05-10-2008, 10:24 PM
13. Misfortune
Balkar was dicing vegetables in the kitchen when reality chose to come over him once again. He had been living in a dream for the past few weeks. He had spent all his conscious mind adjusting to the lost family that he had rediscovered. He had never given himself the time to let his thought regress back to that dreary day at the hospital where fear had finally struck home and she had left his world forever. It was at this point in time, several weeks later, that Balkar found that the knife no longer was perfectly content to chop vegetables any longer. He had gasped at how cold the metal had felt on his skin and had gasped again when his father's voice had reached his ears.
Star had been distracted from his prior thought by the end to the periodic work in the kitchen. He knew the devastation that his son had been through, he was weary of the dangers.
"Don't be a coward," Star had said after stepping through the silent swinging door into the kitchen.
Balkar did not turn around, but Star could see his head dip down behind the sickened thin frame. The shoulders shook as they leaned more heavily against the counter he stood next to and Star could almost imagine the rattling of the skeleton beneath.
"You don't understand," his son replied in harsh whisper. A metallic scrape deafened all other sound in the room as Balkar turned around to face his father, the knife in his hand dragging across the counter as he did. The other inclined his head in a defiant manner, but Star could see the agony in his son's face and the desire in that look, that desire to be saved from whatever his mind was telling him to do, "You can't understand what I've had to go through."
Star nodded. It was true. Balkar had grown up without a family in a country that included no others of his race. He had fallen in love with a woman who's family had hated their relationship and once they were together she had died off a disease that was now spreading through his own body. It would be too much for most people, but it this escape needed to be prevented.
Star wanted to laugh out loud, it had been years since he last had to act like a real and responsible father.
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