Ashes

‘your dad is dead’ – those four lettered words sent you into a packing frenzy and made you end up in the place which your tear-stricken mom dragged you out of years ago. The fish-smelling mustard yellow cab which if not for your jetlag you wouldn’t have entered, pulled up beside a blue Peugeot car and in front of the place which housed your childhood memories. With your overnight bad slugged across your shoulder you make your way towards the house stopping for a few minutes to stare at the post-box you and your mom spent an entire afternoon in summer to paint red, white and blue roses on it. You run your hands on the rough surfaces of the post-box, tracing the AUBREY’S your little self scrawled on one of the red roses, one of which the stem and thorns has been washed off by age. The grasses reach out for your ankles as you walk on the pathway leading up to the stairs where a blonde haired lady stood tapping her thighs, she flashed you an impatient smile and led you through a brown door, you note a welcome sticker placed in the same spot your arrow went through narrowly missing your mom’s ear when your dad first tried to teach you archery, your fingers glide across the sticker and just as you suspected, you feel a rough crack in the centre, smiling, you walk through the door. The house still smelt faintly of fresh lavender and the air laden stale smell of tobacco but it lacked the soft scent of your mom’s strawberry perfume which she sprayed in the air and then twirled round it making tiny drops of perfume rest on her hair, dress, skin and on the surrounding objects. She motioned for you to sit on the chair closest to the furnace, but you decline for you knew towards the left of it lay the protruding nail which made you get you first tetanus shot, it was a tear-filled day as your sat on the uninjured butt cheek and sipped the hot cocoa your mom made that always seemed to precipitate your pain. You instead sit on the arm of another like you always did when you and your dad watched a match when he was in his normal state on the T.V which still hung on the wall. She cleared her throat besides you and commenced with the meeting, while she went on and on about your dad overdosing on the pills that were supposed to cure his schizophrenia, him leaving the house to you and him being buried already because they couldn’t contact you early enough, your eyes rests on the floor tiles where your mom spent her Saturday’s scrubbing with glove covered hands with each glove colour depending solely on her mood, your eyes search for the dent you made on one of them while trying to kill a spider with a sledge hammer, you find it half hidden by the green mat which used to be in the hallway, the one your mom bled on when your dad broke her nose with a baseball bat claiming he saw a snake on her face. ‘Are you even listening?’ makes your eyes take a return trip back to hers, you nod and proceed to sign the property documents now resting on your laps. She left in the blue Peugeot car you saw earlier after handing over the keys of the house and a list of necessary contacts. Accompanied by the soft howling of the wind outside, the tap of the lavender branches against the window pane and the steady drip of water from a tap somewhere upstairs, you make a tour round the house reliving in the moments before your dad’s mental illness became worse. Thirsty, you find yourself in the kitchen opening the cabinets you watched your dad make summers ago, and you reach for the one housing cups and you are greeted by flowery arrays of cups you designed with your mom, you take one and sniff it, longing for a hint of your dad’s sandalwood scent but you end up with a whiff of coffee and tobacco stained rims. You turn on the four knobs on the gas cooker and reach for the top shelf to take a pack of matches. You walk down to the basement, passing the room where your dad in his deranged state first attempted to kill your mother with the bottle of vodka he seemed to find comfort in, in the basement, you grab a can of half filled gasoline and make your way backup after smiling sheepishly to the dust coated Christmas tree you always decorated with thrill on Christmas eve. The trip to your room reveals the lair of a child, your toys which usually lay on the floor were crammed into the basket on top of the wardrobe, and your batman wallpaper still covered your walls. Your footprints are carved out on the dusted coated floor as you make your way to your nightstand, your family picture still lay there framed by the superhero you couldn’t seem to pronounce his name as a kid, a spider jumps out of the frames and makes its way to the tree painted ceiling which now housed cobwebs. Your nude painted wardrobe which you hid in each time giggling with mischief as you waited for either of your parents to find you beckoned on you, you open it and reach under the neatly folded clothes and grab your blue laser gun, the one you played ‘good cops’ with your friend Stan who lived just across the street. You shut the door after grabbing a pair of scissors from the second layer and with it you puncture holes in the gas can, you take the neatly folded table cloth placed on top of your green pyjamas, the table cloth you used as a cape each time you played as a superhero. You tie it firmly to the hand of the gas can and drag it behind you as you leave the room, just the way you drag your school bag every morning on your way to the school bus, leaving trails of dripping gasoline behind you. You go through the now empty hallway which usually whispered memories from the walls hung with pictures and your mom’s pottery collection, your favourite was the picture of your family taking a slime bath at the fair- your dad had slime all over his face and your mom had never looked more beautiful, you remember giving her a peck and your dad while acting as a zombie chased you round the fair asking you to leave his wife alone. Your sigh re-echoes down the hallway as you make your way to your parents room, your hands reach for the gold coated knob engraved with a unicorn, the same knob you spent hours talking to, pleading to the unicorn to step out and save your mom from your dads blows. As you turn the knob you hear voices, your mom’s left hand holding firmly the towel wrapped around her head with water running down her face as she motions to your dad to hand her the dryer while your dad mutters to himself and folds his newspaper rolling to the other part of the bed to get the dryer in the last layer of the vanity. Choked up by the pungent smell of cooking gas and gasoline you make your outside the house, you drop the now empty gas can on the wicker chair your mom knits on while watching you play on the swing you pressured your dad to make, you light the first matchstick and throw it inside, you keep throwing lighted matchsticks inside till you heard an explosion from within the house. On your way to the swing you pass the tree house your dad never got to complete, the one you were going to make your hideout when you were out on secret missions like your hero in the movie mission impossible. You sat on the now rusted swing surrounded by leaves which crunched beneath your feet as you walked about, cascaded by the leaves from the uncompleted tree house which looked now like a giant shrub rather than a tree house with your face glowing from the flames licking the house you spent your first 12years in. You breathe in the calming scent of the evening breeze and the acrid smell of smoke while wiping the first tear that rolled down your left cheek, then came a second, a third until you couldn’t keep count of it.