Dada 115

‘You’re father is a coward. He hit you when he did not have the courage to say to you what he needed to say himself’

I saw her pause and chew her lower lip. I recognised the moment. i could see it in myself when I was confronted by those things I did not like speak about; the moment when those who never dare, come forward; their thoughts arriving at the breaking of the dam, when the need to say something  becomes irresistible. What brings a person to it. Was my DaDa, dancing in her head like he did in mine ?  Was it fear, grief, anger or often just an immense weariness that she felt, the words spilling like coin when she gushed everything out at the beach house.

 My own father hardly spoke to me except for the rattan lash. Yet he had something in common with the lady in blue. His tears would splash afterwards and his words like hot ash run down the waterfall of my back.

In this situation I imagined the sound of the water and those little waves that broke upon the beach and of the vagabondi preying upon unsuspecting villagers that came down from the jungle; the sensation of water and chattels flowing over my boat while music played and the feeling of freedom this brought me and my men. It struck me just how much the walls of my prison cell had closed in around me but that feeling only lasted a little while. Afterwards, I had only the thoughts of a convicted man and adapted myself to the system here.