"Son it's seven in the morning, what exactly are you proving?" Mr Faisal is tired, for the first time in history I see that man tired.
"But you always wake up this early for your jog." I grin. I decided, now that I feel comfortable again. I'll ask every concern, every question in being.
"Except there isn't usually a man sized bird tweeting on my head." Sir can really joke when he's in the mood. His deep voice does make him sound funny when he jokes.
"I know I'm being nosy but please know that I've been waiting for days to have this conversion with you." I'm basically, practically begging.
"Join me first." He zips his jacket.
"For your jog?" I raise my eyebrows with a questioning gaze.
"Yes, we'll talk during breakfast down the hill."
"But to come down the hill we must go up the hill first?" I awkwardly ask.
"Correct, that is my jogging roote." He gives a naughty, sly smile. It's true when they say, the older the man, the hotter he gets. He's around in his late forties but his masculine, rich features with white in his beard makes him look smooth. Damn. For us he's Mr Faisal but for the ladies jogging here, gazing over at him, he's a daddy for sure.
So we jogged. For about forty to forty-five minutes.
I've never jogged this much in my life. It's nine in the morning now.
Finally we occupy two seats at the cafe down the hill which serves absolute delicious muffins, one of the best— After Ayat's of course. Talking about Ayat, It shouldn't affect me. Her feelings shouldn't affect me.
"So, What do you want to talk about Sam." Mr Faisal asked. Ayat you're going to have to wait for to be dealt of. First thing's first. Deal with this whole fucked up connection between Mr Faisal and I. I'll get back to you sweetheart, in a few days. I know it's already been weeks, but just a few more days. I'll come to you. I don't care about what Ifan thinks anymore, it's not like I have a good image now to ruin it.
"You see, it is my right to be asking these questions." I place my hands on the table.
"I can see where you're going." He strokes his chin.
"That's good- I uhm, I was-" My fingers interlock in a anxious manner.
"You were petrified when you left that night, I could tell." His hand still on his chin.
"Yeah yeah exactly- see you get it." I force a smile.
"Of course I do, who else would." He returns the smile.
"I want to know everything about my Father." I gathered up the guts to say it.
"Now the thing is Sam, I can't be completely transparent with you"
"Why can't you? is it really that big of a sin?" Annoyance spread across my face.
"Think of it as a prohibited conversation."
"Who forbid you to speak?" I'm getting angrier.
"Your Father did" He's being serious.
"That's what I wanna know! Why!?" I'm a desperate piece of shit.
"He wanted to keep you away from.." He sighs.
"From?" Let me know please.
"You're making it very difficult for me Sam." He avoids my questions yet again.
"I'm making it difficult?" I release a shocked scoff.
"I hate lying to you, yet I've done it for this long and this should make it clear how harsh it is for me to speak about Sarfaraz."
"I have every right to know."
"You do."
"Then don't waste our time sir please." I'm desperate, I really am. I'm weak, I need answers, I need to bury the one who made my life living hell, I've been finding a way all my life, I need to know.
Mr Faisal remained silent. Like a coward.
"I thought you were stronger than this." I say, slighly slamming my fist on the table to gain his attention, making the workers stare.
Am I crossing the line? I don't know, it's not like what he's doing is good either.
"Say something sir." My voice cracks. "Please" I whisper.
"I made a promise I wouldn't let you know about this."
"The word is already out sir, you just have to complete it now."
He avoids the things I said, and carries on with his drink. I get up with rage.
"I'm leaving- I never thought someone who raised me would be this much of a-" I groan, I respect him intensely to cuss at him.
"Say it" He puts his glass down.
"Someone this fainthearted."
He says nothing, and I was about to take off.
"Your Father wanted to keep you away from the fact that he was a ruthless, self serving monster who deliberately deceived you!" His veins bulged, because there's rage in his voice.
What did he just say eh?
I don't believe it.
"You're lying." I say, standing still.
"He wasn't ashamed of himself to the point he decided to take MY life!" His voice cracks.
