The Violin (TEMPORARILY ON HOLD BECAUSE MAN, THIS BOOK SUCKS.)

Emotion

Violet

I wake up.

After my emotion-pouring violin solo in the bedroom yesterday, everything seems bleak again. 

The rain falls. Like yesterday, the tears come down one by one, following the rain.

He's still gone.

My dad is gone.

I still can't believe it, though I have to accept it. He must have joined Mom in Heaven, and now the two of them are living together, with a smile on their faces. Thinking about that warms me up inside like a kind pat on the back after a long day. Another tear makes it's way down my cheek as I drift my gaze over to Dad's photograph.

I'll never see him again.

"DAD!!" I give an anguished howl and curl up on the floor, wanting to die. He's only been gone for a day. Why is this happening to me? I don't want to be sad, Dad wouldn't like that, and it would make him sad. I don't want Dad to be sad, wherever he is right now.

My brown hair clings to my face as tears rush down my cheeks. I feel my heart beating in my rib-cage. It reminds me of Dad's drum-playing. He used to play the drums on weekends when he wasn't playing violin. Of course, violin was always going to be our favorite pastime. 

I try focusing on other things. The white ceiling, the rose on the table, anything else-

I'm just brought back to him.

Except for they are no longer him.

Just memories. 

More tears fall, and I try to hold them back.

Be strong, Vi.

Be strong.

Be strong.

The mantra rings through my ears until it follows the beating of my heart.

Be strong. 

Be strong.

Suddenly, the walls feel as if they are compressing me into a tight corner. They come closer and closer until I can barely move. I can't speak, I can't scream, I can't breathe.

The walls cave in on me, and I cry, louder and more pitiful than before.

Sadness is a painful emotion to feel, I realize, burying my head in my hands.

I try to feel another emotion. I desperately search the blank barren of my feelings for another emotion, and I come across rage.

Rage is good. 

It's better than sadness, because Dad wouldn't have wanted me to be sad.

Rage is better.

I kick, scream and cry at the world, pausing in between to wail at my heart's content. 

"WHY!?" I open the window and demand a response from God, banging my fist on the windowpane until bright red drops trickle out of my knuckles. 

"WHY DID YOU TAKE HIM? HE IS THE ONLY PERSON THAT MATTERS TO ME!" I scream at the world.  When it makes no response, I start cursing at it, meaning every single word of my tirade. "Why didn't they take me instead?" I groan, sinking to the floor.

The doctors said he could live for two more years.

They lied.

Dad and I were chatting about the small stuff of life.

"Do you have a best friend at school?" he asked me, voice tinged with a slight hint of worry.

Now I know he wanted me to have a shoulder to lean on after he was gone.

"No, Dad. You're my only friend," I sighed, giving him a large grin.

His face looked worried. Almost troubled.

Perhaps he already knew he was going to die that day. And my friendless status made him worried. If he was going to leave me, I would have wanted him to leave happily, no matter how sad it made me.

"I'm sorry for making you worried, Dad," I mumble, holding his photograph in my hands.

My tears fall onto the picture frame, as I walk down the memory lane.

It's the day of my primary school graduation.

Dad came to my school to see me decked out in a purple and gold gown- my graduation outfit.

He came to cheer me on.

When I receive my violin prize and my graduation scroll, I run off stage, straight into his arms.

He laughs for me, because I am flushed and prideful, and he loves to see me with a smile. And at that moment, a photographer snaps a picture.

The same picture I'm holding right now. I trace my thumb over Dad's face. "Thank you, Dad," I whisper. My voice trembles and the tears fall again, coming in drowning torrents of water. This time, I do not hold them back.

I let them run free, to wash away my pain like the calm waves on the sand.