Upstairs, father hasn't come home. The room is dark and silent, father had left the window open and I could hear the echoing traffic from outside. By the legs of his bed, was an empty ashtray with five cigarette butts and one small, unfinished cigarette that was emitting a single trail of smoke. Shadows of passing cars came in and moved on the ceiling.

I picked up the unfinished cigarette, lied down on my father's bed, watching the passing silhouette. I see monsters, I see large tanks, I see everything with menace enter the room but nothing scared me more than my hands. I put my hand up, and looked at the traces of shadows on them. I looked at between my fingers.

"What are you doing, Luna?" god asks me. God sits on the edge of the bed, watching me intently.

"I'm trying to see the world between my fingers. Maybe it's different." I tell god.

"What do you think are between my fingers?"

"I don't know. Maybe, between my fingers things are different. Maybe mother is nice. Maybe father is..." I trail off, and god nods in understanding.

"You hope things will be different."

"Did you make it like this or was it them?" I ask god.

"You know I cannot answer questions like these," god says to me. He then proceeded to put both my hands down and shook his head.

"Okay, then, do you come here a lot?" I ask god. God ponders this question, not because he doesn't know the answer, but he doesn't know whether to tell me or not.

"Quite often. Whenever your father is working," god answers finally. I sit up.

"Why?"

"Because the view outside your father's window is beautiful. Isn't it?" god says, pointing out the window. God looked out the window, and I followed next to him.

"Of course. You made it," god smiles. I continue, "You can see it from up there too."

"It's different down here." god says. I understood. I look down at the blinking cars passing the street, unaware of the presence of god watching them from the window above, closer than they expected.

"I expected to see you here today, Luna," god tells me. "You'll be fine.

"I know."

I look at him. But my father won't. You can hear my thought, can't you? God nods. God and I then proceeded to look at the street again. The night bus stopped in front of the bus stop, and the passengers exited the bus in a slow, orderly motion. They were all tired, they all wanted to go home, except one. God points at a woman that looked like a regular office worker.

"You see her?" god asks me.

"Yes."

"Something is about to happen to her tonight," god says. I look at the woman god pointed at, exiting the bus and taking a seat at the bus stop. The others have left the bus stop and walked to each of their houses, but the woman stays at the bus stop. I decided not to ask. I know I couldn't ask things like that to god.

"She doesn't want to go home," I said instead to god. The woman was calmly seated, looking at the ongoing traffic. She didn't look apprehensive or expectant as a person who was waiting for something would look like. She didn't look confused. She looked blank, but firm, like she sat with a purpose. God nods and looks away from the window. I follow god.

"What are you going to do with that cigarette?" god asks me. I realize I was still holding father's unfinished cigarette. It had grown tiny now, and was close to burning my hand.

"Smoke it, I guess." I say to god. I slowly put the tiny cigarette between my lips, and inhaled, trying to remember father smoking. God watches me. It tasted terrible. It tasted like coffee, like inhaling coffee, another thing my father liked to consume. I threw the cigarette back on the ashtray.

"That was terrible." I told god who was now looking out the window. I looked out the window, and found that the woman was still there.

"My father needs you, god." I told god. God turned away from the lone woman, and looked at me.

"I know that," god says.

"Tell him you're here, god," I tell god.

"He already knows I am," god told me, "He knows I'm here for him. He can feel it, Luna."

"Then, smoke with my father."

"Something is about to happen to her tonight." god says, pointing outside the window. I look outside and the lone woman is gone. I look next to me. So is god.

I see monsters, I see large tanks, I see everything with menace enter the room but nothing scared me more than hand. I put my hand up, and looked at the traces of shadows on them. I looked at between my fingers. I see god.

***

Father sits calmly on his bed the next time I saw him. It was a Sunday, he was unshaved, unbathed, and was watching out the window with his tired eyes. I brought with me a bowl of cereal, but father had already started his Sunday breakfast. There was a fresh pack of cigarette near his legs. When he saw me, he brought me close to him and I leaned on his shoulders. This time father wasn't looking down, but looking at the sky. This time, we ignored the sounds of the traffic, the honking cars, the yelling vendors, the policeman's whistle, and all the people, the faceless people that add their shuffling feet, their coughs, their short conversations; we ignored them all, and watched the sky above them.

"I heard god came to visit," Father whispered to me.