"He wanted to keep you away from it and I promised my best friend to never let the darkness fall upon his son but here you are, in front of me, making me gulit trip every day just by looking at you, but I knew that keeping you within me was the best way to protect you and look what I convert you into— a strong, independent man and you just can't keep your questions to yourself—You just have to know. You're stubborn you do know that and it's not always a good thing." He gulps his anger down.
Bullshit.
I don't believe it, my hands clench hard in a fist.
This can't be true.
"My father was a decent man." My voice came out all burnt and whispered.
"The insatiable hunger for power consumed him, I attempted to intervene, to snatch him from the abyss, but my words only fueled his descent into brutality. I took all the assumptions of his ignorant mistakes upon me. Till this day, I get named for his thirst for power.. He turned to me, his eyes blazing with malevolence, as he shifted the weight of his atrocities onto my shoulders.
"Sarfaraz! Don't leave me here! It's cold in here! Please don't leave me here! SARFARAZ!"
Mr Faisai sighs.
And I stare at him.
"But I know the truth. I fought to save him from the void, to keep him from tumbling into the depths of his own darkness. Yet, he surrendered to the shadows, I did everything I could to keep him away from the barrel of darkness he was heading into. But he had already fallen forever lost to the darkness that haunts us all." Mr Faisal lowers his head.
"This can't be it. I refuse to think ill of my father." My voice is still burnt. I'm in denial. I'll forever be in denial when it comes to my baba.
"You still want to hear the whole story of him and I?" Mr Faisal is angry, but kept himself calm.
"I'm curious." I say, while I don't even know who I am anymore?
Mr Faisal sighs sharply. "Oh Sam what are you doing to yourself."
"Was my father a bad person." My words knotted in my lungs, so I release a breath so loud.
"He wasn't always."
"Since when then?" I ask. The weight of my feet feels like stone sticked to the ground and I can't move them.
"Since the seat was given to me. Look Sam, I know it's shattering to suddenly get to know about such hidden, hideous things, take your time." He's comforting me.
"You also did lash out." I kinda raised my voice.
"Because as highly I speak of myself, I'm still a human son." He's calm, still hurt.
"Power of seat you say.." I ignore him to further get answers.
"That seat led him become a leader."
"I always thought you became the leader?"
"We both did, I had my reasons, he had his. But after we achieved that seat I was at peace, and on the other hand he always wanted more than what we had, to wish for more, to fight for more."
"What did you wanted." I ask, taking a seat, my whole body is rejecting the words coming out of him. I feel sick to my stomach, heavy on head, and malevolent internally. I'm tried of everyone and everything.
"I wanted to murder our Ruler, my boss— For the abuse he made me went through by vanishing my Father. I didn't tell anyone expect for Sarfaraz. I was in the cage we made where we'd torture him. Where I caught my boss to take my revenge once and for all.. but in the last minute when I saw his eyes full of fear, I laid back. I decided not to do it this way. I knew the moment I saw his eyes collapsing in terror, that I'd regret this forever, that this won't ever leave me. The horror of taking vengeance came flashing to me and I decided not to do it— it was a sudden, horrific moment beholding my eyes, when I saw him get shot straight in the head. Realisation hit me when I saw Sarfaraz behind me with a gun in his hands. I had begged him not to interfer in my personal issues. If I had known before that it was no longer about my vengeance but his ego— his pride to be the next Ruler. His vision for power had became brutal, his ideal life became a burden to handle for him. He decided to leave you and your mother alone. You became burden to him. It was your third birthday when he made me promise to keep you away. Your mother, was a wonderful woman. I figured why he was abandoning you both so I tried to stop him, we got into a fight, a fight too dark, and he tried to kill me because the seat was mine after our boss. Victor was there as well, only ten years old.."What are you doing faraz?" My voice shivers. Sarfaraz is aiming his gun pointed at me.
"What have you done?" I shiver, my boss's body, laying on the ground, covered in blood.
"You don't have to do this faraz" I repeat.
