Lacking Fragments: A Novel (Completed)

Light in the Midnight Carnival II

I called my daughter by her name. "Kiki," I said, and yet she remained busy and lost in the screen of her handheld console, in videogame. It looked as if she didn't hear anything at all. And so, I started to assert the words, the catchphrase as reinforcement that sometimes hooked her attention, before. "Kiki," I said. "I'll tell you a story."

     But still no answer. So, I wonder. Is the effect of technology becoming stronger than ever before toward human minds, to both children and us adults? As of this moment, it seemed so. It seemed to drain the attention span of my nine-year old daughter.

     So I pushed more. 

     "If you listen," I added, "I'm willing to tell your mother."

     Now that made her give me a long, serious glance, her attention. Usually, if my wife is involved, Kiki is either choosing to pick my side or scared she will be scolded. "Tell Mother what, Father?" asked my daughter.

     "That I'll escort you to the supermall," I answered, plain and simple. "I'll buy you a new cartridge, a game of your choosing."

     "Really?"

     "Only if you listen."

     In a sudden Kiki turned the power off of her Nintendo GBA SP. Kiki knew exactly what to do next. She closed the handheld console, placed it back in its carrying bag, let it lay down on the purple carpet, and then sat by my side on the moving chair. By now, my daughter and I were looking at the horizon where the sun falls bit by bit. And oh, what a pretty view of fading orange we had from here. "What story, Father?"

     "Hmm. I guess it's something I never told you before. Never told anyone, really. Not even your mother. It can't be found on books either, not on pages in the little bookshelf you have in your room. It's found nowhere, only here," I said, with a finger pointing my right temple. "In my head. It's something new."

     "Is it horror?"

     "Dunno how to answer that," I replied. "Maybe? I don't really know if it is."

     "Then what is it?"

     "It kind of depends on the listener. Up to yourself. Up to how you'll interpret it after you heard it." Whilst in my mind, I had already decided to tell her only the good ones, the parts where I felt good to be alive; the parts, at the expense of the moment, I felt delighted to exist. "I don't know at all. Perhaps it depends on the way I'll tell you the story. You ready now?"

     My daughter nodded. It was the cue for me to begin, her signal. Now I had to start telling the story of an extraordinary night when I was still in my thirties. Out of this world, I might define this; but unlike most magicians's cliché card tricks, it's something I kept within for a lot of years.

     The story began a long time ago, back when Maya and I went to carnival afterwork. Merely one year prior to her untimely death.

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