Beneath the sun and beyond the ocean

Above

I watch as he runs down the road back towards his house; I turn back towards to town to look for something filling to eat. Wandering through the streets, I look through bakery windows as I try to decide what I want. The street lights flicker on and I head towards my favourite pasty shop. Just as I'm nearing the door a familiar figure catches my eye. I stop in my tracks, turning towards the tall man already looking at me. My breath hitches as I recognise his dimly lit face. 

We stare at each other in silence, both of us having everything to say, but saying nothing. I fiddle with the shells around my wrist, desperate for this to just be a dream. The silence stretches the old wound on my heart, pulling apart the messy stitches and soaking through the Hello Kitty plasters stuck on sloppily by a small child with red cheeks and watery eyes. The small child he should have been there for. The truth is I did not lose only one parent that day in the cold hospital; I lost both, and a teenager, barely 18, was shoved into parenthood for a child that was not hers. I understand why he ran; I wish he had not, but I do understand it. I feel small hands squeezing my ripped heart, trying desperately to restitch the scarred tissue, but the blood is already flowing like a broken dam. I am stranger to my own father; he is but a memory to me, a long forgotten dream. Though I never quite let him go completely. I let him linger in my house, trapped in ancient trinkets and a dirty green cap left on the top of the cabinet in the kitchen. Neither me or Dahlia could ever bring ourselves get rid of it. Seeing him now, I wish I had.

"You're so big." His gruff voice cracks through the thick glass of silence we were encased in.
"You're so alive." My stark comment gets stuck in the back of my throat - hitching at the end as I hold back tears. He stares at my eyes, they might as well be his. It's almost like he's searching for something; maybe a trace of a child he once knew, or a woman with blonde hair he married all those years ago. He finds neither of those lost people.

"I'm sorry Marina. I want you to know that." His face almost seems to crumble, salty droplets catch in his scratchy beard I once plaited and I watch him break like the small child I once was. I had waited so long for this moment, prepared so many speeches. But now that I was here, stood in front of a man I used to call dad, I could not think of a single thing to say. I want to scream and shout and curse him with every misfortune known to man, but the words do not come. All I can do is stare at him as a solitary teardrop trickles down my left cheek and my lower lip quivers, desperately trying to prevent the downpour.

"Why?" The question feels foreign in my mouth as every answer I've ever wanted is compacted into a single word.
"I wish I could give you an answer Marina. I really do, but I don't know." He says my name like he knows me, he does not. It was all for no reason: no explanation, no rationale, no alibi. All that pain and torment over what I did wrong, all those nights wondering what I did to drive my own father away was for absolutely nothing. I wish I felt angry; I wish I could lash out, scream, shout, do anything to punish him. But all that leaves my mouth are saddened words.

"Don't come back here."

He begs and pleads, desperate for a hint of hope. All I can do is turn my back to him. I leave a trail of bloody string and patterned plasters behind me as I walk away with a bruised and bleeding heart. Finally letting go of the small broken pieces of a child that cut up my insides for years, trying desperately to claw it's way out. The onlookers gorge on the morbid spectacle that is me, and in return, I am force-fed their unwelcome attention. I ache for a girl I once lived as, unburdened by the harsh truths encased by the dirt and the air; when all that existed was mystical secrets floating underneath waves, illuminated by streaks of sunlight passing through the unbroken surface.

I don't know where to go. I can't go home and face Dali yet; I can't go to Li's house because of his cousins visiting. So I just walk for a while. The bright buildings pass me by as numbness overflows inside me. I pause as I reach a church. We used to come here - I remember it - Mum took us every week. I would pray every time for the summer to last forever. It never did. We stopped going when she died; dad was never religious. A strange force seems to pull me through the open doors and I walk down the long aisle; my shoes creating echoes around the towering ceiling. The praying bench beckons me and I end up in front of it. I look upwards, staring into the eyes of a nailed up Christ.

I stand in front of the towering statue watching me; a singular ray of sunlight shines down on me from the circular window high above as I glance around the shadowy room. I fall onto my bruised knees and place my elbows feverishly onto the wooden bench. My finger entwine together as I tilt my head upwards towards the heavenly paintings above. The sun warms my back, casting a shadow onto the stone floor below me. I pray to whoever may be listening, whether it be a god or some other ethereal being. Begging for a sign, a single idea of what to with myself; I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I wish for my mother and curse my father. I just want her back; just for a day, even an hour. I just want her to tell me what to do. I feel water trickle down my upturned cheeks and drop continuously onto my hands, traveling down my tensed arms onto the old wood splintering my elbows. Emotions overwhelm me, flooding out of my reddened eyes. 

"It's not fair," I choke out, "It's not fair," I repeat, and repeat, over and over, until the words can no longer travel out of my sore throat. I sit back onto my legs and my arms fall from the bench as my hands reach to cradle my scrunched face. I just want her back.