Saturday 31 August 2013

Cheating

Big Fishes' Carnival at The Lake - Cheating


She was a girl.

Never before had he seen such unique, beautiful creature. He did not know much about her, only that she was his and she was cold. A tight yet careful hug was seen as necessary, and thus he did so, while leaving the cold room illuminated by a blinding light in which he had bathed. Only three witnesses: her, him and the core. Chaos engulfed his common sense until a conclusion came to mind: but she was human. She was still feeble from external harm, just like any other babies were. She needed feeding and care, just like any other babies do. She needed a parent, like he used to do. He was determined to be her parent; but was it not wrong to do so?

The question is now whether to be her parent or ‘his’ parent. A girl was a very famous myth among the Dividers, and the possibilities of existence of such creature so alien to the society sparked his interest. However, was the world ready to accept the presence of the newly-born myth? Or would it rather resist change and go against this cute, powerless creature? When would the world accept such abnormalities?

The surge of questions had brought him to the amusement park, which was literally a place for fathers and sons, much like any other places. A son pulling his dad and pleading for cotton candies, there was. A father encouraging the son to fight against the fear of height, there was. Promises between men, oaths of fathers and sons, a mutual belief of parents and offspring, there were. And then there was her.

Thus he named her ‘Gavin’ and made her a he.

He grew up differently from others, and so he was afraid that he would raise Gavin differently, too. However, there was no other way that he could raise him, so he began his journey as a parent, continuously engulfed in fear that his secret would be exposed. It went surprisingly well at first: his odd lifestyle somehow fit to Gavin's preferences, and at times this made him think that this was the reason he was chosen to take care of the child. He felt that he could make it, until Gavin's eighteenth birthday.

"Dad, can we talk for a moment?" Gavin requested, hands holding each other behind his back, lower lip slightly bitten in doubt, one leg behind the other with only its toe reaching to the ground. His posture was, to put it as clearly as possible, disturbing. As he tried to put back the things he was packing - disrupted by the question - he answered slowly, "what is it, son?" while hoping that it wasn't anything like problem for the journey they were about to partake. Life didn't listen to every wish, though.

"Can we not go to the amusement park today?"

An unconvincing smile. A pair of eyes that questioned. Crawled in the fear that haunted him all these years: fear that his son would made the mistake he almost did, but he so loved his son that he let his son go to the path of his own perception of happiness that he was never going to touch anymore. The child then hugged the father, and oh how drunk can he be from such bliss, that the next thing he realized was him no longer there. Then sat he on the couch older than him, holding the tears that might fall onto a picture of old days: days when he was to choose between his father and an unacceptably close friend of his.

He was then waiting for a friend he thought was the dearest, sitting on their usual bench with sparkling water fountain beautifully flowing in such sophisticated manner, and was it not more mesmerizing when the bright cheerful sun granted his unending light onto the fountain, crafting little rainbows around it? Just then, when the dear friend made his appearance, he couldn't stop the flowing excitement from his heart, nor could he extinguish a burning, passionate feeling that he has yet to comprehend. Thus they walked along their own path of youth, a path forgotten by the society of genetic duplication.

Learning about love was okay. Apparently, expressing it wasn't.

However dear a man could be to his friend, apparently he couldn't handle the fact that he was not what he made him believe to be. Yes, they did play baseball together. Yes, they did go to the amusement park together, many times showing each other the more concealed yet interesting side of it. Yes, they were important to each other. However, they were different. Thus when he heard him expressing a word that he knew very little of - except the fact that it was forbidden - he was taken aback, and gone was their precious time together from his memory, leaving him with a resentment towards the unknown: towards her.

She couldn't express how she would really want to dash towards him when his father finally arrived; she cursed the chair that bound her from doing so. They hugged, kissed and be kissed, hold hands, for it would be the last time he could feel her presence so near - and so alive. None could hold back the tears but those who feared the other kind. They had limited time, so before the chair took its toll through her soul, he desired to hear her voice once more.

"My dear," but he couldn't find the words to articulate. He was so drown in regret and sorrow that he couldn't do anything but to resonate his tears with hers, she who had loved and will no longer live, and hold her dear, saying and kept saying that he loved her, hoping that his words would travel with her to the other side. "I'm sorry," he apologized, sobbing still.

"Don't be sorry, dad," she denied, while trying to make a smile for her most precious, although it would never work with tears flowing down her cheek. "You took good care of me, and," she continued, with sobbing interfering mid-sentence, yet she continued still, for this would be final, "You allowed me to live, and you allowed me to love. Love is such an amazing thing, dad." He couldn't help but, in his tears, thanked god that at least his only child was happy during her lifetime, unbound by society's perspective and opinion. She could live her life, and that was important. If only the audience around them would be able to comprehend such matter.

"You know, I've never told you your real name," he whispered, hoping that this gift would bring salvation to the possibly only daughter of man. "It's Eileen. Eileen Valmoore," and just like that, he spit the name that only he knew and remembered, from the very first day that he was blessed with a daughter. She mouthed 'thank you' and that was all he deserved for keeping it.

He truly wanted to stay still with her, but two men in blue pulled him back with force that he couldn't even try to match. He was wailing, screaming, cursing, and all she could do was apologize for leaving him alone in this cold, heartless world. Her dearest, her precious, about to be taken away just before her, and when you cared for something so much that it was basically your whole life, no sane man could stay sane when it's taken away. When the current finally stopped her heart and silence dominated, she lost control. Thus the father was no longer a man - a beast that destroys all, she became. 

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