My Appa

I walked past him. To my surprise, he didn't even give me a look. I wasn't expecting that. After all, I am his daughter. I am his own blood. How can he do this to me? 

 He should have noticed me at least. For a moment, I had that terrible feeling again, that stressful feeling which engulfed me two years back when my parents divorced and my father found his new lady love. I was so not expecting that on my 19th birthday. But however, it happened, tearing me into pieces. Today I got the very same feeling again. I felt as if my world was breaking down. All I could see was thick darkness around. That voluminous darkness was all the way readily coming to me to eat me. I was afraid for a moment. I forgot that two years have gone by. I forgot that I am twenty-one now. I forgot that he was not my mother's husband anymore. I forgot that I had lost my Appa two years back.

 I couldn't find my tears to cry. I couldn't find my senses to come back to normalcy. I couldn't find words to speak. I was alone. I was terribly all alone.

Then came the cyclone of thoughts. The thoughts of me sitting in my Appa's lap, the thoughts of him singing lullabies to me, the thoughts of us going happily to buy a new motorcycle. I knew all these were thoughts, mere thoughts, just memories. But they kept striking my heart again and again so hard that I found it so very difficult to free myself from the disturbance they created.

I am not that old girl. My Appa has changed. My life has changed. It is something else now. 'Don't try to make me remember my good moments now'.

I told my heart. I ain't sure if it listened. I wondered for a moment.

 How confusing is this life...

Those moments of my life which were captured in my heart when there were happiness and happiness around me, those happy moments can now make me cry. Those happy moments aren't happy anymore. Seems like they too lost their identity with me. I came back to my senses. And was feeling pain struck again. 

My Appa didn't look at me. He didn't smile at me. I was on the verge of crying.

 Just then I saw her coming towards me. My Appa's wife. My heart literally skipped a beat. I felt as if I won't be able to survive. She was coming to me. She was not smiling. She was not even looking serious...

 Now she is just a few steps away from me. I thought I would die there. I wished I would. But I didn't. I was still alive.

"Kavya your Appa is there. Go meet him.

He is your father, your own."

I was silenced by her words. I could feel the rush of a million questions inside me. But I was numb.

"No...!"

"He is not. Is he...?"

"Can you give him back so that he could be My Appa again... just my Appa, my mother's husband, my best friend, my hero...? Can you return our Appa, just ours....?"

This time he smiled. But I didn't smile back. From the way he walked away with his wife, I understood that I was never going to get him back, that I could never call him My Appa again.....