"The same day all over again. Routine absorbing me another little bit. Just a little bit. So it was like this: wake up, go to bathroom, have breakfast, brush teeth, dress up, do hair, go to school. Oh, and say 'bye to mom. Dad was already gone. Emergency, it was. Some random citizen in mortal danger, some kind of car accident or whatever. But that was just routine for my family anyway. Though for the man's family it was a first, I guessed. I was so in terms with accidents and sudden deaths -what with my dad being a doctor and all- that I sometimes thought that it wouldn't take me by much surprise if something happened to someone I knew. Someone I loved. When I was young, I used to thing that this random man my dad rushed to save again and again wasn't just a random man- it was the same man everytime. I couldn't come to grips with the fact that yes, it happens to everyone. Those people where too reckless, too negligent and -to my mind- they deserved whatever happened to them. They should've been more careful. Not drive around drunk or be on the phone while driving. Or whatever they'd been doing. It didn't matter to me anyway. 
  My dad earned a lot of praise for his job. Saving lives, that was. My mom used to be proud. And, mimicing her, mostly, I was proud, too. People owned their lives to my dad and I was proud of that. 
  I tripped over something and fell on the wet road. I remember that clearly. My thoughts went blank then, like I'd been thinking of nothing all the way until I tripped. I remember getting all wet- it'd been raining. Every affront I knew and could use played all over in my head until I reached school that day. I hated getting wet.  Maybe that's the reason why everything happened. Maybe God was punishing me for all this- the indignity, you know, the swearing. Although I don't really believe in God. And, as far as I know, he wouldn't punish indignity with something like that. So it was either something worse that I'd done or that's not how the world works. 
  I got to school. The hours dragged by. Two hours, to be exact. Because then, in the middle of Chemistry, a teacher I didn't know knocked on our classroom's door and asked for me. 
  No-one ever asked for me. I didn't cause any trouble, and I've never ever been to the principal's office. Low-key, I was. Well, okay, I smoked and ditched hours. But almost everybody did this. Wasn't something that you got punished for. Or, even if it was, I wouldn't be the first one to earn the penalty. So I was pretty anxious when she spoke my name. Half- certain she'd made a mistake. Nevertheless, I stood up and walked to her. She waved me to get out of the class and closed the door behind her. She said nothing, just started waking, so I followed. When I, ah, dared ask what was going on, she just said that I had a phone call. And when I asked who had made that phone call, she said she wasn't in position to explain. I wondered what that meant. I searched in her face for some underlying answer, but her lips were pressed into a hard line and, when her gaze met mine, I think I saw pity in her eyes. Yeah, pity. Like I was a poor man begging her for some money she couldn't give me. 
  There are things I don't remember, then. I don't remember getting to the principal's office or picking up the phone. I just remember the words. 
  Hello, Emily. My name is Darian Clearwater. I work with your dad. You have to come over to the hospital. 
 That's all I remember. My aunt Marian came and picked me up. That's just blind spots after that. I only remember people crying. And my scream. The scream I let out when that Darian Clearwater (who appeared to be the hospital's greater psychologist and was assigned the job of breaking the news to me) finally spoke the words. 
  Emily, your father passed away. 
  I screamed. A scream so loud my ears hurt to death. And then everything went pitch blank. 


   It's been years now. I'm still trying to remember his words, you know? How the man tried to pass it to me, the news. I'm still trying to recall the way he explained the accident, or my friend's 'comforting' words, or the people who were there in the hospital, but I can't. I don't think I'll ever will. And it doesn't really matter. 
  My mom was so out I had to remind myself that she was alive and needed to drink and eat. She didn't speak if you didn't ask her something, she didn't eat if you didn't remind her she had to, she didn't drink anything either. She was just a machine. Work, cook, sleep. That was all. 
  I had a hard time,too. But nothing compared to hers. 'Cause I was still young. Time would pass for me and I'd get used to the pain and life would offer me a handful of opportunities. So, the brightness of the future helped. Whatever, I'd been wrong all my life. It fucking does happen to everyone. My dad was the most precautious and careful man, he did nothing wrong. Nothing at all. It changed me, though. I was melancholic anyway, didn't really interact with people around me and hated crowded places- that's all I remember of how I used to be. It was like eternity washed over me when my dad died. Like I died myself and was born again when pain seemed to be easing. Whatsoever, I gotta admit, leaving me was the best thing he ever taught me. 


  So, now that the years have passed and it's less painful to think about it, I wonder. I wonder where he is now. Is he happy? I wonder where he's gone. Hell? Paradise? Eternal nothingness? I wonder witch of them holds true. Is he alone or in a crowded place? Maybe that's what hell is, living in a world where they teach you that the place you go when you die is full of people and then your time comes and you go to that place and it's freaking empty.  Maybe he's a soul wondering around the world. A phantom. Perhaps he'd be able to travel through space if he was that. But anyway, it's not like those thoughts we've all had about what's after, where we all go when we die and stuff. There's more to it. I've figured, you only really start searching for an answer when you're honestly looking for a dead person.  Your dead person. The one who left you behind and you're trying to catch up with. And I'm looking for him. In the night sky, in the light breeze, in the sea, under my bed at night. In my ciggarettes, in the smoke I breath out. At twilight. Or at dawn. He's nowhere to be found. But everytime I look out of a closed window, I know. The alive and the dead are parted by a huge glass wall that's dark from both sides. We can't see them and they can't see us, but if you stick your nose on the glass and look real close you'll see it; a world full of people. Nothing else. Just people. Like statues, they do nothing, just stand there, eternally waiting, their backs turned to us so we can't see their faces. All of them with their backs turned to us. "