Alone
My father is gone. Though he was eccentric and prone to colorful rages against the academic world and smelled mildly of fungi, he provided my sister and I with room for imagination, encouragement of free thought, and made fine sausages ? in short I will miss him greatly. The dawn broke to reveal his bed an empty nest of knotted sheets. The flash alarm had worked, but my sister and I must have been so overwhelmed with fatigue that the flash penetrated our eyelids only to be engulfed into our fitful dreams. Now, we are left alone in the northern woods of New Hampshire, in a foreign house, in a cold room, surrounded by my fathers' equipment and the heavy scent of maple syrup.
Despite inquiries and exclamations of concern Molly seems cooly unconcerned by our lack of guardian, instead she insists that our father embarked into the grey morning to walk off the fever of last night. My sister and I exchange a knowing glance ? there is no chance that my father would voluntarily leave our room without his reading glasses, his silver twelve-chime lunar cycle pocket watch, his beloved leather-bound notebook ? or his daughters. Molly skillfully avoided our piercing stares, and instead poked at the dieing embers in the Andes kitchen cook stove. She took great breaths and blew at the embers ? but her eyes were focused somewhere else. Oddly absent from her usual corner was the old women ? in her chair only a matted skein of moth-eaten grey wool.
Confusion and loneliness can be overwhelming emotions, but they are a poor excuse for bad manners. We ate our plates of pancakes that steamed into the cool kitchen air and set about silently devising the retrieval of our father.
Composed by Dr. G on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2008
Gentle Reader Responses
Tara says:
That Molly is definitely acting in a suspicious manner... Keep an eye on her. And *where* is her mother??!!! (I don't think that these two disappearances are unrelated!)
Be careful girls. I worry for you. If he does not show up soon, you can always contact me and I will wire you enough money to come stay with me in Seattle. Indefinitely, if necessary!
Loryienne says:
The suspense is unbearable!
Mercy please, Dr. Galubrious and daughters.
Rosemary Renlund says:
Dear mistresses Galubrious, take the greatest care; some mischief is certainly afoot.
Would that I could express more, but I can say this: the moth-eaten wool is not trivial.
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