Within the space of two sentences, my life changed forever.
It's a funny thing to explain.
Well... Not 'funny' per-se. 'Strange', seems more appropriate.
Strange how just a couple of sentences can topple the world you'd built your dreams on as foundations.
It was a stagnant summer evening, it almost felt like the English weather had made a transatlantic journey just to bid its respects.
There were two officious knocks at the door.
Even with the unhappy clouds blotting out the heavenly hue and beginning to cry, I knew it was the evening. When my father was due to return home from a month long business trip.
Balanced formulas, squiggled in copperplate lettering, just like my father had taught me lay disregarded. I swept the pencil off my desk with the draught of the air as I dashed out the room.
As usual, it was a fumble of feet down the stairs, and I was done the dishonour of our butler getting to the door first.
The oaken door was heaved open and I padded alongside our butler like a domesticated dog, my curiosity getting the better of me.
The lanky figure with his drooping grey trenchcoat to match the sky, and his bowed hat with raindrops dripping from the rim was not my father.
"Xavier residence?" The American politely intoned, removing his hat in the drizzle, his grey sideburns now misted with raindrops.
The very act was of solemn respect as he became sodden.
With all the audacity I inherited from my father, I sidestepped the butler. "Who wants to know?" I crossed my arms indignantly, eyes devouring every detail of the stranger.
He blanched with guilt as his wrinkle encapsulated eyes met mine. I watched his Adam's apple jump. Crouching to my level, he asked; "Is your mother in, son?"
Condescension like the sharp sting of a needle, I retorted. "And what of her-"
I was hushed by a hand stifling my mouth. "Hush now, Charles. Run along and complete your studying whilst our valued guest and I converse!" She chirped in the most disingenuous of voices, her red lacquered lips framing a falsified smile.
I made a grumble of contempt that her palm captured.
"No offence, ma'am -" his eyes flicked down to me, and then met with her again. "But I think it would be best if the kid stayed..." His voice wavered. "He..." The man cleared his throat. "Needs to know."
A canyon of silence spread between the two. "I'm sorry, who are you?" She toyed with one of her ringlets, flustered by the anonymous man.
"Kurt Marko of Roxxon Energy Corporation, ma'am." He sighed deep. "A colleague from your husband's place of employ." He frowned as his hair slowly got damper and damper and a raindrop trickled down the side of his face.
I saw recognition blossom on her face. "What brings you here, Mister Marko?" Her eyes scanned his face.
There was a nervous tick in his jaw that didn't go amiss to my youthful eyes. "For that ma'am, I think I better come in, and you and your kid better take a seat..."
Trustingly, my mother guided him into the house and through to our drawing room. The oaf hung his coat casually on the end of the banister as if it were his home, and hung his hat on the doorknob. And after a small gander at our cosy living space, he sauntered across the room and slung himself in my father's armchair by the roaring fireside.
Like the doting hostess, my mother called for whiskey and offered one to our esteemed guest. He turned it down with a wave of the hand, as if it weren't the finest from the cellar, but a glass of water from the rotting well.
"Will you tell me why you've come, sir?" She'd ponderously prompted.
And that was when it all ended.
"Missus Xavier-" I remember the cold-set demeanour he radiated. "I regret to inform you, your husband... He died in an incident out in Alamogordo in New Mexico..."
And from that second, my future skewed off at some unprecedented tangent and the events that have unfolded over the last six months are a direct result of those words.
And at first you're almost not sure how to react.
You're stunned into silence with armies of combating emotions converging on you, rampaging cavalries of anger, despair and confusion making siege on your unguarded heart.
Your mind is torn into a battlefield.
Confliction, that's the first thing you feel, if I was to try and put my finger on it. Fight or flight.
Though your legs have the urge the pick you up, turn you and carry you to the horizon, something within you wants to do quite the opposite. Your fists curl and you feel weighted to the spot like someone's tied you at the ankles and thrown you in a river (with a sack of rocks tangled around your legs).
By god, it feels like you're drowning.
And all of this is internalised. Selfish thoughts of what it means for you hits you next. And it hits you like a freight train.
Fear, that's what follows the revelation that the future isn't bright and a dark tunnel draws into focus ahead of you. That's when the wave of emotion finally overtakes you.
Then you snap out of the tempest in your own mind and the tears begin to fall.
All of this happens in an instant, a blur and words escape you.
When I finally returned to reality, I heard a blubber to the side of me. It was a sudden blurt, followed by some reserved sniffling. I saw my mother's face crumple. Someone who was a paradigm of such strength, honour and beauty had been reduced to a contradiction of that.
Marko was unfazed. I hated him.
Flight. That was the reaction I eventually elected for.
I burst out of the room, barely able to see where I was going because my eyes were so bleary with tears. I tripped up the stairs and pattered all the way to my room without stopping. I threw myself on the bed, rolling in the bedclothes until I had buried my head.
I cried. I cried until it physically pained me.
My mother, too wrapped up in her own grief to check on me, left me alone to suffer that evening. And for that, I'll never forgive her. For that fact she made me feel completely alone.
