Chapter 11

I walk with the setting sun behind my back. I have no clue where I am, where I was supposed to be going. One vague thought accompanies me, something doesn't fit in right. It never did, Somehow it always bothered me, like a piece of jigsaw that no matter how many times I tried, it never fit. Never would I realise that the part itself didn't belong to that particular puzzle.

I see grey clouds on the horizon. They merge into the rest of the light blue sky and turns yellow just above my head. I look to the front, and suddenly, the path ends. I'm standing in the middle of nowhere, and this way seems vaguely familiar. I look around, there are trees on both sides of the road, and I've never been here before. But still the place looks oddly personal.

A owl hoots in the background. It's a melodious voice, a cotton ball on the eardrums. The voice brings in peace, and a fear I can't place. A cuckoo perches up on the branches of a nearby tree. I walk away a few paces, I see it clearly, bouncing slightly on its two feet, its brown tail dancing jauntily in the evening breeze. I don't know which way I should go, but since there is no path forward, I decide to walk back. I turn around and there, just in front of me, is a baby pigeon. I stop in my tracks. I try to walk backwards, but of course, there is no way back. I can't move forward. There is a pigeon. If only I could make my way around it.

The pigeon's red eyes are on me. Red, with black circles, a little brown and a little maroon. they are reproachful, those eyes. Heart beating fast, I take a bold step around the bird, and it takes one towards me. I try to move, but my body is paralysed with that gaze. I stand there, unmoving, but the pigeon keeps coming. I want to look away, away from those red eyes, away from those soft, grey feathers, away from that soft, furball that is pulsating like some hideous disease, but I can't. If I close my eyes, this pigeon would fly straight at me, and claw at my face. Its fluffy, grey body teeming with flies would strike against my face. I hate birds. I hate birds. I hate birds!

WIth every limb refusing to move, I turn my face away from this hideous creature, and something flies straight at my face. I knew from the touch that it is something soft, while the heart beating itself in my ribcage tells me its a bird. I close my eyes tight, but the devious croak of the bird beats hard on my eardrums. A crow. I stand there glued for the fear that I don't step on him, or another. And then, a whole flock of them. Blind, trembling violently, I try to block out the movements, a feather on my neck, a beak on my chest, a caw near my left ear, and two fighting for their right in my hair. The flapping of the birds is painful. I'm too scared to open my mouth to cry for help, what if one of them gets in my mouth? I put my palms on my mouth and close them as tightly as possible, and shout.

I'm shouting. I'm shouting like there is no tomorrow, and I'll never need this voice anymore. I'm shouting as if I want my heart to come out of my mouth. I think I see a hand, a pair of legs, I shout out to them. I can see them clearly now. Half in the midst of a flock of angry birds and half wrapped around a blue blanket, there's my father. Not my father, he is Grace's father. But he's there, and I think he's sitting near my bed, reading a book. I call out to him, but my voice doesn't reach him. I try to beat my limbs against whatever surrounds me, the birds or the blanket, but nothing happens. And then, in the yellow light of the room, I see a pale shadow. a shadow sitting directy above my chest. I don't care, though. I'm hallucinating, there's no one. But the shadow grows heavier and heavier, the pressure on my windpipe chokes me, I'm out of breathe. The shadow laughs, its red eyes gleaming, just like the pigeon, and then it chokes my neck.

Father must have known something was wrong. He had been waiting for me to wake up, to explain, and to ask for forgiveness, if I could forgive him. I heard none of this. I heard nothing after he told me that I was mumbling in my sleep and it looked like I was trying to get up, but couldn't.

"It was a ghost," I wail. I know its silly. Ghosts donot exist. But I know. "It was. A spirit, or whatever."

I wonder if I ever cried like this in front of him, even when I was younger. Father was never the one to stick around for long, and we knew he loved someone else at his workplace. I never bothered to find out much about him, but seeing him sitting beside me, patting my head awkwardly as he tells me to calm down, and that sometimes it happens when you're tired or sad and you're trying to sleep, I build up enough courage to confront the man behind those glasses.