To Every Man’s House who Became Father

The Short Story by Nanoq da Kansas

“Has dad ever thought that is dad appropriate to be called as a hero for us?” suddenly my five children asked me together. They asked me that question when I was relaxing, enjoying shiny evening weather at the back garden of our simple house, on an antique rocking chair given by one of my son in law, in the middle of green grasses, between a lot of clump trees arranged neatly, in the north west corner of the small pond made by a famous gardener in our town.

I was surprised. Astonished looking at their lips stuck beautifully in my children’s face from the oldest to the youngest. I was surprised by their togetherness. It was the first time they looked out me as compact as this. Previously, they never did it. Previously, I didn’t know.

I looked at them one by one, that three handsome faces and that two beautiful faces. Here they were. Five generations for continuing my life who were handsome and beautiful. Five persons as the result of me and my wife’ love, who now become persons with their own job and status, even who have given me some funny and naughty grandchildren. Here they were, my five children who at the moment looked at me and for the first time asked me: “Has dad ever thought, that is dad appropriate to be called as a hero for us?” damn! They forced me. Forcing me to the vaguest corner in my skull. Pressing my body into the place without dimension in my chest. Damn! I narrowed my eyes, tried to think.

All this time, what had I done and given to them? I loved my wife, then they were born one by one. Then my wife and I look after them, grew them up as the other parents did. My wife and I grew them up with all normal things, plain, something that flew based on the beat of the life that we found, that we walked on.

My wife and I had grown up the children in a family that I thought it was normal and like what a truly family was. If I thought they were wrong, I warned them. If I thought they were naughty, I scolded to them. Beating their bottom or tweaking their ears, once punishing them to stand looked out the wall for tens minutes. I praised or gave them reward for something that made them appropriate to receive it. Inviting them to make some jokes, discussing, having different opinion, or agreeing a case or asking them to forget the things that should be forgotten. I invited them to do jobs that they should do.

Swear! I really felt I had given everything to them, to my children. Inviting them to walk on and enjoy this life from drops of the most pain of my sweat to the most famous of my prosperity in my life history. Even I had given my blood and marrow to them. My breath. My soul. My love. My love and affection. My inner self. My weakness. My madness. My everything.

And at the moment, suddenly they came together with compact lips asked me: “Has dad ever thought that is dad appropriate to be called as a hero for us?”

Damn! How sweet they were when they utter those words. How simple their facial expression when they bombarded that question precisely on my forehead. And suddenly how dim the sky on my head. I didn’t understand, why suddenly I felt they pushed me to the vaguest corner in my experience. Why suddenly I felt under pressure in a place without dimension.

My eyes glittered. Perhaps I was little bit tired. And they, my five children, did not yet move from my face. They still waited. Instead, they seemed to have more desire of the answer from my mouth. In a vague glance, I looked at them did not blink their eyes looking out me. Even their breath was felt touching my chick and coming out at my nape. I closed my eyes. The rocking chair was felt moving by itself. Swinging my body and my feeling.

I didn’t know how long, I was speechless. Then I felt their hands, my children’s hands began to be impatient. They began shaking my body. And their lips still repeated the same question: “Has dad ever thought that is dad appropriate to be called as a hero for us?”

I narrowed my eyelid. Then slowly I felt those hands began scratching my body. Firstly they gouged out my eyelid with their index fingers, then they pried my mouth with all their fingers. Then those hands move to my chest. Those strong hands and smooth hands began pulling my stomach skin and also my rib, opening all of my thoracic cavity widely. They scraped there continuously. Kept on seeking more curiously. The longer the time, those hands were more uncontrolled. And then their breaths changed into bellow of a creature that I never knew it before. But I was still speechless. I still ……

Perhaps my face, my chest, my stomach, my head and all of my body had been messed up by them when I let myself flew slowly from the rocking chair. I flew leaving them. Leaving the clump trees, the green grasses, the small pond…., and quietly I flew to every man’s house that became father.***

bali in a twilight.
for the late wayan mandra, my father,
who had taught the simple life and love for us, his children.

translated from indonesian fisrt by yudi ariani