I fell asleep with red raw eyes, a twitching heaving chest and tear-slick cheeks.
The next passing days were indistinguishable. My existence became nothing but survival. I went into complete shutdown. Wake up, eat, drink, study, sleep. It was a pitiful existence, but I wouldn't let myself think. I wouldn't let myself hope.
I was in denial. But I was seven years old.
At the age of seven, the world snatched my father from me, I'll let that sink in.
Is that something anyone of that age should have to suffer?
It was cruel chaos that wiped him off the face of the planet.
It later turned out the laboratory in which he did nuclear research exploded. The bunker, situated underground as to align with safety protocols, blew up due to experimentation.
They said that it was an explosion catastrophic enough to make the ground quake. And in an instant, all exits and entrances caved in; trapping scientists in the blazing caverns like sitting ducks.
They were like geese in an oven, trapped, being slowly cooked.
The concrete and the lead collapsed in on the laboratories, crushing some and covering them up like makeshift tombstones.
Others, would've been caught up in the flames, inch by square inch of skin melting away and burning in agony.
For some, the smoke would have suffocated them, singing their insides with its roaring heat, making them splutter and vomit.
And the luckiest, as the fire gulped up the oxygen supply, would've slowly and quietly slipped away as all the oxygen was used up.
I prefer to imagine that the latter is how my father went out; it's more honourable than being crushed like a rat under a broom, frying or coughing up blood.
From what I've read, gradual oxygen starvation is supposed to be peaceful.
And I've read a lot.
Every book in our library about it.
Which isn't many, as you might imagine.
As you get fed less and less oxygen, your muscles don't get the energy to move, so you remain stationary. And as a lack of oxygen to your brain overcomes you, it's like falling into a deep sleep.
The idea of any other of those horrific things being the way my father passed doesn't sit right with me.
And do you know what? I still haven't got closure.
They still haven't properly explained to us what truly happened that day.
Or how or why Kurt Marko - my father's alleged close friend and colleague - survived.
The funeral was dismal. Much of my English family was imported from across the Atlantic and paid their bitter respects to the brother that fled the nest so far.
It was black hats, coats and ties; and we all huddled together under the black umbrellas - shielding ourselves from the dark skies.
People stepped forward and said a few words like they knew him well. Or always regarded him fondly. None of which I'd heard of, none of which had visited our home. But they didn't know him like I do - how his hands would move animatedly when he spoke about nuclear science, the way his glasses would fall off his nose when he furiously scribbled down equations, or how pathetic he was at anything vaguely athletic.
None of them had spent the summer days rowing on our lake, or gone zipping down country lanes at speeds that are frankly illegal or sat out on clear nights with a telescope until the sun came up.
So many condolences were offered, forced smiles, uncomfortable hugs and patronising reassurance. The thing that not a single blithering idiot standing around my father's casket seemed to realise was that nothing they said would ease the pain. And nothing anyone did was going to bring back my father.
Nothing could change the fact I was never going to feel him kiss me goodnight again. Nothing could change the fact I would never see him smile again. Nothing could change the fact I was never going to hear the sound of his voice again.
I never even got to say goodbye. Watching an empty coffin descend into the dirt whilst someone recites W.H Auden isn't the same.
In a way I wish I'd known. Horrific as it would've been pre-empting your father's death, I could've at least made the best of his last days. Perhaps I could've stopped him going to work on that fateful day.
It took everything not to humiliate myself by sobbing relentlessly as eulogies were read out. God knows my mother hasn't a single shred of dignity left after that day.
The wake was like being slowly strangled to death. I had to make small talk with so many unfamiliar faces and pretend like I was coping with the grief - grinning like a good boy even though I felt like my heart was decaying in my chest. Even though I still hadn't accepted that my father was gone. And on every wall and on every table was pictures of him - still smiling, unaware of the ghastly fate still to befall him. I wasn't allowed to forget for a second that he was gone.
And when we returned home, the skies were as grey as the day he died - a furious grey. I watched the raindrops weave down the window of my father's red Aston Martin like teardrops; distorting the world outside.
And I went to bed that night, unfulfilled.
I was given my time to grieve. But a week away from my studies at school and I was falling behind. I needed guidance on my education. And dwelling within the large empty halls without distraction was driving me slowly mad. So I returned.
But still, unbelievably, my life worsened.
We're almost up to speed!
A/N - I am fancasting Sharon Xavier as Claire Danes, she seems close in age to Cillian Murphy and she had a clipped and concise British accent in 'Stardust', not to mention she has blue eyes.
Dedication goes to Dreaming0fLarry - a girl I can't thank enough for these last five years at highschool. I owe you so much: for all of the smiles, for all of the tears and all of the laughter. Thank you for forcing me to write, it's changed my life - it's given me a positive place to dump all of my emotions from my shitty family life. Thank you for everything. I genuinely might not be here without you. I won't forget long walks home, chatting in English class and gossiping in PE. You better bloody stay in contact.