It was a cold November Sunday, the kind of day where you scuttle along the streets in oversized winter jackets; the sky was toned in greys. I was working at a local café, and the owner had rushed me in, because he was going abroad, since his father was having a bypass operation, so I had willingly obliged to help him, even though I didn’t have the time. The hours where painfully long, and there was a slow trickle of customers all day. My thought’s where on my bachelor paper, which was due in a month, I was terribly behind on the work.
Round eight I closed up, and took the bus back to my student apartment in the suburbs, the local cats had come to visit outside my terrace door, I sat for a while talking to them before getting back to my paper.
While at work my dad had put a message on my answering machine asking me to call home, my mother was worried about me or something. I called, my mother picked up, she told me he had gone to bed, and I was sorry I couldn’t’ talk to him, since it was actually him I wanted to speak with.
The phone rang around five, I was thrown out of my dreams, and charging over to pick up, I didn’t actually realize what the time was until after, all I recall was, that it was dark.
My mother sobbing on the phone ’sweetheart I am so sorry, but your father has passed away’.
I think I started to howl, not cry, not scream, I simply howled, as though somebody had ripped the spine out of me, the pain of those words travelled like lightning through my body. Time stood still, the universe froze around me, and all I could feel was eminent pain.
Dazed and crying, by now the sun had come up, I called a good friend, and she agreed to take the train home with me, since I couldn’t stand to be alone. So loving and caring are true friends.
When I got to my parents hometown I had to take the bus out to the countryside where they lived, usually my father would pick me up in his little green Toyota, and it was sad to stand there at the bus terminal in it’s blue grey dreariness, and think of it. My whole body felt sore, and my face swollen from so many tears. The bus trip seemed to last forever.
When I arrived home, my brother was already there crying, confused, angry, my mother was in chock, and not able to do much other than walk around, smoking, pale, sad.
I walked straight to my fathers room, where he had passed away, the electric blanket in his bed was apparently still turned on, so when I laid myself down, the bed was warm, which chocked me, until I saw the switch was on, I laughed at my folly. Lying there I rapped myself in his blanket and dug my face into his pillow, where the smell of his hair and skin was still so vividly near, and I fell asleep.
I woke slowly and my father was there, stroking my hair, he was almost hovering besides me, and he lifted me into his arms. ’Hello princess, it’s just me, I want to say goodbye’ I started crying, and told him I was so sorry, sorry that he had died alone in his bed, he just kissed my face and said come.
I let myself be cradled in his arms, and we flew so high, beyond the clouds, into the cold dark night. He held me so gently, so close, and I could se all the twinkling towns beneath us as we travelled across the landscapes so fast, so clear through the sky. He took me home, to where we had lived as small children, the house on the bridge. Looking through the window, I could se my parents as they where young, just arriving back from the goose fair, tipsy and happy, my brother and I waiting for them with the nanny, me running to be picked up by dad, they had bought me rabbit doll, which I loved.
My father kissed me gently, as I looked up at him smiling, tears flowing. He carried me up again, and we went to the fields around our second home, I felt as though I was ten again, holding his hand in the dark, we where on a stargazing expedition.
’See there are the seven sisters, the Pleiades, can you see them, right up there, yes the ones shinning so brightly blue. They are called the seven sisters; do you want to hear the story? It’s a Greek myth. Seven mortal sisters of parents of immortal blood, so young and fair the sisters, where out in the forest together with Artemis the goddess of hunting, when along comes Orion who wants to have the girls for himself, because he’s a man and a bit of a scoundrel, but because they where virgins, they fled and Orion hunted them in his vanity. Artemis got so angry with Orion, that she went to Zeus, you know Zeus right?' I nodded, 'Well Artemis asked him for a favour, to help them. So Zeus turned the seven sisters into doves, so they could escape, but they flew so high into the sky, that they became the stars we a re looking at now. So be careful what you ask for, we don’t always get what we expect, he smiled and rustled my hair’.
It was so clear and pure that moment, his calm and soft voice telling the story, talking about the stars, a kind and gentle teacher. I held his hand so tightly, his rough skin and strong fingers. I remembered when he told me about Perseus and how he killed the Kraken, and we watched Jason and The Argonauts, how I loved the scene where the skeletons rise from the ground, so scary, so cool.
My father took hold of me and pulled me close, kissed my forehead ’it’s time princess, it’s time, don’t worry, I am ok’ His warmth flowed through me, warming me into the core, my breath heavy and meditative.
I awoke he was gone. It was dark outside, and tomorrow there would be a funeral to arrange.
