Pantomaniac

Chapter 29

What the hell was he doing? That question kept playing in Kef's head. His daughter was not his daughter. Something had taken over her body. She was freaking possessed. And there he was, driving back to his house. Leaving Rina all by herself.

But Kef told himself that a few hours would not pose any threat, especially since Maya was asleep. He didn't really understand his rationalization himself. As a former police officer, none of his reasonings made sense. He should not have been that calm. Neither should Rina. Why did she let him leave? Was it because he was so assuring that she believed in him? Her ex-husband whom she had blamed for Alisa's death? Nothing made sense but something within Kef told him that he had to go back home, even if it meant for only a few hours.

The image of Alisa's face floated into his mind as he tried to figure himself out. Seconds later, with his hands on the steering and his car gliding along the street, Kef stopped questioning himself. Instead, he allowed himself to paint a picture of his late daughter. The picture got clearer and clearer in his mind, to the point that he almost thought he heard her in the back seat.

Kef lifted one finger and rubbed off a drop of tear on his cheek. His heart had started a turbulence of emotions - fear, sadness, confusion, frustration - everything was merging into a messy ocean. He was drowning.

So would Rina. Maya. If he did not move fast.

*****

Kef almost went up the stairs but changed his mind. Instead, he walked into the kitchen and entered the store room. He knelt down beside Alisa's toy chest. Tears threatened to flow but Kef fought it down. He had too much to think about. Crying would have only made it harder.

He trailed his fingers on the box. With each stroke, the sound of Alisa's giggles whispered at the back of his mind. Her small eyes, the curl of her hair. The tiny hands with skin as soft as silk. As Kef closed his eyes, even her smell returned.

Kef opened the toy chest. A bunny soft toy sat in all its loneliness at one corner of the box. Several Barbie dolls scattered all around. There were a couple of sticker books and a box of crayons. Kef smiled. Alisa loved to draw. She would always draw a house. In front of it, she would draw herself, surrounded by Rina, Maya and him. And there was always a rainbow at the top edge of the drawing. The final touch to a happy family portrait. And that was all it was after her death. A portrait. No, it wasn't even that. There was nothing.

A sudden urge to destroy everything in the box rose like a hurricane inside Kef's heart. He wanted to tear the bunny up, break every doll's limb and toss each crayon into the bin. He wanted every fragment that reminded him of Alisa to be gone. He wanted out!

Before he could stop himself, Kef drove his fist into the box. His punch landed right on the bottom of the toy chest. The sting that came satisfied him for a few seconds, before that too evaporated like Alisa.

Kef looked at the bottom of the box. He had damaged the base with his punch. There was a dent and parts of the wood had cracked. But then his eyes caught something made of steel, jutting out between the cracked wood. He fumbled for a bit and his fingers touched something cold. Kef gasped a little when his palms accidentally scratched against the edge of the cracked wood. Moving his fingers a little more, he finally managed to grab hold of the object. He pulled it out. Lifting it to eye level, Kef stopped breathing.

It was a set of keys.

*****

That night, the air was heavier than usual. The silence that wrapped the surroundings was deafening. All of a sudden Kef could hear nearly every bit of sound; the squeak of the neighbour's gate, the occasional breeze massaging his room curtains, the gliding of tyres on the road as cars passed by his house. They made him toss and turn but nothing seemed to work. Even as he pressed his palms on his eyes to shut out every trace of light, he still failed to unwind.