Pet Allergy - Diagnosis and Medications

 

It's raining outside but the sun is still high in the sky, golden and round. I can hear the children sing-

"It's raining, the sun is shining. There's a boil on the anus."

I am studying for my father. A room full of books is quiet and dangerous with knowledge. There are lots of paintings on the wall, a wooden desk in the corner, and a fluorescent lamp that brightens the room a bit. This is not where I read, this is not where I write, this is where I cry.

But this is where Father writes, this is where Father has written for twenty years, and this is where he has been writing since his mother left. This is also where he talks to himself a lot. Sometimes listening at the door, my seven-year-old raised my foot a little. His words are always incomprehensible. And whenever I look through the keyhole, I see him smiling into space. The father owned a lot of literary works to his credit and many awards that came with glossy prizes. His mother had once described him as a "rich old writer who talked to himself a lot" in an act of mild annoyance. But I never understood why my mother left. So I stayed with my father, his books, and his brown ceramic mug which he served his coffee every morning.

The father did not care much about his wealth - his lands in Isuzu, Ikeja, and Oshodi. His fleet of cars and his numerous accounts are huge with bright papers. Years after their mother left, he would write a lot, and stay long at his desk and I was worried he wasn't getting enough rest, food, or fresh air.

But I lived the life of luxury, the life financed with money, smiling through education with ease, getting a job in a company, and going on vacations whenever I wanted. And one evening, I came back and found my father in his office, hunched over his books, lifeless. His morning coffee was now cold and black and I knew I would hate coffee forever. But I didn't notice the tears rolling down my eyes, and the slush dripping down my nose over my mouth. I had gone out to the balcony and looked at the streets, at the people who for so many years had looked at this mansion that the father had built in admiration. I cried on the balcony and let the world see my tears.

It's been four years since my father passed away but I still come back from work and check on his studies. I still listen at the door to hear his solitary voice, and if all is silent, I walk, shut the door, sit in the corner, and weep.

So in the afternoon of a rainy sunny day, while the children sing downstairs, I sit in a corner of the room, on the bare floor thinking of my father, and how strangers will imagine my life; It is natural for people to be jealous of the rich, to imagine the lives of the rich, their choices - what they like and what they hate. Feeling unsure if they use the toilet or not. But people never imagined that rich people have feelings, and that their feelings can be expressed with tears. They can cry. they cry.

I started crying. Tears are hot and salty. I don't know why I tasted it. I don't notice the rain has stopped. But I am in my father's study and I am sure of one thing - the world will never see my tears again.