Keller

The lightning flashes, and just for a moment, she can see everything outside the window, illuminated by white light. It doesn’t take long before the low, insistent growl of the accompanying thunder reaches her ears.

Keller closes her eyes, and surrenders her senses to the rain that pounds against the windows in her house. She’s loved the rain for as long as she can remember. The howl of the wind and its cold caress against her cheeks, the familiar smell of wet earth, the indescribable sensation of cool water droplets hitting her… It doesn’t matter if she’s walking in the rain, feeling the water soak into her clothes and boots, or if she’s just quietly watching it – the rain calms her down.

As another bolt of lightning streaks across the sky, her thoughts drift. Today is the day when she lost her innocence, the day when she was forced to grow up. It was on this exact day, eight years ago, that her father was found murdered on the outskirts of town. The murderer was never found. Her mother, unable to cope with her grief, made sure that she overdosed on her sleeping pills six months after the tragedy. Just like that, Keller found herself orphaned, cruelly torn away from the two adults who had done everything in their power to make her life a happy one.

Just like that, she had to learn to fend for herself in an unforgiving world, learn to adapt to her conditions and survive. After her mother committed suicide, she promised herself two things – One, that she would find whoever killed her father and seek revenge somehow. Two, that she would never feel any emotion whatsoever. Emotion was weakness – after all, look what it did to her mother.

 She has survived on her own for so long, is more than certain that she will continue to survive on her own for however long she needs. She’s as cold as the rain that pounds on her windows.

However, survival is hardly easy. Now a woman of twenty-three, she has to find a job quickly or spend the last of her savings on the necessities that she needs to survive. She’s looked through the classifieds every day, hoping for a job that she might just be suitable for. However, she’s been rejected from every job application – she’s either not qualified enough, or the company tells her that they’ll call her. Of course, they never do.

Whatever calm she felt from watching the rain has been washed away now, only to be replaced with annoyance and slight desperation at her current situation. She scowls darkly as she recalls her encounter with the weird old man at the void deck about three days ago. She’d been minding her own business, scanning through the classifieds for a possible job offer that she could take, when he popped up out of nowhere and started commenting on how desperate she looked.

She’d turned to tell him to mind his own damn business, but he just didn’t seem to be affected by her words. Instead, he’d continued talking with irritating nonchalance, all the while puffing on his cigarette and toying with his pocket radio. All his talk of there being no purpose in life and just living each day as it came had genuinely irritated her. How could there be no purpose in life? It wasn’t possible, especially for her. Not when she still had to find out who her father’s murderer was. Not when she still had to avenge her father.

But that old man had well and truly crossed the line that day when he told her that she knew less of the world than he did. That was her breaking point – all the frustration she felt at being unable to find a job to keep herself afloat, at being unable to make headway on trying to find who exactly was behind her father’s murder eight years ago, at feeling so alone, just poured out. She’d just yelled at him before grabbing her newspaper and stalking off.

Keller sighs. She’s not proud of what she’s done, but his words had really struck something deep inside her that day. And it didn’t help that her father had enjoyed smoking handmade cigarettes and listening to his pocket radio in his spare time, when he was still alive. In a way, the weird old man had reminded her of her father.

Dad… I wish you and Mum were still alive. These eight years have been so rough, and I wonder how things would have been better if you were still with me. I was happy back then. We were a family.

Dad… Daddy… Was it you that day? I don’t know why, but that old man reminded me of you somewhat.

I miss you. I miss both you and Mum.

A lone tear slides down her cheek and she hastily brushes it away. She can’t afford to feel emotion. After all, it’s weakness.