The Man Called Faust

Prologue

A doctor who possessed Healing Hands, and a doctor with a heart of stone: that is how people described him, Louis. And due to his lack of compassion and love for others, many compared him to the mythical Doctor Faust of Goethe, who cared less for love and attention, and craved for nothing else but divine, complete knowledge. Louis, believe it or not, is my father. And as far as I can recall, I've never called him "Father", or anything close to it. He never treated me like what I'd call a stereotypical "Parent-Child relationship". And so it seems, in my lifetime, he has never mentioned me or introduced me to anyone as his child. He took me in, allowed me to live in his house, sleep in the room next to the always empty Master's Bedroom (for an explainable reason, he always occupied the guestroom downstairs), and allowed me to indulge in the contents of his fridge for myself, and sometimes, for us both whenever he feels like it. He often left items of value on one of the kitchen counters with my on it, and you name it: smartphones, tablets, laptop computers, cash, clothes, and credit card, as if I have this insatiable desire for more. But in all these things he did for me, not even once have I felt the love of a father, my lone, surviving parent. I see him there, all right, but these actions fall short of love, and appear more like spacing-out. But in my situation, I still found something to be grateful for: he never considered disowning me.

Despite it all, I feel sort of cheated, for I feel I'm deprived of love. I tried asking him before why he treats me this way during breakfast – the only time of the day where the chances of him and me meeting in the kitchen is at the highest -- but no words came out of my usually overly, opinionated mouth. One other night he came home very late, I've forced myself on my feet to leave my bedroom and go down the stairs to talk to him, ready and fully committed on finally asking him, only to find him already snoring in the sofa: clothing akimbo, hair in a dark mess, the dark circles around his eyes turning darker still, and the dark-rimmed glasses still perched low on his patrician nose. He is hopeless, this man is. Whatever that's going on in that brilliant mind of his, not one living thing in the face of this Earth has a single idea. And it seems, he has found enjoyment in keeping the state of things as is. Why? Don't ask me.

Auntie Tiffany told me once before that Louis was twenty-eight years old when my mother gave birth to me, and that same year, only two years after they got acquainted, my Mother died. I have no memories of her, and this makes me very sad. Seeing the only photos of her that Aunt Tiff had, she seemed like a very lively, high-spirited and cheerful person, and it would have been nice to have a conversation with her. She obviously is the exact opposite of the Man Called Faust, and it must have required the will of the entire universe to get him and my biological mother together.

Thinking about how he and my mother are different gave me the impression that she was the reason why Louis had been avoiding me. I might have something to do with the reason why he lost his young girl friend. Either that, or he simply hates me. Period. No more discussion required. I might have been an accident, and he might have wanted to kill me, except that my Mother wanted me and fought against him on the matter which is having me. But then, he's a doctor, he can easily abort the baby if he really wanted to without my mother knowing until it's done... It truly is confusing, especially when nobody seemed to care to explain to me what happened, as if none of it mattered. It frustrated me to the core, and as I was reaching my limit, I exploded in pure rage one afternoon while I was having a few light drinks with Tiffany. I blurted out in my alcohol-laced breath how much I hate what I'm going through – that I blame all of this on my Mother for dying too early, and on Louis for reluctantly taking me in after she passed, like I was a spoonful of flavoured rice that was forced down his mouth which he eventually swallowed because he can't spit it out. She silently listened to me, though, but as she did, her eyes was covered in tears, mumbling through hands-covered mouth: "He loves you and your Mother more than you'll ever know, Lucrece... More than you'll ever know..."