TABOO (slow updates)

O N E

I watch with not much fascination as the foreign country zoomed past my car window. It was like someone drained the colours out of it, so unsaturated and etiolated it made me miss home way more than I had anticipated to. Everything seemed lively there, being the absolute opposite of this tedious place I was going to force myself to call home. Even the people here were as sallow as the country and walked with slumped shoulders.

I look over at my dad who had a broad smile plastered on his face, like we were seeing this city in two contrasting eyes. He looks back at me, his smile never faltering but I don't dare smile back at him, he did not deserve to see an ounce of my happiness ever again. He reaches out to hold my hand but I smack it away, his left eye twitches ever so slightly but that obnoxious smile of his remains glued.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" I look back into the world that needed colour and shake my head. This mans taste clearly needed to be reset, from the woman he chose to sleep with to the country he decides is fit to live in.

"It's eery," and it was, it was like a dark cloud had settled over this place and would remain there for a long while.

"It's not that bad," I close my eyes and bite my jaw at her annoyingly accented high voice, who told her she had an opinion in this?

"We didn't ask for your opinion so please be quiet," I look into her blue eyes which resembled mothers so badly I wanted to claw them out of her face. If someone were to remind me of my mother it was definitely not this whore. She had no right, absolutely no right to have my mothers's perfect blue eyes. The way she smeared that kohl all over her eyes made the blue in her eyes stand out more, begging to remind me that she did in fact have mother's eyes.

"Watch your mouth young lady," I look over at my fathers own eyes, the green of his being the green of mine. The reason I hated my reflection so much. The reason I wanted to claw out my own eyes. He looked so much like me it made me physically hate myself. Why did I have to look like this poor excuse of a man who didn't even have an ounce of sadness after the death of his wife?

I scowl at him and stare back at the unsaturated world. We had suddenly stopped and the huge building that loomed in front of me was probably where I was going to force myself to call home. It was unappealing even though it was way bigger than our small house where we were all happy and filled with content. But now that we've moved to this huge house, a house mother would have probably been way more than happy to call home, a huge dissimilarity had become of our once perfect family. A daughter who resented her father and a mistress she couldn't acknowledge.

A large oak tree was planted next to the crumbling house replacing the old maple and lemon trees we had back home. Its roots were sticking out from the ground and it was planted dangerously way too close to the house. My eyes lingered on the large wooden door that didn't seem very welcoming, beyond that door was my new home, beyond the chipped white painting and the red bricks underneath it was my new home.

I look at a path that led to a forest, couldn't I run? Couldn't I just end this misery and run far away from him and his mistress? I looked at him, at his wide smile and a vanishing part of me reminded me that he was once a good man and that maybe there was still part of the man I adored under the layers I had come to loathe wholeheartedly. So I dragged my luggage towards the rusted iron gate and prepared myself to give him another chance, not to forgive him but to not let him endure double loss. No matter how much I hated him, I did not like picturing him in pain. He was my dad after all and before two weeks ago he was the man I loved with my whole heart.

An ashen-faced old man limped towards me and reached out to hold my luggage and with too much effort and a grip that probably finished all the remnants of energy he had within him, started dragging my luggage to the wooden doors. He was a few steps ahead of me because I stood there dumbfounded, he was obviously too ill to be working yet here he was dragging my not so heavy luggage with his veiny hands. He was threatening to collapse, so I walk towards him and gently remove his shaky hands from my luggage. I examine them a little but with more energy than I expected to come from him he manages to pull them away from me and place them behind his hunchback.