Forgive me Father, Let me Dance!

Chapter 2

Its dark and the only light I have is from the lightning that is cracking ferociously in the skies above.

The rain is pouring down on my face and the raindrops mix with the tears that are now freely flowing down my cheeks.

 I struggle running through the thick bamboo and almost lose my balance on the wet slippery mud under my bare feet, but I keep running.

I must keep running.

The evil tiger spirit, like my grandmother used to tell me when she was alive, has entered my father’s body again.

So I must run so I can spare myself the misery.

He’s coming at me megamuk. My chest hurts from the last time he caught up to me.

The memory of the blinding pain flashed past me as I ran even faster with the rain plastered on my face. He had come at me with his belt and the belt buckle had cracked my rib I think.

I could hear him yelling my name, growling it even.

 “Alinah!” he screamed.

 “ALINAH!”

But I kept running.

And eventually his screams grew softer.

I swerved between the bamboos and crisscrossed my path so he wouldn’t be able to track me.

He wouldn’t be able to anyway, because he was slurring as he yelled my name and I knew he was too drunk to even look for footsteps in the sludge.

 I knew I would outrun him this time.

 Practice made perfect, and I had plenty of practice running away from my father. It was the same routine each time.

Father would come home drunk after a long day and having visited the local store for some cheap locally produced wine, he would just bitch about the crap people gave him at his office.

He would just drink and drink that stupid wine. Cheap and quickly intoxicating, just the way he liked it.

I wouldn’t say it was always like this. There was a time when it was better.

Although my father was from a poor farmer’s family he had gone to the local engineering college just after finishing school. He had even married a woman he truly loved. Truly loved once upon a time I guess.

But jobs were scarce in our small town of Ketereh and travelling to the nearest city oh Kota Bahru wasn’t an option.

Father was smart and he had gone to college young. He studied Aerospace Engineering but there was no demand of such fancy degrees in a farmer’s family. So things got worse and father started drinking.

The smiles and warmth that our family once shared was gone. With the death of my grandparents things got worse as no one was left who could control my father.

He had started drinking everyday and he started lashing out on my mother and me if we did even the slightest thing he thought was wrong.

He’s never laying another hand on me. I will never let him.

And I ran and ran and ran till his voice was distant and I thought it was just the wind and rain lashing against the bamboo leaves.

And that’s when I felt the ground under my feet change. The bamboo thinned around me and it felt like I was on a pathway leading up to a road.

 I was only 6 years old and my tiny feet were tired from all the running. My heels felt sore, I had probably cut them on something.

I startled myself when I suddenly heard thunder and I quickly lifted my right foot up to check on it, I knew that lightning would follow soon. Just as the sky light up with it I saw blood mixed with mud trickling down my calf as well.

I saw the silhouette of a short palm plant and ran to it, tearing a huge leaf to help cover me up and protect me from the rain lashing down on me.

I was tired, exhausted and in pain. My body shivered in the cold.

As I stood in the middle of that road, I looked to the sky and wondered if god was looking at me. Who was 'god' anyway.

Did he slow down my father, so he wouldn’t catch me today?

I closed my eyes, opened my mouth and turned my chin to the sky. I was really thirsty from all the running and I wished I had some clean water to drink right then.

I don’t know if it was my little body exhausted with everything that had happened that night but for a second standing there with my eyes closed I thought I heard a loud noise behind me.

I suddenly turned around scared it could be father coming back for me... I didn’t understand what all that noise was from. I just heard something like a big car screeching.

I didn’t understand what was happening. I was too scared to move and completely blinded by the light in front of me.

 I started to scream and tried to run at the same time. But as exhausted as I was, I just ended up stumbling in a panic.

The next few seconds were a complete blur. I was trying frantically to get up and run but my feet were in pain and my head was spinning.

A huge light was blinding me and my foot slipped under the huge palm leaf that I had wrapped around me a little bit earlier.

As I slipped my head hit the gravel hard. I just lay there just as scared as the chickens mother used  to chop for dinner. The light came closer and the screech got louder and everything started spinning.

Then suddenly, everything felt dark and all I could feel were the huge raindrops on my face.

*********************************************

“You okay love?”

Huh, where am I?

“Yous all right love?”

Wait. What is going on?

I can feel rain on my face and I realise I’m lying in a bush.

What really is going on...?

“Ally is that you?”

For a second I froze.

I just understood what was going on.

I had gone for a jog and fell over because I obviously crashed into someone. And while someone was trying to ask how I was doing I was stuck in a memory in the past.

“Yeah” I replied weakly.

“Well get up will you, or are yous planning to eat supper in there?”