01 Eighteenth Birthday

Tears brimmed in your eyes as you stood by the door, watching your father roam around his laboratories busy building fixtures and putting together metal parts. His dinner was left on the rosewood coffee table untouched, again. It has been the same routine for the past three years ever since your mother passed away; He never eats or ever so minimally, he never talks – just nods, one word replies or mumbles gibberish to himself.

“Appa.” You called out to him in the silence, “It’s my birthday.”

His metal objects rattled in response while he continued to fumble around with the metal pieces.

“It’s… almost done.” He mutters. “Almost done.”

You smiled bitterly just as another tear trickled down your cheek.

“Okay appa.” You replied while leaving a letter on the coffee table, “Remember to have your dinner.”

Maybe his condition got worse; you thought, hearing frenzied shouting while you exited the laboratory. You picked up your baggage lined up by the wall solemnly and stole one last glance at your father in the faint light by the tiny opening of the door.

“Goodbye...” You whispered with tears streaming down your face like a leaking tap. Your zombie self then paced away hurriedly from the laboratory, breaking out in a run soon after and finally steps out of those huge mansion gates. It’s now goodbye forever.

You watched the skies as it rains, dark clouds enveloped the expanse of black and navy blue with not a single star in sight. The park was deserted on this rainy night. Your dials to your best and only friend had all returned to the voice mailbox. It was the most pathetic night of your life, homeless on your eighteenth birthday.

Dressed lightly, you shivered in the cold seated on the park bench with heavy rain pouring down on you. You recalled the times when your mother was still alive, the times when you begged her to be out playing in the rain and she would never let you. She had always wanted you by her side, warm and safe when it rains.

The trickling of droplets down your body suddenly stops when an umbrella was held above you from your back. You turned behind to see an unknown silhouette with yellow hair, having the brightest smile just like a moon in the night sky. The smile never leaves his face even as he spoke,

“Don’t catch a cold, my girlfriend.”