I looked out the window, as the rain came down hard upon the roof. It appeared as though God was weeping. I wondered if it was for my dead parents, or my dark, lost soul.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Nneoma?”. I looked again at my uncle Thaddeus, cold hearted as always. It was beyond me how a doctor could be so unfeeling, but I guessed maybe it made his job easier.
“Yes. You are saying my mother and father are dead, are you not?” He looked away now, my bluntness breaking his piercing gaze. His eyes darted towards the door and back to the floor, as if he willed to draw it closer and jump through it to freedom.
Tony opened the door then, eyes still red from crying. I looked at him and made only a slight attempt to hide my disgust at his weakness. Though he surpassed me in years, he was living proof that age is indeed just a number.
My phone rang, the mechanic again, and Uncle jumped at the opportunity. “Let’s give you some privacy. Tony, come away”. His sobbing started again as he was led out by Thaddeus and the door closed behind them. Weaklings.
My eyes were dry. Dry as the ashes of my parents in the smoldering wreckage of their car.
But who was I to cry for? My paralyzed father, who turned a blind eye so his “loving wife” wouldn’t leave him? Or for Mother, whose favorite pastime was abusing me and my brother in different, albeit always disgusting ways? I would waste no tears, even if I had any left after a lifetime of crying.
“Jimoh, thank you for your assistance and discretion. You’ll receive your money shortly. Never speak to me again”.
I tried to imagine their faces; the surprise and fear on my bitch of a mother’s face, and the plain look of utter boredom my father must have had through the ordeal, a look he’d had for many years now.
Only then did a single tear of joy find its way from my eye.
I love the build up of this write up, the first line is really captivating.
Well cooked bro @barrister-batman
Thanks bro, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Two weeks after voting ends, I just happened to click on your brilliant "NPR contest-winner."
"Ah, NPR," you say. "But here I am on Steemit where my brilliant work earned only ten cents. What is this NPR?"
National Public Radio in America, nonprofit news which (now that I think about it) offers no cash rewards. NPR is the "Steemit" of intellectual snobbery and does not demean itself by awarding actual prize money because its nod of recognition is more than one could ask. (Yes, educated Americans are that dumb, especially the Ivy-Leaguers.)
But, if this post had been an NPR entry in one of its many mini-fiction contests, you would have been the undisputed winner, earning $10,000 SD for subtlety alone. I had to read this twice to understand "what just happened?"
You are razor-sharp, my friend, and I deeply regret not having found this tiny masterpiece in a timely manner. But I have an excuse. I am still wandering through the Steemit woods on my way to grandma's house, hoping by premonition that the big, bad wolf doesn't eat me.