painted walls is better than remembering nothing at all. I trace a crude outline of you, soon to be erased by the storm.Every inch poured memories of childhood winters.

They say you are dead, left me here to rot. But, don’t worry father, I don’t believe them. I still feel your love and that can’t be a lie. I just need to find a way back into your arms, arms of support. I just need to find that disciplined father again who used to do every chore by the clock. Someone as good as you doesn’t just disappear. I cry out for you to make you see the desolation in my heart and compel you o put your hand on my shoulders once again. But, the wind carries my voice faster than I could speak. The football you brought for my fourteenth birthday is left on the stairs, every pore covered with dust. I just need to find my goalkeeper again. Every inch poured memories of childhood autumns.

“Come on, now! Champ..”, reverberates as I stargaze at sloshy mud.

Its dusk now, his favorite time, our favorite time. And the skin exposed gets sprinkled with by-gone days.

I stand by your room’s door, ajar. Every thing is misplaced, even the pages of your diary have come out, some lying on the floor, some on the bed, yellowish. Lines have faded out, barely readable. The armchair is still there, by the blacony attached to your room. Empty. Thousand of incidents embrace me.

I see a little two year old boy in his father’s arms, snoring softly while father sits on the armchair reading ‘Pather Panchali’.

I smile at the vision of a five year old naughty boy tip toeing into his father’s room and stealing money from the crumpled blue shirt for a new toy.

I grin proudly at the image of a twelve year old captain of his school’s football team hugging his father tightly after a match, won.Every inch poured memories of childhood springs.

I run my hand through my stubble, eyes wider than any person’s would be. Then,as slowly motor movement allows, I pull out the knife from my backpocket, a present for my father’s sixty second birthday. Running my left hand through the thinning hair, I hold the knife tightly with the other. The pigeons fly away from the roof as a shrieking cry echoes out. The deafening silence breaks for a moment and soon relapses into a suicidal atmosphere.

Within an hour or two, the police comes accompanied by an eight year old girl holding her mother’s hand as tightly as possible. Her mother is already in tears, shivering like leaves. The little two ponied girl is stung with a shock with the ongoing happenings. Police rummages through the house. The little house down there, the one with old slate roof and mossy bricks, that’s it. They find a note lying on the fifth stair~

“Where is my father?” , spilled with drops of blood, clotted.

The mother breaks down completely as the police hands over the note to her. She sits down on the stair with a thud, mute. The child hides behind her and scared to bits, looks at the note. Gulping and breathing heavily, she whispers into her mother’s ears,

“Where…where is my father?” and the broken lady points to man lying on the stairway to her grandpa’s room, a blood stained knife in hand, motionless.