Father and Son

When will he throw away his toys in the basement? When will he start differentiating between what is right and wrong? When will he grow up? The answers don’t come swiftly for a learning father like me.

“Papa, why do those birds sing early in the morning?” my six years old Christopher Columbus asks me with a hand full of chocolates and a mind full of questions. I put in the picture, “Because they know you don’t have an alarm clock to wake you up for school.” His dancing eye brows gaze at me as if he knows I’m deceitful.

The questions keep flooding inside my 1400 gram brain. Does our world of reality apply to the mind of a naive child? How do kids broaden their social horizons? How does a negative association with independence affect them? Do they learn from experience or do they rely on instinct? Will a child born in the jungle not play with the jungle toys? Will that child turn into an animal? I want to barge on an expedition across the Milky Way but then I doubt if the answers are playing hide and seek inside my own mind. Either way it is a tough voyage and my questions are my only companions. 

 His six years old raw brain questions me, “Papa, why is the sky so blue?”

“Because it’s your darling colour son. You don’t like it? Do you want me to change it to green?”

“No! I don’t like green. Let it be. Let it be.”

“All right, if you say so.”

 

I wonder which chemical process can elaborate child psychology. Can science describe innate instinct of a small brat? What is the scientific formula of building our morals? Buddha and Hitler were also little monsters once. Is there a technology to track their drastic deviation? How much does intellectual stimulation affect the little ones? Is the human mind always in transition or does it stop somewhere? Does the human development move from social level to individual level? Or is it the other way around? Is childhood a period to search one’s identity or to alter it? I reckon if there is a black box in our brains. If there is, someone please enlighten me how to unlock it.

 “Papa, what is that big thing in the sky? I see it all the time.”

“It’s a flying machine son. The humans call it aeroplane.”

“Like a bird, papa?”

“Hmmm, somewhat like a ten thousand tonne bird.”

“Oh! Really? That will make a good lunch for my whole class,” he answers unpretentiously.

“No, we can’t eat it Sherlock Holmes. That bird feeds on us,” I react with a consciously confused expression.

My learned friend feeds me the intellectual crap, “Psychologists employ empirical techniques to infer casual and co-relational relationships between psychosocial variables. There is psychopharmacology, psychopathology, social psychology, developmental psychology bla bla bla” Ten minutes later, I dissect her methodical blabbering and hit the road. I don’t want the answers she writes in her medical exams. Is there a logical explanation? Is there any explanation at all?

How does a person become a master of one’s mental attitude? The happiness of a child is different from the happiness of an adult. Adults need cash, car, clothes and sex to be in high spirits but a single candy will do for a toddler. Why are their expectations lower? It makes me wonder if it is good to grow up or not. Has the journey so far been worth it? I know we have no choice. Aging is stamped in the itinerary of our lives. Everything that was once created must turn into ashes one day. Everything fades away in due course. Is adulthood the beginning of that fading away? Is childhood the utopian world? Is adulthood a fall from grace? Is it a detestable exit? When are we accurately mature – early days or later life? Can you explain maturity to me? Is there maturity in asking for an ice-cream or asking for a Mercedes from your parents? When you have lust, greed, jealousy, betrayal and hatred in yourself; you don’t look mature to me.

“Papa, why do the stars twinkle at night?”

“Oh! They are just winking at you. They want to tease you.”

“But what are they made of?”

“Atoms. everything is made up of atoms sunny boy.”

“Everything?” he repeats. His eyes are dripping with dreams I know nothing of.

“Yes, everything. Every molecule in the entire universe is made up of tiny atoms,” I reassert.

“Where can I buy some atoms papa?” he asks me with a smiling heart.

“What for?”

“I want to make Mommy.”

“Son, she is with the one who created atom.”

The Second Paragraph

“What a perfect couple!”

John and Maggie Simpson’s neighbors complimented them time and again. They had been joyfully wedded for eleven years. All their acquaintances praised their triumphant matrimony and some even envied them. Life was moving at a gradual pace and then, one day, John had to go to France on a business trip for two weeks. As he was a painter, he had to meet some buyers there. She went to bid him farewell at the airport.

“Let’s take a picture, John. I want to capture this moment.”

“At the airport? Is it allowed?”

“It’s your first Europe trip. Now, don’t be a pain in the ass and go, stand there.”

She requested an unenthusiastic French woman to click a shot. Seconds later, she looked at the screen of the digital camera and frowned.

“Oh! I look okay but that tourist only clicked half of your face in the picture.”

He looked at it and smiled. “Honey, you’re my better half. Even if my face is half in the pic, you make the pic better.”

