Dash In The Sky(New Version)

Chapter 8

I stood my ground paralyzed. My mind couldn't wrap around it.

I stared blankly at the van in deep shock. The noise around me faded at as what I was staring at comes into better focus.

My mother walked up to me and wrapped her arms around me. I didn't flinch or react. My mind was trying to tell the crazy side- "Don't you dare lash out"

In the corner of my eye Marion's arms were around Claire as she cried in his arms. He was slowly rocking her back and forth.

"He's gone, Mar. And its going to be okay"

I wasn't sure who she was trying to convince. Her or me.

Slowly it sunk it and my heart sunk with the news as it weighed on my heart. Everything started spinning and tears wielded up in my eyes.

He's gone. My father is gone.

∆∆∆

The room was deathly quiet. No one spoke as all eyes were on one object.
My dead father's body.

I wanted to make sure it was him. And it was him who laid on a steel slab in the morgue.
His skin was slowly still losing colour and he had the tinge of blue in his skin. His black curly hair was combed back out of his face. His eyes were closed and face wore the look of pain. He hadn't relaxed when he died. He died very much in pain.
He looked he was sleeping and was having a bad dream and any moment he would wake up screaming out of it. Then he would look at us, smile and say
"Why the long faces?"

The severe burns on his face were pinkish blue and they said we didn't want to see the rest of the body.

Was he burnt that badly.

Tears poured over my cheeks as I remembered the smile he gave me when I won the spelling bee trophy for my class. I also remembered the worried look he had on his face when they took in me in the hospital to the Psychiatric Ward. Or the guilty look when I was in the hospital after I got raped. Or when he was angry with all three of his for breaking his music records.

I pictured the pictures of life in his eyes. He always seemed jovial.

I remembered his voice telling me
"You're beautifully and wonderfully made. Make no one tell you otherwise"

Or his embrace, when he found me in the bathroom with Carlton after I was rapped. He wouldn't let me go.

Or his embrace when I ran from Carlton after he tried to rap me.

Or his smell. The scent of nature, leaves, dirt and wood. That's where he always was- in nature.

He had the most terrifying death glare when he was pissed. The look he gave Marion and me when he come home late from a party.

When he was in a room he showed authority, authority you would find in an army.
The authority he had when Claire had her first boyfriend and he found them making out in her bedroom. He walked in and the boy was stood up like it was his captain. Then took a dash for the window. Two stories high. He landed in some thorns from the rose bushes in the garden.

Everything about him was perfect and he died, without me saying goodbye.
I wanted to hear him say, "I love you, Mar"

Or feel his warmth.
Or see his eyes with life.