Loud Secret

Something Strange

I woke up with a throbbing headache and a feel of tiredness that should have left after getting my eight hours of sleep, but didn’t. Was it because of all the work I did yesterday? Feeling my forehead with the back of my left palm, I noticed my temperature was a bit higher than normal, but I didn’t give it the satisfaction of intimidating me. “Nothing will stop me from enjoying this day”, I said to myself.

Throwing the covers off of me, I sat up right on my bed and said a silent prayer, “Lord, thank you for this day. Please let it be good.” The alarm clock on the bed side table indicated it was 7 O’clock, and just like every other Saturday, washing came first, then cleaning, followed by work.

On weekends, I take the afternoon shift because of its convenience. No school hours meant more hours for work and in turn, more money. I gathered my clothes that needed washing- usually my school uniforms and a few shorts I wore during the week after work. I strolled off to my dad’s room to collects his dirty clothes but he wasn’t in bed. Neither was he in the bathroom, living room or outside.

Outside, I noticed a stack of beer bottles in the corner of the porch and I made a mental note to add that to the cleaning list after washing. I looked for my dad everywhere but even his shadow was not seen. Clearly, he had gone out, probably out of the neighbourhood. But where could he have gone to so early in the morning?

It was sunny outside and the skies promised a bright day devoid of rain. A good day to bask in the sun, but not this early. I just hoped he wasn’t somewhere causing trouble or venting his anger on innocent souls. But it sure was weird for him to be out so early in the morning.
I began washing and finished at 8:30am to my surprise, went to the porch and cleared all the alcohol bottles, and went down to the garage to continue the cleaning there.

My dad stopped driving his car, or any other car for that matter about three years ago. There was no point in having a car you take nowhere and not having any job that could afford fuel for the car. So, he sold it. Sold it to a car dealer from the city who gave him three-quarters the price he had initially bought it. My dad wasn’t satisfied with the offer but it was the best he could ever get for a used car. I think he saved the money at the bank and had returns on it. That’s how he managed to pay for my Junior High School Education. And of course, when I got into Senior High School, he decided the rest of the money could be used only for getting drunk and nothing else but that. Now the garage was only used as a storage space for tools and equipment as well as spoiled items.

I stopped the reminisce as I noticed the brown box containing mom’s pictures. I couldn’t help myself. Before I knew it, I was admiring one photo after the next. She was so beautiful; always smiling so widely, filling my day with life and joy. But now she’s gone and I’d never see her again. One of the pictures had all of us in it. I remember the day that picture was taken like it was yesterday. I was five. It was my parents sixth wedding anniversary. So, we had a special family dinner, just the three of us and after dinner we took the picture.

The camera was set by my dad to automatically take the shot five seconds after we all posed in front of it. I remember it not working on his first try and mom and I couldn’t help but laugh at that. Dad got it right the second time round and my mom said “Happy Anniversary” just before the ‘click’ sound on the camera was heard. We were all so happy that day. Now it’ll be hard for an outsider to believe that the family members in this house had seen happier days.

I realized I was wasting a lot of time on the pictures, but just when I was about to put the box back down, I saw another box. This one was also brown but a lot bigger than the one containing mom’s pictures. It was half opened and I could see papers sticking out of it. I had never noticed this box. When did it get here? The papers had writings in blue ink but I couldn’t make out the owner of the handwriting.