Smiles. Laughs. Hugs. Kisses. Farewell. A tear drop.

Three weeks passed by. Upon returning from the trip, John found that the atmosphere in the house was a bit peculiar. The flowers in the garden seemed unattended and inside the house, all the curtains were closed. A thick layer of dust covered most of the furniture as if it hadn't been cleaned for weeks. And then he saw Maggie lying on the bed.

"What happened Maggie? You got really sluggish huh! The house is chaotic."

Few more steps towards her and he exclaimed, "Oh! You’re dreadfully pale, are you unwell honey?"

A frail voice answered, "You finally came?"

“Of course I did. Where else would I go?”

“I thought you would...”

“I would what?”

“Nevermind.”

“Are you sick?”

“No. Little weak, I guess.”

And so they chatted for a while and he told her all about the trip and Paris. He noticed that she was a little preoccupied and unfocused.

Poor thing, she had to stay in this big house, all by herself for two weeks. She must be depressed. None of them were hungry so they skipped the dinner that night. When he felt her body in the bed it was stiff and cold as ice.

"Did you go to the doctor Maggie?"

"The doctor can't heal me honey. Go to sleep."

She didn't throw a single word after that. He thought she was probably tired and they both fell asleep.
"Seems like I slept for eternity," he exclaimed after waking up at 11 the next morning.
"Ya, I also slept like forever."

"You still look so pale. Come on let us go to the doctor."

"I told you John, I don't want to go to the doctor. I don't want to step foot outside the house."

"But today's Sunday. We’ve got to go the church at least."

Her face turned grim. "There's nothing left for me at the church now. I have made peace with god. I want to sleep some more."

“But-“

“End of conversation.”

He kept wondering why she behaved so weirdly. Without uttering a word he went to the living room. In there he saw torn pieces of newspaper all over the floor. In curiosity, he put the pieces together and began to read. One of the headlines read: Suicide at the local lake. What he was going to read now was about to change everything in the next nine seconds. It was mentioned in the article that a woman had committed suicide by drowning in a local lake. It further read that the lady's name was Maggie Simpson. There was a picture of Maggie’s dead body. It was her. He felt as if someone just pulled out his soul and ripped into a million pieces.
His mind went numb and his eyes got fuzzy. The pain one feels when someone is hammering their brain, he felt that.

"No, how could this be? Am I dreaming?"

Flooded with tears, he sat lifeless on the kitchen floor. Suddenly, he heard footsteps. She was coming down the stairs. As she entered the room he crawled back a few steps as if in fear. But was that a fear of seeing a ghost or a fear of losing a loved one? The answer was invisible. She saw the torn pieces of newspaper assembled together on the floor and her eyes drowned in tears. He was too scared to look into her eyes. He dragged his body under a table; shaking with horror. He barely gathered enough courage to look at her feet.
Her teary voice mumbled, “I didn't want it…to end like this John. I don’t know if you are not meant for me or I am not meant for you. Or may be love is not meant for us.”

A pale faced John asked in a shaky voice, "What is going on? Who are you?"

"I'm a ghost haunted by your love, John."

"This can't be. This can't be. You are not Maggie. My Maggie would never kill herself. She would never leave me."

"No, I didn't leave you."

"Then?"

"You left me John. You left me."

A thousand bursting cannons in a dead night would have echoed lesser in his ears than that “you.”
"What do you mean?"

"Did you read the whole news article John?"

“I read the first paragraph.”

"Read the second one."

He quickly picked up the newspaper pieces and began to read frantically. The second paragraph stated: What appears to be the cause of this suicide is her personal tragedy. She had just suffered her husband’s loss few days ago. He had passed away in a plane crash, returning from Paris. There were no survivors in that horrible accident.

A Time to Say Goodbye

The sky was unambiguously clear and the sun was on its full swing but inside him a thunder storm was cutting its own umbilical cord. A squeaking melody leaked from his rocking chair matching the motion of to and fro. The back and forth motion resembled his swing between existence and burial. A low priced cigarette hung between his wrinkled lips and the smoke was forming a rainless cloud. He gazed outside the window towards the happy faces and blurted, “Sons of bitches.”

It was his seventy-first birthday but there were neither gifts nor guests. And he certainly had ordered no pineapple cake. He received birthday kisses only from his whiskey and cigarettes. Anyone could interpret his eyes; he was starving for a companion but nobody served him the dish of empathy. He was hiding his anguish from the happy faces but all his fabrication washed away each time he dripped in reality. 

“Grandpa why don’t you send your children to buy your groceries?” a young girl at the vegetable shop suggested. 

