Kidding Me

Chapter 5

   Blood has a funny scent and just it's presence, when in mass (not just a graze on your knee), can make you dizzy. Hopefully, your lucky enough to not know that. But maybe, this is why my dad gave me more questions through his actions. In a crisis, we can often make odd decisions, but why when faced with the tip of a gun, would you stop screaming?

   There had been one gunshot already, from the looks of it, to his leg. However his eyes, first alit with fear, now gave my father the look of acceptance. As if this fate had been sealed along time ago, even, as if he expected this.

   Blond, strayed, steaks, peaked out from the bottom of a bun, capped under a coal black hat. The silhouette was standing maybe 15 feet away, max. The barrel of the gun in her hands caught the light and gleamed in an out-of-character way. It looked stunning, mesmerising even. Looking back, I'm ashamed, I didn't do anything till the bullet was in his chest. I didn't move, not even to breath. How was I supposed to know that she feared my scream and would scatter as soon as she saw me. Why would she? Another question that I didn't have the answer to.

    I caught a glimpse of her face but I couldn't place her at all. I couldn't place her for along time. Not until it was way to late.

   I'm alone. Alone. No. I've got Baana and Jasper and Gad and Amzi; Hash and Buz as well. I'm not alone but in that moment I was. From fainting to vivid, there were numerous memories of him in the back if my mind, waiting to be listened to, but even the conversation in the car was already fading into a dusty distortion just out of my reach. As if the more I thought about it the further away it got. And the further away it got more of him I lost, and I was losing lots of him at a concerning rate.

   Faded, like an old picture. I had this memory of us - my father and I - when I was tiny. He had been ill and had time off work but, of course, I knew nothing about that at the time. I would have my hair in balanced bunches back then, with pastel coloured ribbons on each side. We would walk up to the local park and I'd pluck the dandelions, mesmerised by the floating spring snow as they drifted, lazily through the air. Huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf, failing to catch the last remaining stubborn buds, in my breath.

   I knew Camel wasn't my real mum, but she was the only mum I knew. My dad never talked, about anything to do with that kind of thing. He got angry if I brought it up. He is - I mean was - the only one that knew the answers and I always hopes he'd tell me when I'm older. But now, I guess my own secrets die with him.

How can that be? That your secrets relied on someone else existence?

Just more and more questions and no-one to give satisfying answers.