Family Short Story – The Father and Son
Photo credit: rachjose from morguefile.com
Larry Geller, son of Jon Geller was planning a visit to the Andaman islands with his father on his birthday. His father was going to be seventy years old. Larry had endearment towards his father that grew with age. He felt himself attached to his father as his mother died when he was a tot. He dreamt of becoming like his father someday. Jon had served in the army and the sturdy conditions that he faced had made him all the more rough.
‘Everything is done, I have done all the packing. We are ready to go’, said Larry. They wanted this trip to be an exhilarating one and decided not to tell anyone about it. They went to the Kingstown port and took a ship for the Andamans. As it was 1889, no airplanes were there to make their trip congenial.
‘Good morning, sir’, said one of the crewmen. ‘Good morning’, said Larry and Jon. ‘Could you please tell me our room number’, said Larry. ‘Sure sir. Let me check a vacant room… OK room number 21 will be perfect. Let me take you both to your cabin. It is one of the best and spacious room of all’, he said, opening the door of the room. ‘I hope you both will like it and if you need anything, I’ll be there.’
In the night, Larry and Jon were lying on their beds in their cabin after attending a grandeur dinner in the main hall. ‘I wish your mother was here. She always wanted to travel by the ship’, said Jon. ‘Yes, I too wish she was here. But the life is never like the way you want it to be. We all are the puppets of Him and our lives are hegemonize by him. Well, we can’t do anything about it, so lets sleep.’
In the midst of the night when these two birds were far asleep, a person hammered the father and son’s cabin door. ‘Run! Run!, the fire broke up in the ship’, he shouted. Larry woke up first, only to see their cabin converted into a furnace. He wobbled his father, wanting to ignore the slight possibility of his death due to asphyxia. Jon woke up. Larry took his hand and made his way through the smoke. All the lifeboats were over and the flames were coming nearer. The flames looked like a lion’s paw, inside a frangible cage, only wanting to come outside to devour its prey. The father and the son had no choice, so they jumped hundred feet below in biting water, but the danger was not over. The icy cold water reduced the circulation of blood in their limbs and they were unable to swim.
It seemed as if God felt pity for his children as Jon found a broken wooden piece of the ship. The daybreak brought some ease for the father and the son, as now the darkness had closed her doors.
‘Look father’, Larry pointed at the red marks that developed on their bodies. Their whole bodies were wrinkled and Jon knew that the end is approaching. ‘An island! An island!’, shouted Larry. Both of them swam as hard as they could gushing the sea water as if a race is going on and both of them are competing against each other to win. Though Larry ended up getting first, but then also Jon was not envied as both of them are safe now.
Jon and Larry wandered through the island to find something to eat but their endeavour was of no use. The night came. Jon lit a fire to keep the wild animals away. Seeing the fire reaching up the dark sky, he had a glimpse of his dead wife. Larry found the tears in his eyes and dried them up. ‘You are missing mother, right?’, said Larry with a quivering voice, which clearly showed that he was about to cry but didn’t want his father to know about it.
‘Your mother was a beautiful lady. For me, it seemed as if God had entrusted each and every charm of this alluring universe upon her’, said Jon full of tears. Larry hugged his father as he too was unable to hide his tears.
The night was becoming all the more dark and the stars one by one disappeared behind the clouds. It seemed as if the earth drew the weary eyelids upon the tired eyes. The game of life and death began again, the thunderstorm grew colossal. They reached the shore and searched for any ship which could make their way back home, but all they could see was sea; the fierce sea. Though Larry knew that his father was on the verge of death, yet in his heart he believed that a single ship, the last ship of the universe will come to the shore to take them, maybe to the heavens where he along with his father and mother will live happily ever after, just like the ending of a fairy tale.
The rain started pouring again, the wind started blowing again, just like before. People believe or not that the earth is round, but for them it was. The father died first and then the son and again the glimpse of the dead wife was seen. It seemed as if the wife called them to her as she wanted to stay with them once again. All stories don’t have happy endings.
–END–
