chapter 6...

First and foremost, I would like to say that all posts labled "written in prose" are made up. Thanks for reading.

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The sheets were pulled all the way up to father’s chest, so were the curtains. The room was shrouded in a darkness that accompanied father ever since mother passed on. The room was lit by a solitary light next to the bed. The light cast an eerie shadow on everything, another attribute that had taken over the house since mother’s untimely death.

Mother’s death had taken away all the happiness in the house. Time had also not been kind to father. In the space of three years, time had robbed father, his body had withered and shrunk. Though he had only a fair fifty years within him, father now looked like he had traversed near a hundred.

Father’s once think black hair had thinned and turned a ghostly white, the same effects had afflicted his skin. The day I left, it was still a tanned bronzed shade, now it was a pale reflection of its past glory. Now, father’s skin lay flaccid over his loose muscles. However, there weren’t actually much muscle. It would be more accurate to say that his skin just hung over his bones.

His eyes had retreated into their sockets but father’s stare had remained. Father’s stare was still the same cold disinterested stare that had occupied his eyes ever since I could remember. Those same eyes had kept a distance between us for as long as I could remember.

I had an uncontrollable urge to tear open the curtains but the room just seeped all my energy away. I could only stand and absorb the scene in front of me. Stand and let it slowly seep my energy away.

I took a step back and let the door shut in front of me. Once the door clicked shut, I could feel the warmth slowly creep back into my fingers, my toes. I have never in my wildest dreams imagined father as an empty shell robbed of his life. Cold as he was in my childhood, he was never devoid of life. Instead he was always the one with life overflowing, the one that brought excitement to life. I could not bear to see father without the very thing that defined his existence.

But I had no choice. I was summoned, summoned for a reason. A reason that was clear as the sun closed out of the house. Father had not much time left within him. Even if his body had the strength to carry on, God knows he had long lost his soul and he had let his memories slip when mother left. Continuing to hold on to the memories was much too difficult.

I turned the knob and opened the door again. The sight once again tried to seep the life out of me. I felt my legs softening, my hand slightly shaking on the door. I willed myself not to retreat again. I inhaled slightly and called out, “Father…”

It didn’t come out. Again I tried, this time more forceful.

“Father,” This time, father’s head turned. I could see his eyes. The cold stare melted with tears. Maybe Time had been kind after all.