"Yeah, he did." I told him.

Father leaned in close to me, his unshaved chin tickling my cheeks.

"Are you okay, dad?" I ask my father.

"I heard god came to visit," He repeated.

"Yes dad, he did," I said to him again, patting his shoulders. "Dad?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Does god...feel human? Can he see our suffering?"

"He sees our suffering, Luna. He sees them, of course." Father said to me. He looks up at the cloudless sky again, his eyes bloodshot.

"Are you tired of the street, dad?" I ask him. He looks at me.

"No. Maybe," He says to me, "Do you ever get tired of the street Luna?"

"If you do, I do." I told him. He smiles in amusement. I wonder what god said to her. I imagined father thinking.

"Let's leave." I told my tired father. He looked at me with no expression.

"Leave where?"

"Let's just leave. Leave this house, leave mother. Leave the window."

"But what about god?"

"God will visit." I told him.

But father just looks out the window, at the sky, as if looking at his silent promise of never leaving the house, never leaving the window, and never leaving god. And I finally realize all this. Father will never leave.

The house divided into two, the room cluttered with the broken computer, the shelves, the books, the heart-wrenching little bed, the large window that father sits in everyday is him. This whole window is father. This window lets father looks out, sees out, it lets him experience without him actually having to experience. This window helps him feel alive, when in fact, he is not. He looks at me, in despair, understanding that I have only understood, and inhales his cigarette.

"But what about god?" He asks me again, picking up his second cigarette from the pack.

"It's okay, dad. We don't have to leave. We can stay and look out the window." I told him.

"That would be good." He says. He moves his gaze to the street. "I would like that."

I sit next to father.

"Would you like to hear my visit with god?" I ask him. He looked at me and nods.

***

Downstairs, mother was packing; packing up her clothes, her books, her plates and her past -- stuffing them into large boxes by the door, deciding which to take with her, deciding which to leave, which to throw out. Mother was not appropriately dressed for once, in fact, she looked unbathed.

A few days before, mother had taken a day off from work, bringing with him a tall, rather smug man named Bob home. Mother liked tall, smug men and brought a few home occasionally. They were different than dad. Dad wasn't tall. Dad wasn't smug. But this time, this tall, smug man did not desecrate my mother, but desecrated my house.

"He's interested in buying this house, Luna." Mother whispered to me, "Don't mess this up for me."

Smugly, Bob walked around the house in authority, as if it was already his, as if we were the visitors. He entered the house repeatedly, checking for "first impressions" the house would bring to visitors; he then proceeded to look in the guest house filled with boxes never unpacked and boxes forgotten from mother and father's youthful days, look in mother's room that was the neatest room in the whole house; look in the living room, the dining room, the kitchen to which all brought him a satisfied, smug smile, bringing mother a grateful, relieved sigh. Only after they had coffee in the dining room mother had offered him, he realized the presence of other people living in the house.

"Hello there." He said to me. Smug, satisfied smile.

"Do you smoke?" I ask him. He gave me an amused look, mother a warning one.

"No, smoking is bad for you." He said in a patronizing tone, I'm healthy as a clam, as you can see."

"That's too bad. If you smoked, maybe you'll see god upstairs." My mother shot me another look, then turned back to smug, satisfied Bob who were out of words.

"What's upstairs?" Bob asked my mother.

"Oh, um, a storage room, or you can use it as a study. If you furnish it, it's big enough for a room."

"I would like to see it."

"Oh, I would show you --but, my ex-husband has the key, and he's out."

Father was upstairs.

"That's alright, then. Next time." Bob showed his smug, satisfied grin.

"Yeah. Next time." I tell him and went up before they could say anything else and when I went downstairs mother said she had agreed with Bob's offer and we could leave as soon as possible, in a smug, satisfied look that looked a lot like Bob's and past smug, tall men's looks. Mother turned away from her boxes and looked at me as I went down the stairs.

"Will you help me pack?" She asks me.

"No." I tell her.

"Why not?" She asked again.

"God told me not to." I tell her. Upstairs, father hasn't packed and the room stayed as it should be, chaotic but silent, books cluttered in the floor, the computer whirring, the window open, smoke blowing out, and my father looking at the empty boxes, and feeling nothing, and everything.

