The Ring of Fire

Chapter 1

The world seemed far off, with blurry images and distant sounds. Nothing seemed real. Nothing made sense. Except for pain. The pain was all around her and most of all in her heart. It had been a week after her father's death and the authorities still had no answer. This year, the month of September which was usually filled with its beautiful rains, chose to take an unexpected path and described the ugliness of the world. Alice had always known that nothing in the world was perfect and that she would soon have to see the ugliness hidden by beauty. But what Alice never imagined was that she would have to meet with it so soon. The past few months had been quite odd. She and her brother started having nightmares whenever their father wasn't at home or was about to leave for work. They heard strange words whispered to them at night by voices that were carried by the winds. Their life which was filled with joy and happiness a week ago was now filled with sorrow. Her memory went blank every time she tried to think of her last moments with her father. Had she told him that she loved him? Had she ever asked him if he was fine? Had she ever told him that she adored the postcards that he collected for her? So many things that she had left untold. She wondered what his last words were and what his last thoughts were. And then she would stop again and try to breathe. Each time the thoughts surfaced, she would stop breathing, for it hurt to perform even a simple task as that of breathing. Every morning that she woke up, she would find tear tracks on her cheeks. She didn't even remember crying. It was during one such time that the memory which caused all this pain resurfaced.

On Monday morning Alice had woken up to the cold and dull weather. The skies were almost black and filled with clouds, blocking the rays of the sun. The chill wind came in through her window and flushed away all signs of sleep. She woke up from her bed, closed the window and made her way to the bathroom. She held open the door to find the floor very cold and the mirror coated with fog. Alice felt that something was wrong but she chose to take it has something wrong with the weather. She took a quick bath and then got out of the shower. She quickly changed and picked up her denim jacket on her way down the stairs. She had just reached the last step when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," she yelled.

She wished that it had never been her who got the door that day. She walked to the door, to find the strong wind and rain resisting her form opening the door. With some difficulty, she opened it to see her father leaning on one of the pillars. "Dad?" she called. At that moment there was a strong gust of wind and her father fell backwards. "Dad!", she yelled. She ran forward and knelt by him, she tried to see if he was breathing but it was hard to understand among all that rush. "Dad!", she wailed. She shook him in an attempt to wake him up. "Mom! Castor! Come quick", she screamed.

Catherine and Castor rushed to the door with worried expressions on their faces. As soon as Catherine saw Albert she screamed and knelt on the ground beside his body. Castor was frozen to the ground, a look of pure terror and shock etched on his face. A pounding headache had made its way into Alice's head.

The next thing she knew she was lying on the couch with police officers around her. Her mother's eyes were red and puffy from crying and for the first time, Alice realized that her mother was ageing. Castor was still in a shock unable to believe that a person he had looked up to was no more, that his beloved father was dead. And maybe it was because he never accepted that as the truth, he always thought that this was some stupid nightmare, maybe that was a reason he never shed a single tear. He always had a dreamy contemplating look on his face. Meanwhile, a series of recollections of the events still bothered him and whenever he thought about it he was left with nothing but a quizzical look on his face with a belief that those days were perhaps only a result of watching too much TV as pointed by his father.

"But how could it be? Those occurrences are engraved in my mind in such a way that I can't question its occurrence", by muttering these lines Castor stood up and moved to his bedroom, there on the shelf, was a picture of an excited Castor, a grumpy Alice and an amused Albert. They had taken this picture ten years ago when they went on a trip to the newly opened museum downtown.

Castor was wearing a chartreuse turtleneck his aunt had given for thanksgiving along with a big hat which despite being odd on his sweater he wore with full joy.

He missed those days when he was a little boy with no worries in the world.