Death comes as a shock to everyone, even though we know it's a part of life. But when someone dies, the world does not only end for that person but for other people who were close to that person as well. This story is a metaphor for the shattering of the world of one person.
He was the greatest man I had ever known. Even after thirteen years, when strangers come up to our house asking for him and giving accounts of how he helped them the other day, I become more sure of never meeting or knowing anyone like him ever in my life again. Where he is, I do not know. The only thing I know about him is he will never come back in this lifetime. As I lay on my couch, arriving back from school, tired, my mind often drifts to these thoughts. Then suddenly, I am reminded I am a seven-year-old returning back from school. I have been a seven-year-old, not only today but every day since.
That day, between my house and where I was standing, there was an old abandoned house before which I stopped. Built of brick walls and having a black rusty decor in windows and door locks, it usually gave vibes of some ghosts living in it. Meowing of cats coming from the house often reminded my friends and me of horror movies. Even though I was always afraid to go near the house, that day, it felt as if the house was pulling me towards it.
“What force could it be?” I inquired to myself and began taking small steps towards the house when suddenly I heard my best friend’s voice.
“Do not go there. Do not go there!”
“Why? What’s the problem?” I inquired loudly.
“There are ghosts. So many of them. Hasn’t your mother warned you?”
“Mother?”
Since I had lost my mother at a young age, I did not know how mothers warned their children. For me, it had always been my uncle. I usually used to play, read stories out loud, and color yellow paint on my sunflowers with him. I had my grandmother with me, but she never really understood my goofiness. Therefore, my uncle had always been my go-to person. After a few days, however, I lost touch with him. Where he was, I did not know. I had seen some policemen outside my home while leaving for school that morning, but what was it for I did not try to inquire. I had been in my own world for some days, not really missing my uncle as much. He had a habit of vanishing and reappearing from time to time. This time, I had an intent to never speak to him or at least give him a hard time before rekindling my relationship with him.
With these thoughts, I entered the abandoned house that evening. No one had dared to set foot in that place. After thirteen years, I still wish I had not dared entered the house that evening. I could not have imagined seeing my uncle hanging even in my dreams, but that day, everything happened quickly. I shouted. People came out of their houses, Policemen came, and suddenly, he was put in a box one day, and everything stopped. But one thing that has not stopped is my routine of coming back from school every day and entering the same old abandoned house again and again. When I leave for school every morning, I pass a four-story white building that has been built in that place. But after I arrive from school, I enter the same old brick house with rusty door latches and window shields. And I feel like I will never stop entering the abandoned house in this lifetime.
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