Farwell

• Alessandro Cowley, Grade 11, Parramatta Marist High School
• Short Story
• 2010

Finalist in the 'Word Express 2010' competition

Wistful wisps of pearl white clouds embellished a lucid cerulean sky. The pounding summer sun beat down upon our faces, though its warmth was greeted with approval. The air was fresh and with every breath, I felt a growing sense of absolution. I shamble under the silhouettes of the great oaks, past the obelisk and fringed violets, deep in thought.

****
“Daddy’s had a heart attack”, her lips curved down, her eyes staunched yet a tear rolled down her cheek. Her breathing became heavier; she held my hand tighter and gulped down the remaining saliva in her mouth and forced a smile for her child.

My mother bore the brunt of his illness, as his heart of gold faded away and his withering body decayed that rare beauty he once possessed. The dark clouds came over my family, the lightening struck in the one place I couldn’t hope to bare. I remember the daily hospital visits; I remember resting my small head on his chest, but everything had changed, from the first time I saw him in that hospital gown; my old life ceased to exist, my childhood ended at eleven, a time when most childhood’s start. My emotions worked like a system of levers and pulleys; just seeing him had set the irreversible into ignition. I look back and see the past as a cold body of water for me and nowadays my bones ache after even a quick dip.

First it was the heart attack. Second it was the kidney failure, next it was the lung collapse. My father never smoked, he never drank, why him?
He was scheduled for a simple operation, all in the name of dialysis, the mechanical vampire which he was enslaved to. While waiting, I noticed my mother; her beautiful features had wrinkled away in the past five years.
****
The surgeons face told the story, but he had to say the obligatory words “I’m sorry.”
For a capricious second I was taken aback. Stagnant like that, in my tranquil world, starring at dad’s dried blood, stained in a deathless memory. I felt the familiar tight grip of my mother’s hand clutching mine; I used to be up to her shoulder, now she was up to mine.
I’m looking, waiting, but I can’t find it. It doesn’t exist. There is no joke.
I closed my eyes and opened my mind, drifting far and deep, away from reality and consciousness.
****
I could see my father, the fresh dirt on the mound, the bouquet of flowers, the statuettes of Angels above the headstone; I could hear the singing of birds and smell the roses and then feel the tears come, heartfelt tears, watching daddy’s body and daddy’s hands so clearly in their eternal stillness.

“The love I have for my dad is so strong, so powerful that it can only be described as a bond that transcends time and eternity it self.”
I threw a rose into the coffin and said those words…