Philophobia

第二章

2.0 t w o

7.54p.m.

"Stop staring at me and just drive," I say, looking to my left. "Please."

6.59p.m.

When I set foot into the Deckard Residence, tensed silence greeted me with a warm embrace. Abruptly, it wrapped around me like a set of arms that should've been my mother's. But it's not. I don't know why I still get so disappointed. You'd think after so many years, I would get used to it.

I guess my wishful thinking doesn't want me to give up just yet. Just like my patience, my lips form a thin line when I see that Klaus' shoes are not there. He must have fled after signalling me. How typical of him. I'm left here to fend for myself, completely alone in this claustrophobic house.

Reaching over to the key hook rack, I attempt to slide my key on without making a sound at all. I fail, clumsy as I am, and my keys fall onto the floor. The lights at the corner of the living room come on.

"Klaudia?"

My dad sits on his favourite velvet arm chair with his reading light dim beside him. The rest of the house is dark and cold, as always. I click my tongue, thinking of ways to get out of this situation. When I come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no way out, father dearest is already walking over. Then he stops right in front of me.

"Where have you been?" he leans in to take a closer look at me, "and why on earth are you so wet?"

After the dismissal bell rang that day, the clouds started to darken. I knew there was no possibility of walking that day, I knew it would start to pour non-stop the second I stepped outside. I had wanted to use my umbrella, but then again I thought, I was going to get wet either ways, so why not just ditch the umbrella and go all the way?

Look, the idea sounded appealing at that time. Something about walking in the rain felt liberating.

I state the obvious and say that it's raining outside, trying to leave it at that. But he wanted just the opposite.

"That doesn't explain why you were gone for four hours. Where did you go?"

Drenched to the bone, I had stalked over to a Starbucks fifteen minutes from school. The café was almost empty, excluding the employees and three other people that sat at each corner of the shop lot. Some people take shelter at home, the rest of us made ourselves comfortable here. I guess we all had different ideas of safe. After ordering a cup of hot mocha, I mounted myself on a window seat then took my notebook out of my bag.

Poetry writing has always been something that I perused with such delight. My body expels the feelings bottled in me as the ink oozes out from my pen. I couldn't write on my phone, or any technology for that matter. My creativity had a secret vendetta against it, I would assume. I've tried a few times and it always ends with a barricade on the right side of my brain, not to mention the stress and frustration then came with it. So gradually, I gave up.

There I was, my clothes soaking the seat, the feel of employees' glare at the side of my head, writing on my notebook. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, and I utterly forgot about time. The words I had written on the blank page suddenly had my undivided attention. It was overwhelming, but was a little like walking in the rain.

By the time I realised it stopped pouring, it was already half past 6. I would explain it to my dad, but he wouldn't get it. He never did.

"I got caught up in school," I tell him, then interrupt him when he opens his mouth to say something, lecture me probably. "Dad, I'm soaking wet and I need to take a shower. Can we please just do this later?"