“I know your kind,” his thunder storm erupted, “You think you will always be this happy happy young girl?” 

“But grandpa-”

“I ain’t your freaking grandpa. Just pack the rotten potatoes and give me my change.”

 The girl’s face turned sour as the lemons in her basket. But in no time, she was attending to another customer. “Do you want carrots madam? It’s just forty rupees per kilo - totally fresh.”

The word ‘fresh’ bit his ear drums; he moved away from the shop. “Who does she think she is? I have plucked Cinderellas far younger and enhanced than her when I was young.” He tried to dissolve in the thick crowd of Asan market but the happy faces kept scanning him.

He returned home worn out. After a short nap he began slicing the potatoes. He didn’t wash them before slicing and it was intentional. He just dipped them in a bowl of fuzzy water for half of half a second and unleashed them on a greasy frying pan. The process is commonly known as frying. He slowly chewed them one by one. Some of it got stuck in his fake front teeth but most made it through. His hands were too feeble to wash the dishes in cold water so he just left them unattended. And why did he have no hot water? Because his electricity was cut off last month as he could not pay the pending bills. It did not affect him that much; well, nothing really does. It was not like he owned a television or a radio so...(you know). Reading was his beloved hobby though. He had over ninety books in his collection. He had been collecting them since his youth. He had spent so much time with those books that the books had thoroughly read him. The characters in those stories were his only friends now. In his youth, he had some real friends too, who didn’t live in castles with dragons and unicorns. Some deserted him when he finished his money and some isolated him when death slayed their time. 

Family was an awkward word in his dictionary. The only family he had was a son who lived in an another city and a granddaughter who lived in an another generation. Very few people knew his son was in a mental asylum at Dharan. He hadn’t met him for eleven years. The last time his granddaughter came to visit him was seven years ago. Back then he nearly stabbed her drunk boyfriend. “You’re the reason why dad’s in a madhouse you old man,” she had yelled. Those words still echoed in his nightmares every now and then. That was when whiskey came to help him but Mr. Whiskey did not come alone. He came with Ms. Bills. He drank everyday and the liquor stabbed his wallet.

He drank because he had no money. He drank because he had no sex. He drank because he was lonely. Well, he just drank because he was himself. Only the snoring time was when he didn’t touch the bottle. One not so fine Wednesday, he discovered there were only two hundred rupees left in his bank account. He didn’t give an ‘Oh my God’ expression because the word ‘God’ was never present in any of his conversations. While young, he had once joked, “Do you expect us to believe those saucy thirty-year old nuns are virgins? Well, some might be virgins but they’re surely on the verge of doing sins.” 

He scavenged for anything worth selling in his rented apartment but there were only old books in his vault. He thought of calling his granddaughter but his ego slapped him hard. The choice was tough; he brought home a bottle of cheap whiskey with the last piece of currency. 

The shopkeeper said, “Here’s the whiskey. And here’s your change - ten rupees.”

“Okay.”

On his way back he saw an old man, roughly his own age, begging outside a shopping mall. The poor guy looked pale and weak. He was asking the happy faces for money. “Excuse me son, can you spare this old man few coins? Excuse me madam, I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. Excuse me…”

What’s the difference between that beggar and me? He reached inside his pocket and took out the ten rupees. He placed it in the beggar’s hand. That’s the difference.

He never had any guests at his apartment so he never used to lock the front door. But that day he did. He locked it and put the keys inside his pocket. He kept whistling a song. “…the times, they are a changing…” He piled all his books together on the floor and sat on it as if it was a bed. He took the bottle of whiskey and an ‘intentionally unwashed’ glass. The taste of that whiskey felt like a chilly kiss on his lips (of one of his Cindrellas). He tried to gulp the whole thing in haste. Most of it fell on his clothes. He took a pause and stared hard at the bottle. He shook it. Almost half the bottle was empty. He looked beneath him. His right foot was on William Shakespeare and his left knee was on Emily Dickinson. May be his ass was on…(let’s not go there.) He spilled the remaining drink on the books. “Drink up Romeo. Drink up Othello. Drink up Frankenstein. You have been good friends to me.” He took another look at the bottle. There was barely a spoonful left. Drop by drop he rejoiced the last sip inside his throat as a fat kid rejoices hot chocolate. His old lips then splurged on a cigarette. He turned right and looked at a picture on the wall. It was of his son when he was just three. He gazed at it for a few seconds and blew a cloud of smoke. Everything around him was spinning. Next moment, he dropped the cigarette on the bed of books and cried, “Oh mother, take me home. The happy faces have no hearts. Sons of bitches. Sons of bitches.”