DAUGHTER REBELS Contest #29

   “I curse the day I was born to a sucker like you,” a young girl named Cheelo shouted in real rage. She swirled her eyes about like some angry actress she had seen in Telemundo.Twisting her eyeballs into tiny slits she glared at her father with a face burning hot with passion; while allowing her rumpled hair to bristle like grass in a strong gale. Her left hand stuck majestically on her waist, as she stabbed her right forefinger into the big man’s face. Jutting her mouth out like the beak of a chicken, she poured out her angry denunciations.

Her father MacKay worked for a school called Ellensmere Private located in Mukonchi. The school had fallen on hard times where workers would go for as long as ten months without pay. Most workers were forced to resign going elsewhere seeking greener pastures but for him it was still difficult to move anywhere. Besides there were few schools around to flee to for greener pastures.

Initially his relatives tried what they could in form of help but eventually they also got tired of pouring help into a bottomless pit, with issues of their own, they abandoned him.

   Surprisingly, it was like some dreadful curse kept on pursuing him, breathing a scorching wind on so many gallant efforts he undertook.

   The previous year he had planted a huge garden of onions hopping to escape from the poverty. Everything went on smoothly from planting to the bristling sharp pointed plants ready for harvest. The onions looked so nice that he was willing to spend a lot more to maintain it. Little did he realize that the crop was scheming to prune whatever little money he had. Because after spending everything he had, just before he could start harvesting, a vengeful blast of heat passed through his garden and destroyed the crop. The onions he harvested could grab a decent place in the Guinness book of world records as the smallest onions ever harvested. Commenting on the efforts his wife was fond of saying “a man of wasted efforts.”

    Later he got a loan to grow a field of watermelons on a smaller manageable scale. Again initially all went well until the time of harvesting when he discovered all the watermelons were rotten to the core, no one could buy them. This led to serious financial challenges in the home. The man asked his brother to keep the children during the festive season as he tried to survive alone eating pumpkin leaves as relish for a full week. There was no option but to seek help from relatives by sending the children away for holidays.

        Cheelo was eleven years old and doing grade six. She was blasting the hell out of her father who sat quietly; the only noticeable movement on him was the tears rolling down freely on his elongated face. He could not say anything; the agony he felt was beyond words.

   This young girl was angry to leave her uncle’s home where she had gone for the holidays. Her uncle was a well to do man, life there was not just comfortable but also beautiful. Coming back home to an extension of misery just when she thought fate had blessed her with a little heaven, was horrible. And worse still, in order to get her out of his home the uncle had lied that father had bought her a bike and was waiting to see her smile as she rode it. There was no bicycle; the realization burst the walls of self restraint giving vent to the horrible burning words pouring out of her mouth like sewage.

Getting no response the girl went on with her insults, “mom was right, what a mistake that she had to marry a useless swine like you.”

    The mom being referred to had fled home the moment she realized there would be no food at home. She went bitching around town with an “oh here you can drown in hunger” wow. Warning the man not to even attempt to follow her, she was rumored to be patronizing nearby guest houses with impunity.

Listening to his daughter showering him with insults was terrible, but the last stroke that broke the man’s back was the sight of the girl’s eyes. The tiny rolling balls twinkled with real hate. His own daughter hated him greatly because for the first time he could not provide for his family. This realization was intolerable.

“If my own daughter can hate me this much, then why am I here?” he wailed in deep agony.

    He stood up from his stool and headed into the little shed located westwards just outside the yard. The way he walked spoke volumes, presently it worried everyone watching .they had an uncomfortable feeling that the old man was so broken that he was capable of anything.

Lyson, Cheelo’s elder brother followed the old man hurriedly to obviate any catastrophe. The boy had watched his father enter the shed for no practical reason.

Then it hit him fast .In the shed there were chemicals which most people tired of the problems in this life abused to end their lives. His father was planning to kill himself…He banged into the shed and was just in time to grab a bottle of termic, an insecticide, from the big man’s right hand as he tried to pour the stuff into his trembling mouth.

“Please leave me alone let me go to my ancestors,” he wailed his protests.

“Why should you choose that daddy?”

“My daughter says I am a useless father and wishes she had a different father,” he sobbed. “I can’t stand that, especially from her.”

     “Daddy, you can’t drink that and kill yourself just because Cheelo has said the moon came out looking blue tonight, she is only a child,” he said between sobs. “She does not even know what she is saying.”

    “She knows what she is saying my son, I saw it in her bitter eyes,” he wailed like a dying goat as he lurched forward to try to get beyond his son’s right hand. “Other people are celebrating New Year, for me there is nothing to celebrate just enduring a hurricane of insults from the child I love so deeply.”

    Just then a friend arrived and he immediately read the situation.

  “The question you should ask yourself is why your child is rejecting you;” he cursed his friend.”Killing yourself is a cowardly act, people will curse you for eternity.”

   “What do you think I should do exactly?”the old man grumbled mucus falling like rain drops.

   “You need to prepare this year,” he said. “Success has no shortcuts.”

   "But what do I give my daughter now?" he complained. "Do I steal to win her friendship?"

"If stealing is possible without being caught, do it.There is nothing worse than losing the love of your family."