Chronicles Revealed

Chapter 12: Aftermath

We left Police Station 6 feeling completely lost, utterly distressed, deeply frustrated, depressed and angry for what transpired there between the police officers, their false witness, and us a while before.  They did not only waste our time but, worst of all, they made fun of us, treated us like morons.  They had nothing and all they wanted was to fleece some money from us. They thought we were that easy to fool. We were hapless preys before a pack of wolves. Petty corruption from petty minds is abominable.  It is the monstrous child of unbridled greed, the mother of all corruption. It reduces you to a trash.

How can people, persons in authority at that, persons who are vested with the mandate to exemplify trust, can be so shameless and mean and petty at the same time? I know how Mama was feeling. It has been bad for us all these past several days and all the police did was mock us, make us more miserable, neglected and betrayed from the very start. They were slamming the door of justice right in of our face and we could do nothing but stare at an insentient door. They made us feel we were without any recourse in our plight and all we could do was bow our heads in total surrender.

Don't put up a fight or you will perish in the bottomless pit of darkness and hopelessness. It is the message they want you to accept to keep the order of things. Whoever said that the pursuit of justice would be easy, like taking a stroll in the fairways of life with magnificent trees and blooming flowers all around you, the grandeur of nature in the cusp of your hand.

Justice is something you fight for on thorny roads, in rivers infested with crocodiles, leeches and piranhas that you have to cross without a bridge to walk on. You swim with them, swim against them, out swim them, to survive. There is no easy path. Everything will be a struggle from start to end. If you give up, you lose and prove them right. Justice belongs to them and they will dispense it as they will in their own non-negotiable terms. It is not for the faint of heart to pursue.

I think about it day and night. It is in my dreams and nightmares. It haunts me. It makes me scream in my sleep. It tortures me. It kills me every day. I gasp for air all the time. In our room, in the car, in every empty space, I am there crying alone. My tears do not need company. They are invisible and when the dam breaks they will not see a drop of it. I will drown in my own tears and no one will know about it. I don't need sympathy. I won't need for anyone to throw me a lifeline. I see the injustice and feel horrendous pain but I will go on even if I'll have to drain the water of the ocean with a tablespoon to find out if justice is lying there at its bottom, alive or just a rotting carcass of what it was supposed to stand for.

It affected the children very deeply, more than I could possibly fathom even if with a clear mind. I looked at them and I could see in their eyes the painful longing for their father and the inability of their innocent minds to comprehend everything that transpired made it a hundred-fold more heartbreaking. The children didn't know exactly the events that had unfolded that day but they knew he was gone. How were they going to ask for an explanation to what was taking place in front of them when they could not really grasp what it was?

We tried to make the children understand what happened to their father but we continue to see the pain that rankles deep in their hearts and minds.  They just couldn't accept why they couldn't see anymore their father who was always there with them for as long as they could remember.  He brought them to school and he fetched them from school.  He never allowed them to be alone by themselves. He was very protective of them. And then, like a rush of wind, he was gone without a word of goodbye and not coming back anymore. They won't see him again. Will they ever understand why?

Oh, yes, he bought his son a bike, a second hand one and had to do some repairs on it. It was his son's first bike and the boy liked it very much. With his father's guidance, he learned to ride the bike very quickly. Now, he wouldn't even touch the bike, not because the repair his father was doing was not yet finished but because his father could not finish it anymore. It wouldn't be the same even if his bike were fully repaired by someone else, even by me. He hadn't ask me if I could have it repaired. Now the bike is just leaning idly on the garage wall, waiting for some attention. What will stick in the boy's mind for a long time is his Dada doing his best to fix the bike he gave him.