Hello World

Time surely passes by quickly the less you think about it. To be really honest I stopped counting a long while ago, 17 years ago to be exact. The moment they took out my dad's burnt corpse out and placed him inside a black plastic bag, I stopped caring what day it is or how long it has been.

My name is Lucille Elizabeth Lewis. And I miss my father terribly.

Every day I would come by his grave and I would talk as if he's still there. I had never once forgotten to do so. Come storm or snow, nothing would separate me from wishing that he'd still be alive. A lot of people come to me and told me that I should let it go and move on with my life, but I couldn't. I won't leave this town for anything in this world because my father is here. As long as he's close to me, I would make it in this world, even if it means I won't see or experience what people had called 'life' outside the borders of my small town of Toucan.

My mother is a bitch. I hated her more every time I remembered my father, and that would only mean I hate her every single second of my life. As I remember it, she cheated on my father with the son of her own friend, which is pathetic and disgusting considering how selfish she became when father confronted her about it. No speck of remorse, no guilt, no hesitation. She was the reason why he always stayed at the fire department. He hated the sight of her. So much that he would only see me after school or when I do come by and visit him there. He hated her so much, he wouldn't even come home to see me.

As a result my childhood has been spent mostly near the fire brigade, where my father would see me do my homework on the floor by his bunk bed, sharing his measly meal with me because mother would forget to feed me (too busy fucking her boyfriend to remember she had a child), and sometimes sleep there with him when mother starts being an alcoholic.

I had never been the clever one in school. My grades are average, and though I long to go and study in the big cities outside of this God-forsaken town nicknamed Toucan, I hated the fact that I simply couldn't do any better. Father, before he perished on duty trying to save a woman in her house, kept reassuring me that it's okay that I'm not doing so well compared to other bright students in school, just as long as I never stop trying my best in anything I do, and to be resilient.

Resilient. That's a fairly huge word for a five-year old.

It became clearer to me as I grow up into the seemingly friendly Lucy Lewis of Toucan, the 'girl-next-door' that'd always lend you a hand whenever she could, the funny and cheerful daughter of a town hero -- that resilience takes years to master. To hide it is another story altogether, though very much connected, these two.

You see I never really believed my father died in that fire years ago by accident. I knew something is up, and I knew people are hiding it from me. I spent a few years of my life here trying to push these people into talking to me, and that leads me to nowhere but pain inside of my heart listening to the same lies over and over again like a broken tape recorder. "Quincy Lewis was caught inside the house when the ceiling falls down from the fire, and we tried hard to get him out of there but he couldn't make it."

So I changed my strategy. It's wondrous how people forgive and forget. An angsty bitter girl slowly turning a new leaf, becoming a better person ever so slowly, blossoming into a lady.

This facade has been going on for years, and I had been lucky to be born very, very patient. Tomorrow a new chapter unfolds for me.