DAD

Prologue

"Why would someone do this?"
"It's just fine."
"No, it's not mom."
"Why?"
"She just did that."
"What?"
"That's what you'll never know."

Here's a small fact: They say you are going to DIE one day

"The thing is you know...I'll miss him. He was a great man. He was a person one could really admire. One could really follow him as an ideal. I'm just missing the time; I should've got to take those traits on me."
"Oh Clem, you have to admit and accept it, this is a fact no one can ever hinder out. He got old anyway, we aren't losing anything, mom's there. She'll be our second dad."
"I'm in all truthfulness attempting this lie, this lie the people told 'true'... --- No one dies, it's just a term used on earth that the person just has been shifted to a new world. He's gone in afterlife. That doesn't make him die."

And with this small demonstration, my brother, who lives in London at present (for his higher studies basically) hung up the phone on me, in the similar way that everyone had done. It was all about my dad. My dad. Brad Waters. He had started from Bradford yesterday to visit my brother, Chris Waters (the one who hung up on me) at nearly half past noon. I was a typical Daddy's princess, though he was not the type Best Daddy. He had said he would be back by tomorrow noon, but he came back at the same day, the moment the clock ticked exactly the digit three; but with silence, cold and white skin, with bruises all over the forehead. And that's how my Daddy's princess category fell to a loss.

Not to deny, my brother and my mom (that counts everyone except my aunt) weren't least sad about my dad's such occurrence. Well, they never were the ones to have a headache about him. As a wife, I never saw love in her eyes for my dad, nor as a son my brother had that either. But my aunt, my dad's only sister, Rosaline Waters was shocked and hasn't come in conscious since the body was taken to the grave. High fever, and weakness has been raging all over her since then.

I was eagerly waiting for my brother to come, I hadn't seen him for 3 years, since the time he's in London. He was supposed to return today, for a visit and to attend dad's funeral. Maybe he's just coming to show some fake feelings for his dead dad to make the society get overwhelmed. Maybe. I was eager to meet him, because I had always considered him as my second hero after my dad, but that phone call, his tone of talking, just made my feel out of the grid. I wanted to know what made him hate dad so much.

Mom never told me what bothers her about dad, every time I asked her, she just scolded or shoo-ed me away. Sometimes she used to slap too. My dad was good-looking, even though he was 46. He was a financial broker and used to stay out of town most of the times. He had no flaw, really. He was the one who had arranged the fund for my brother to study at London. Still, they hated him, I wonder why.

***

The doorbell rang, that was my brother. I could just say it because he always used to click the doorbell more than thrice. He came in with a baggy backpack and hugged my mom, my aunt and then just gave me a quick shake by the shoulders and went in his room, where he hadn't been in last 3 years. He got fresh and then we were lying in the backyard, looking at the sky.
I was silent.

"So Clem, how's your school going?"
I didn't answer.
"Um, ok. How're your friends?"
I sighed and just stared at the sky.
"When are your exams?" This time he spoke a bit louder, thinking that I probably can't hear him.
But I was still silent.
"Clem!"
My silence never broke.
"Clem are you mute? Or deaf? I'm talking to you!"
This is the time I answered.
"See?! This is what happens when you're dead! You call, try to talk, but nobody listens to you but rather wails and cries and gets some stupid funeral to occur!"
My mom came running hearing me shout against my brother, which I had never done in my whole life. I always thought it would take me a lot of guts to do it, but right now, it just came out.
"No mom, we are just having a normal conversation." My brother gave a small smile which made my mom go back.

"Clem, don't shout."

I just sighed as loud as I could without looking at him.
"What made you shout that way?"
I had no answer, I didn't want to shout. Those are bad manners. So, I just skipped the question and asked, "What makes you hate dad so much?"
He twisted his eyebrows like he needed to think about it and replied, "Why are you changing the topic?"
"Please brother, tell me."
"Why do you need to know? I don't like him, that's all...you don't always need a reason."
"But you have one, and I'm sure it's the same for mom."
"He had bad qualities..." my brother demonstrated just as it was the only reason.
"Well he has good ones too." I defended.
"Some bad things are bigger than the small good things."
That made me think a while. But it didn't take long for me to answer that.
"People observe the color of the sky only at its beginning and end. But it changes color every moment. A single hour can have thousands of colors. Waxy yellows, cloud-spat blues, deep orange, lava red. Maybe dad also had many better qualities that were just concealed to your eyes just like we don't notice the thousand colors of the sky."
My brother went quiet until my mom called us for the dinner and when we got up from the grass, he whispered to me, "What if those concealed qualities are not the good ones you're thinking of?"

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So guys! This was the prologue...