"I do— I won't let you get my righteous seat. I've worked sweat off for it." He's gone mad.
"We've both worked for it equally!"
"No! It was mine from the beginning."
"Why are we fighting over some stupid position?"
"It's not just some position! It's power!" He yells.
I tried to run after him to snatch the gun away from him but He shot me— and lashed out in his car. Leaving me behind to die. He didn't care, he never did. And so on his way the accident— happened."
Mr Faisal unbottons his shirt to show me his scar—oh my God.
"I survived, God knows how. I healed from the wound but I never healed from his betrayal. After his death, I ascended to the position our Ruler once held, and I left no stone unturned in uncovering the truth behind my best friend's brutal murder. It turned out to be him after all, my boss was behind the heinous crime. Apprehending my desire for vengeance, planting a bomb in Sarfaraz's car - a cruel tactic designed to torment me. Everything that happend after, I couldn't keep you then, therefore I forced myself to relinquish our connection." He completes.
What the hell..
"I don't know what to say." I've never cried infront of him so I'm keeping it in me which is why the pain is throbbing inside of my chest. "I still don't believe you." I say. The pain in my chest is swelling and I feel a lump in my stomach.
"It is the truth. Whether you accept it or not."
"Easy for you to say." I say it with disgust.
"Easy?" His throat tightens as he gulps contagious pain inside. "You think losing a friend is easy because I sit here without breaking out? It's absurd coming out of you Sam, since you claim you can die for your best friend."
"I never said losing a friend is easy." I say, defending myself. "What I meant was, easy for you to assume I'd be okay after learning about every ill thing my father has done in the past, every ill thing that I've been defending him for my whole life." My throat shivers, my hands shaky, and I feel sick to my stomach.
"I don't expect you to be okay overnight son."
"And I don't expect anything anymore." Every bone in my body feels like breaking down, cracking bit by bit. My spine shivers in glide, my feet feel paralysed.
What is all of this? Is it true Baba?
Baba please tell me.
Give me a sign.
Is this all fucking true?
Was my whole existence worshipping you a fucking lie!?
BABA!?
"Sam?" Sir slams his hand on the table to get me out of whatever zone I got in. I flinch and a tear drips down my chin.
"Oh Sam." He clicks his tongue. "Let's get you home."
"No, no it can't be." My voice sounds scared.
Her screaming is echoing again.
Damnnit, damnnit, dammit!
Shush! QUIET!
Screaming, breaking, yelling, fingers being pointed at us. Everything we went through just to hear this?
"This is why I wanted to keep you away from all the truth. To keep you happy and safe." Mr Faisal puts his hand on my shoulder but I immediately pull myself back, stepping away from him.
"No, no." I keep repeating the same word. My head is not working straight, I was happy again last night, and all is gone in a flash. Again. Once fucking again.
I need to go
I need to go
I need to go
"I need to go." I say, yet zoned out. I don't make eye contact with sir anymore. Inch by inch, my veins are burning. It's as if my entire being is engulfed in fire, my skin scorched by those horrific images of my mum getting smashed down under a burnt wooden piece. The piece that cut my existence in half. Every breath feels like inhaling flames, my lungs searing in lies. It's impossible to contain. I'm consumed by a burning sensation that threatens to incinerate everything in it's path. My path. My destiny. My fate.
I walk outside, leaving Mr Faisal behind.
I get in my car, speed it out of here. Wherever, just out of here.
Hours went by, I roamed around the whole town. I got drunk, to the end, at the extreme. I can not fucking feel anything anymore. The sun went down, and the same old routine of darkness spreads around the town. It's seven pm again. Where is my life? I can't see anything ahead of me, far from me, or even near me. All I feel is fear in me.
Dark dread.
I park my car outside of my childhood house, it's repairing, rebuilding- how will I ever be repaired? How am I suppose to rebuild myself? I can still see myself in that house.
"Oh so we've got collaboration huh? are you sure they're not fraud?"
They infact were fraud.
