To begin with

I know I am not a storyteller , at least haven’t been yet, but here I am trying to be one. If it goes well, who knows what could happen next!

She walked back from school that day, lost in her own thoughts, not bothered by the summer sun beaming down on her soft, timid skin, burning it mercilessly. It was a day she would want to remember for a long time, so thinking over and over again about the events that occurred was her way of etching the memory clearly in her mind.

As she entered the ‘home’, she wished the people she was expected to, nodded at the ones she was made to , smiled at the ones she was accustomed to. But all that she wanted to do was to skip all these formalities and be alone in her room , where she could take out that little shoe box she had hidden away from the piercing glances of the girls she shared her room with. Such a situation was hard to come by ,especially since there were fourteen other girls in her room and a superintendent would come check on all of them every once in a while. She had to wait till it was late night, when everyone was asleep, she had to make sure everyone was asleep. Every hour that passed by, increased her anxiety manifold. It felt as if the hour hand of the clock had lost its will to move, like time was trying to test her patience. Finally, it struck 10 and all the lights were switched off. Another hour had to be passed to make sure everyone was sound asleep. Then, she slid out of her bed, and took out the box. After all the wait, now she did not have the courage to open the box.What if her assumption was wrong? What if all this excitement was for nothing, and all it was ,was just a trick her eyes had played on her?

Unable to bring herself to open the box, her thoughts started wandering back to what had happened in school. It was during her lunch hour. All the kids had polished off their food and they were playing one game or the other. She was busy running around with her friends, sometimes in the playground, sometimes near the swing sets, the usual. She was running faster than her friends, about to win the race when her foot got caught in some twigs. She fell and scratched her knees against the twigs. As she was about to call out for help, a hand reached out to her and lifted her up. In about a second, she was dusted, her wounds washed, her tears wiped and she had no idea who was doing all this. Finally when the man looked up at her after wiping her wound, her breath got caught in her chest. She felt a stronger blow than the one she felt while falling flat on the rough ground. The eyes, the smile. It was him but he had no idea and she had no courage, no voice to tell him. She kept staring while he was saying something to her and smiling, smiling with that smile that she had longed to see all her life and he had no idea. She couldn’t remember how long this chanced meeting lasted for, but it was long enough for her to be sure.

She looked down and sometime during this train of thought she had already opened the box. There it was, the white envelope, the last thing her mother had left for her. It had a letter in it and a photograph. She took out the photograph and stared at it for hours.Tears rolled down her chin. She flipped it and the back read “Daddy”

It was him but he had no idea! And she had no voice to tell him!