The Silent Visitor

June 2001

My second cousin (once removed), long brown haired Melissa spent a few nights at home during and after the funeral. She was one of those cousins, whom you seem to get acquainted with at birthday parties or other unfortunate family gatherings. Our mothers introduced us a few months prior to mum’s illness. A real bunny she is.  Well, that’s what I call her, Bush Bunny, I suppose at some time in our life we all were.

It was another one of those long, long afternoons which then turned into a long night. The sun fell suddenly and the night sky took over.  It was indeed a night I wanted to stretch my hands and legs out as far as I could possibly reach, exhaustion has settled in. There were about thirty odd visitors, friends and other people whom I could not even imagine to spend a minute talking, who had congregated, some in the living room, some in the kitchen (the women mostly) and the men having kava outside on the veranda.

“When will they leave?” I thought to myself, smiling outside my teeth as I past them by. Melissa played the happy hostess and my brother ignored every single moment and walked off to the nearby pool parlour to accommodate his boredom.

Three whole nights in a row, the reverend had given a powerful message about grief, death and all that sort of subjects to anticipate during a funeral.

I sat in the living room and waited for all the people to leave. The silent whispers and chattering, clicking of tea-cups was giving me an unbearable migraine. It was only after ten thirty or so when everyone started to leave.

And they did, one at a time, a kiss on the cheek here and a pat on the back there. Every gesture seemed so uniformed, so fake.

We were all exhausted, Dad retired to bed immediately, Melissa and I shared my room and my brother decided to watch a movie in the living room.

Before he settled to a rattly DVD, Rainal decided to kiss me goodnight and tucked me in. We were relieved that would the last night we saw people. At least the ones that mattered were with us at that moment.

Within the next half an hour, Melissa and I were dead to the world.

The smell of a new morning was refreshingly welcoming. I lay in bed, looking at the roses which hung from my ceiling, thinking about the bizarre dreams I had the previous night.

Melissa woke up, yawning, but looking bright eyed and bushy tailed.

“I didn’t know I was asleep until I woke up”, she said stretching. Did that statement even make sense? Rainal was called into the room to justify her thoughts that exact moment. I smiled. Melissa had that effect on me. 

Rainal came into the room. He looked even more tired and drained from the previous day, for the two most obvious reasons, he played Worms Armageddon all night or watched DVDs.

He sat on the edge of the bed. Just as he did so, Melissa threw a pillow at him.

“Was it you who decided to peek into the room while Jos and I were sleeping? You almost woke me up. But I think you were actually checking on Jos because I smiled and looked away and then you smiled and kept looking over me”, she said still yawning.

“O…K,” was his reply.

Melissa and I sat up. We anticipated what to hear next.

“Last night”, Rainal continued in a slow voice, “Dad woke up, startled. He walked into the sitting room and began putting his shoes on. He looked pale yet excited. He said he could feel mum in the house and was following her out. I thought he was sleep walking and tried to snap him out of it but he seemed so adamant to walk out of the door”

A cold shiver ran down my spine. I clutched Melissa’s hand that instant.

“What time was this?” she asked. 

“Maybe at about two”, he replied. “I thought I heard something fall in your room and that’s when I saw dad in the living room.”

I jumped leant over my bed and looked on the floor. My pink swatch was lying on the floor, clock face down. The items on the dresser remained unstirred.

I picked up the watch. There was a sudden silence in the room as I looked at the time on the watch. The clock looked back at me. The hands were stiff still and not a movement was made from the clockwork.

The clock showed 2:13