Page 169 - Musings 2020

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Red with a Tinge of Orange

G Sundar 2017A4PS0383P and Atharva Patil 2017A4PS0256P

Her fingernails shined red as blood slowly dripped through her motionless fingers. It seemed
as if time stood still. She slowly turned her gaze towards the family drowning in tears. The
mother wailed over the loss of her only daughter, still unable to leave her side. The father
grabbed her by the collar in angst, “Scarlett White, I’ll never forgive you!”, tears rolled down
his sleeves onto his watch as it struck eighteen past one.

Scarlett jumped from her bed freeing herself from the nightmare. It was routine now. After
all, it is only human to repent on your sins with no end. The faces of her friend’s kin were
likely to haunt her for years to come. As she poured herself some coffee, she pondered over
the greatest mistake of her life. Her delusions had gotten the best of her. After all those years
at the asylum, she could only hope that they never return. The sun was up and shining.
Scarlett prepared herself for another day of job hunting, in hopes of a renewed life.

There wasn’t much hope of finding a job on a Sunday. But to her, the disappointment won’t
be different from any other day of the week. She would have preferred to go for the church
mass instead. However, being barely able to pay for her subway ride, this was evidently the
wise choice. It was a long day. Scarlett hoped she could catch the last subway home. She had
no choice but to make a run for it. She panted heavily at the deserted station. She had missed
her train. “Now I’ll have to walk home”, she thought as she started walking towards the exit.

She hated walking home. The chilly wind that threw her hair rustling past her ears reminded
her of a certain night. She was seven years old. Grandma’s lap provided her more warmth
than the burning fireplace ever could. “Scarlett, my dear”, she said, “your father was a brave
man. His psyche was unlike anyone else in the family. Your mother and I pleaded him to stay,
to reconsider. But he was resolute. He wanted to go to Vietnam, in fact, in his words ‘he
needed it’.”

Scarlett already knew this about her father. Unfortunately, that was all that she knew about
him. He had left the country to fight in the war when Scarlett was merely two years old. She
never got to know him any better. The carcasses on the walls of her living room and the US
flag banner on top of her fireplace gave her nothing but a peek into his life. “Before going, he
asked me to promise to pass on something to you. Now that I know that he is never to return,
now is the right time.” Grandma presented Scarlett with an Alaskan Harpoon Knife. The
knife was a magnificent work of art. The silver blade was accompanied by an Ivory handle
with her old man’s initials “C.W.” carved into it. Since that day Scarlett saw her dad quite a
few times. It took her a while to realise that was probably when the delusions started.

Just then she entered a dark alleyway, another part that she hated about walking home. But
the alley wasn’t completely dark that night. She saw a flash of light and a face and another
man falling over. “Someone has been shot”, she thought. She ran towards the spot. She
kneeled to help the bleeding man. Blood dripping from the forehead to the face of the dead
man. It was a familiar face. The same face that had once vowed to never forgive her.

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