The story that I feel responsible to tell you is far beyond our hands; it happened... indeed it happened... a long time ago and I am not able to recall it as a mirror like I used to. All that walks through this gloomy mind of mine is a picture, a very rare picture which no man should witness in their lifetime—the picture of my mother dragging the very corpse of a dead man named as the Father. The picture in which Eve—my mother of a terrible past—with eyes wide open cried aloud to me “I’m finished” and by this statement, rejoice gave birth to a smile that landed on her wounded face. And in there remained a child lying in my arms; it was my newly born brother weeping... weeping... imploring his old lady to come to the aide. I remember mother grappling me in the arms and shaking me much like a terrible earthquake—her eyes were wide open I remember it well—to carve some words inside my sense of understanding for nearly an eternity—she said “No one should ever know, my child! I killed him for our sake.”

As I can tell you, dear reader, it is the first time from that dysfunction that the flower of courage bloomed inside this soul to tell this story to others for there was no other in those days and it was merely us. Surely, with my heart I can assure you that all was desperate. How it started? I am attempting to gather the recollections of my psyche to recall the accident—although I believe it was no accident or a sudden act. Let me, dear fellow, to start from here that the Father— the almighty filth who’d draw one to believe that dictatorship is more utopian than his rule—fiercely chased mother like a wild predator hunting an innocent lamb without a shepherd. All these occurrences happened that day, the day before it and all the old days. Yet, it was the sixth day of April—it is a wonder how I remember the date—and Eve could not call herself the innocent lamb anymore. She was filled with a throng of fires burning ruthlessly the fields of slavish affection, informing a bold statement for a revolution in the history of individuals. That day, she was beaten with sticks of cruelty and harshness that my visions could not bear to see the bruises around her body.

For many, it may be a similar experience when I announce that I was used to this theatre of abominable reality due to the fact that most of the time, the Father made me—I with a figure of a young girl—to participate in this agonising show. Believe me when I remark that my mind believed that day was like yesterdays and those days which still were about to come... But all of a sudden I realised Eve, my wounded mother, slowly walked toward us, and immediately, she kissed me on my rose-coloured chicks, patted my infant brother’s head who was struggling to escape from my hands, and with a bitter smile, more bitter than the taste of citrus’s peel, whispered to my small ears “Shut your eyes until I tell you to open ‘em!” and she left. It seems to me she was ready that day like a new Messiah, knowing that day was the day that pain will be shattered and leave us apart.

I was an obedient child, yet, I have determined not to close my visions. A voice within me demanded to see the terror liberally, and so I did. I saw mother return in a blink of an eye, holding a rifle in her arms like a new-born baby—it was the Father’s legitimate child, but now the Father was half dead on the couch, snorting like a pig. And in my defence, I was not taught how to act when my eyes caught a sight of a hideous rifle. She walked quietly as if her feet were feathers that day. Soon she found herself above the Father’s lying body. Without any hesitation, without a doubt, she aimed the rifle towards him and with a furious cry from the depth of her throat... shot him... twice in the head. I could hear nothing for seconds and when I survived this temporary deafness, I heard Eve, my mother, crying aloud “I’m finished.” I saw it, yet I heard her saying “Azura... Open ‘em.”

Oh, dear reader, how tired of struggling I am so I can recall what occurred after she dragged him outside the house, and my soul is weeping for that infant brother of mine and my younger self. I remember it... aye surely I can remember how mother wept with a smile on her face while the body of our dead father was being buried in a pile of dust; I heard her, reciting some words with a trembling voice. She was saying “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want...” yes, I remember, she was reciting the book of Psalms... still weeping she said “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me...” and I know the gun alone was what that comforted her the most and it was nothing else.

After he was no longer visible to any man, hidden in the ground, I saw my mother falling miserably to the dusty ground and weeping relentlessly: as if she had lost a life. And what did I do? I watched the desolate rifle standing as a statue, a model which no sculptor ever dared to create; the blood of the dead man was drifting around its half metallic body and any artist would agree upon the fact that it had a lustful beauty. I thought that all has ended, but then I heard a different sound from the outside. It was the most delicate sound I have heard for the first time; a laughter that was coming out of my mother’s mouth. My eyes were blessed the time I saw her joyous laughter as if she was delighted for her disobedience. I smiled when I saw her... I remember the force of sunset, the silence of birds, and the anthem of crickets that day brought me the news of more laughter, the news that mother would not be beaten tomorrow... in the seventh day of April.