Why did you lie to us baba? all this time I idolised you to the point I was okay with risking my own life for your revenge to be forfilled but all you ever did was lie to me and ma, look where that got your wife. Burned to death. Look where all your lies led your son. I'm broken because of you, how am I suppose to forgive you and keep fighting for you when now I know you were the snake.
I remember asking every single one of our neighbours to tell me who visited ma when I was out. No one did, everyone threw their tongue away, bribed and unspoken creatures. My mum become voiceless, and no one cared, no one cried.
Nothing remains volatile, nothing remained back, not even ash, not even souls. How am I this empty? What did I do to be in this hole of filth? what did I ever do to be this awful of a piece. I feel empty, knowing I'm so close yet so far, I feel empty knowing no matter how ill I hear of my father, I'll still fight for him, find who did whatever they did to him and ma. Sooner or later that someone who ruined my family will push my limits and I won't let him live until his blood is on my hands because that's just who I am, that's what my father was, a petty man who destroyed lives of his own people. I share his blood meaning I'm no better than he ever was. I'm just as much of a muck, impure and malevolent as everybody around me says I am. You won Ifan, I am as mess.
Doc was wrong. She can't treat me. I was destined to be a mess, a crud, a muddy human to be stepped on. I was meant to be called cursed, I am a curse and no cure can ever mend me.
I close my eyes.
Why did you left this filth for me to handle baba? Why would you want your son to suffer? Why would you want your wife to burn alive?
I open my eyes.
I want to break this place-
Destory every single thing-
I stand tall, my figure silhouetted against the crumbling backdrop. A rugged determination etches my face, my eyes squinting beneath a sweat-dampened brow. I don't want to control my urge to rip apart this place- this fucking place. So,
I wield a heavy sledgehammer, it's metal head smashing into walls, sending shards of plaster and wood splintering. Chunks of fallen ceiling tile litter the floor, amidst shattered glass and rusty pipe fragments.
"This ugly kitchen!" I smash my hammer to break these cabinets.
ma laughed."I'm sure they're not fraud."
Her voice fading in the background.
Cobwebs cling to crumbling cornices, while faded portrait of my family—me, mum and baba, hanging on the wall, their eyes seeming to watch the destruction. Dust-coated ceiling bulbs sway, casting eerie shadows on walls now exposed. this house brought nothing but pain and pain, just pain, only pain, fucked up pain and pain and repeatedly pain to me.
"THIS FUCKED UP HOUSE!!!" I scream my lungs out. Crashes and thunderous booms echo through the empty halls as I make sledgehammer bite into these walls. The screech of torn metal and splintering wood pierces the air, interrupted by my grunts of exertion. I'm filled with frustration and liberation, and each swing of the hammer is releasing pent-up anger and lost power, and lost years. Everything I've been holding in for too long, as if I'm dismantling the past to forge a new path. I'm not a art of resilience, I'm broken, I'm tormented, I'm sad, I'm.. actually sad. I stand still.. heavy on knees, watching what I've done.
All the memories are fading away and I can't seem to catch them. So, here it is.. a nod to the memories and stories these crumbling walls once held.
A tear falls down my chin and I close my eyes.
"I think I should be straight up with you."
"I like you Sam."
A voice so pretty to ease the pain.
My heart sobs. God knows, I'm not dying but I bleed now. And God knows she's the only way to heal now. For the past few weeks, I've been avoiding her inorder to not face her.
But I think I'm losing time again and I've lost her just like how I've lost my father's justly. How I've lost my ma, how I've broken my house just now. All I do is waste time, all I've done is waste years. I can not lose her, she's an angel, she's my only friend left. The only family I have. Ifan abandoned me. It's harsh to accept but it is what it is. Mr Faisal lied to me.
And in reality, I think my stupidity made me lose everyone.
I'm losing myself, what more there is to lose? I'm a lost cause. I'm a loser, a failure. I'm cursed, and by the look of this house after what I've done. I'm a monster, too.
I always was..
I've always been the unfortunate one.