Just Like Your Father

She had fever. Her skin felt like it was made of pins that pricked her veins.

In an attempt to shake this pain off, she stumbled in to the bathroom and opened the shower. Drops of water fell on her body and scorched her skin and she felt the water sizzling like oil on a frying pan.

The cold water engulfed the electric feeling in her skin and she winced as the pins started to come alive. God! Why!? Why me?! It’s like they were trying to tell all the secrets in her skin.

She was falling ill these days. So vulnerable. She hated it. The sick kid, who always took pills and never did sports. The sun was her enemy and the moon was her friend.

Now as a woman grown up, her mother wasn't always around to molly-coddle her when she whines. Back then, whenever she had fever, her mother used to dip a strip of cloth in eau de cologne and place it on her forehead. It’s used to cool her forehead and calm her mind, the body yet ablaze.

Her skin always felt warm her mothers says. Whenever she takes hold of her mothers’ hands to aid her steps she would shake her hand off. It’s so warm! Just like your fathers she says.

Just like your fathers.

That’s not the first time she said that. Once, she saw her mother engrossed in cooking, chopping carrots with all that love, patience, care and self-control. She felt the warmth spread as she realized how much she loves her mother and how much she meant to her.

In one spontaneous move she places her left arm around her mothers’ waist, who was still deeply concentrating on cutting neat pieces of carrot. She jerked in surprise at her touch and turned her face right, wide-eyed in surprise as if she didn't recognized who it was.

God! You hand felt just like your fathers. As she pulls her hand out of that semi-embrace. In another spontaneous move she put her hand yet again around her mothers waist and slowly swayed to some old tune playing on TV.

In few minutes she was done chopping carrots and piled it on to an empty saucer.
In a haste to transfer the saucer from the kitchen top to the cooker, she drops it. Few pieces of carrots scatters around the kitchen floor and the dog scurry around eating them.

It was a signal. And she got it. It’s as if to say I want the kitchen for myself, so please leave. She turns around and grabs a Choco Pie from the top shelf and leaves the kitchen as the ambiance inside it changed.

She went into the living room and took her favorite seat beside the lampshade and propped her legs up on the chair. She took out one of her fathers books "End to Suffering" by Pankaj Mishra. She started reading while taking occasional bites off the Choco Pie and taking occasional peeks outside the window and around the house just to see if everything was alright.

Just like her father.