***

On the last Sunday at the house, I brought cereals for me and a fresh carton of cigarette for my father. Father was still curled up in his small bed, his arms covering his face, the small rag substituted as a blanket covering his body, his feet poking out in misery. The sun wasn't entirely up yet, but light was streaming in the dark room and father looked peaceful, serene. The window was still closed, and I maneuvered a way to get closer to the window without waking up father. Cars had begun exiting houses, a few motorbikes had started crowding the street, but the bus hasn't arrived yet, and there were only a few people on the bus station.

"Wake up, dad." I shook my father. He woke up soundlessly and looked at me.

"It's time." I told him. Father opened the window, and welcomed the sound of morning traffic. People just waking up and people just turning up. Slowly, sunlight streamed in, shining the outlines of father's tired face. We stayed in the shadows though. Him, leaning on the wall, and me, next to him.

"This is the one morning I hate." He said slowly, as if he's trying to understand himself what he's saying.

"This is one morning I hate too." I told him. I love you, dad. I told him silently. I love you too, he said to me. It was a beautiful morning, it was not a morning of last days, last nights, last meets, last goodbyes. It was a morning of firsts, and this morning was lost, this morning came at the wrong time, this morning was not supposed to come. We passed the morning silently, doing our last nothing. I ate my cereal and finished it, father finished his pack of cigarette and opened the one I got for him. Both of us were tired and wanted to sleep but it was a funeral, and you don't sleep for the dead. The day came, and passed soon, as it is usually for morning of firsts.

"I wish god was here." Dad said, in frustration. He looked up the changing sky. It was beginning to be dark, and the people we bid goodbye to this morning were bidding silent goodbyes to us now.

"He is here, dad." I told him.

"Where? Show me, Luna."

"In my cereal, in your pillow, in your blankets, in the broken computer, the scattered books, in the bus, in the street, the cars, in the empty spaces, in air, in the window, in your cigarette, in the smoke blowing out." "God, are you there?" He said to the room. His voice echoed, and god didn't answer.

"You don't have to see him. You just have to feel him. He's in everything." I told him. My dad understood, but he needed something. He needed something to be angry at, to cry at, to feel at. When night came, I showed father what I did when god appeared. Father and I lied down in his small bed, his legs crooked, mine not. We laid shoulder to shoulder, our arms stretched up, the window open, bringing noises and dust and human touch and light and shadows and we looked at the reflecting lights at the ceiling and our arm silhouettes. I showed father how the world looked different between our fingers. It was softer, more fragile, subtle, and you could only see little peeks --little, beautiful peeks. Father nodded and I nodded and we fell asleep.

"If you ever see god again, Luna. Tell him to say hello to me, occasionally, tell him to take care of you. And tell him, if ever he wants to visit, I'll be here, always, and I'll offer him a cigarette, and I will, happily, smoke with him."

Then we fell asleep, looking at the world between our fingers. Looking at god, between our fingers.

***

This all was 10 years ago. I am now 22 years old and working; mother, unbelievably is still working and going home early in the morning. Father died from a brain aneurysm five years ago at his office. His funeral was small, and mother cried.

I once visited my old house that is now a local dry-cleaning place. They kept the original structure of the house, but changed some things: the garden where I took my first steps are now paved over and the second floor is boarded up. The first floor remained; stranger's dirty clothes occupied my mother's old room, and stranger's clean clothes occupied the guest room, the kitchen is now not a kitchen but the washer and dryer room, and our living room where mother, father, and I parted, is now a waiting area with plastic chairs. The house smell was gone, and all I could smell were soap suds from the machines, and the worker's cheap perfume.

The whole house made me cry in my car.

At times --usually at night, when I feel lonely and miss my father I drive by the house, deciding to myself not enter the house again. I drive by repeatedly, trying to remember the house it used to be, the memories it used to hold, the smell it used to have, the happiness, the sadness it used to bring but then remember again that all of those have been paved over. But then, I look up the second floor and see the window, my father's window and saw, the old yellowing newspaper and promotional stickers disappear, and father is there, and he's not alone. I could see father smoking with god, the smoke blowing out the open window into the cool night air, the both of them looking down and contemplating the beauty of the night.

And I stop crying, and go home; remembering always, that everything I say, everything I do will make a noise that will be heard by father, and the light that I make will be seen by father, father up there, and it will be beautiful. I know, because I have seen father, smoking with god. And that, was beautiful.

18 June, 2009

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