Since, A Novel

xvi. THE GRANT

xvi.
THE GRANT

January 2028. "Phone works two ways, you know?"—something about this sentence, a big frustrating and unsettling part of it, comes across like a tragedy, or something just as close to that. No simple stories are ever made or are ever safe to hear, at least in my experience, once you hear that sentence, or once someone tell you that in your face, or when you're about to go, or when you go silent, or when you're loud. May it be in an argument, in a falling-out, in a closure, or whatever comes in the wake of dénouement.

What are the things demanded of people to get a good night's sleep? The light dies and I write after that. The light lives and I also write after that—do most people as well?

     It'll always be about the mess, the wreck, the stain; of people, and people—anything and anyone that testified to this life as either a farewell or a long dream, as though the two are but lasting emotions, and you are either bleeding so much or blessed enough to have the grant of feeling them.

An example would be this:

               September 2015. My mother doesn't know my father and I have met with each other, once, but it was at least two months ago before our finals. It was my first time seeing him after years. But I think I know why I keep lying to her, my mother. Did she have to know? I had thought. Neither have I been honest with myself, but I know why I want to see my father. Is it a simple enough reason to miss him, perhaps again be close to him?

It was once, after class. There was a man standing near the gatepost in front of our school wearing an all-too familiar hoodie; its colour a washed grey, missing another sole. He had a motorbike near him. Somehow, he didn't need to turn around in my direction for me to recognize him.

"Dad?" I couldn't hear my own voice as I called. The word sounded as though every question in the world had a mouth, the only tragedy is that it couldn't form a sound.
"Luna," he said after turning around, all observing.

Every muscle in my face was icebound, unmoving. But it felt like a little act of kindness to not be in control, to not have to outlast self-possession. It was my first time to have a name, it had seemed, but I didn't like the fact that it had came from him. "Luna," he called again. "How are you?" his eyes asked more despite the loss of face at having to ask.

I wanted to tell him I'd felt the same way if ever he'd felt also ashamed and sorry and regretful. After all, for a little time, he was me and I was him. Don't be a stranger, I wanted to tell him. Instead I asked but this, "Why do you call me that?" even though I wanted to tell him that I was given a bronze medal a week ago for participating in the school spelling bee and partaking in more extra curricular activities and popping my own bubble in the worst way possible for being inside the same circle as the smarter kids, those marked as 'probable', and my presence made them feel far out or rather gross or both, as though my existence was a big question mark. I wanted to tell him that I feel all sorry for myself for only getting a bronze, but somehow, there was a fleeting comfort in knowing, or believing, that he would be proud.

Can we go to that restaurant near the catholic church, order the same old burger and fries and Pepsi? I wanted to ask him that. And that I never missed him because I knew we'd see each other again. I wanted to tell him I scraped my knee during lunch time for running after a boy who asked me out loud why my mother chose to be a whore for having different guys every year on my birthday, and was I a whore too for accepting different gifts from different men, and just how lucky am I? I only told Christine about my family situation because maybe I was desperate for someone—not even a friend, not even a listener. And I guess the idea of having friends was just another tragedy for me: she told everyone and every guy in my class, and I wanted to cry and hug my father and call him dad and feel for a short moment we are in the restaurant in front of the cathedral, and smiling and talking and sharing inside jokes and making more. I don't know, maybe because I wanted to hear him say that he loves my mother still, and he misses her still, and he wants to see her still after all these years, and that everyone, including me, is wrong, very, very, very wrong about her. But who am I kidding? I never even told him how I was, I never asked him how he was.