However, all that changed when Lora came along. From the first moment he stared into her scintillating eyes, he felt himself leap with bliss. For the first time, his time frame was wholly committed to and
centered on someone other than himself. Such feeling surpassed all that he underwent and hence was enough
to keep him interested for quite a while.
The unfortunate problem, like all the things that went past him, was that he eventually succumbed
to his urge to escape, from the shackles that bound him under the name of a family, and from the chains of
responsibility to make decisions in deference to his family’s needs not his own. Individuality, to Lewis, proved
to be an intoxicating disease in the year Lora turned 17. After a night of blustering sputters and outbursts of
anger, the couple broke off, leaving an innocent girl with the ineffable shattering of her heart.
With alcohol of various kinds circulating the innermost vessels of his body, nostalgia came easily
to Lewis, blinding him of his irrationality. Having noticed his lap top latched under the heel of a drawer, he
dragged it away and into his arms. With mindless audacity, he opened it wide and started typing letters to none
other than his daughter. In his usual, ordinate state, he would have never imagined doing such thing, but now,
driven by loneliness, despair, he typed, typed, and typed. As night turned more obscure, so did his vision. The
sight of the monitor, along with the mortifying memory of pleading reconciliation with his own daughter,
blurred and faded into the obscurity.
Few months have passed since then. During those months, Lewis did not concern himself with the
mail that she sent nor with anything that happened on the very night. His memory was vague and hazy, and the
remaining fragments were enough to put together to bring back any substantial clues as to what action he has
committed. Thus, when Lora’s response popped up in the middle of his computer screen, astonishment was his
only option of response. But as he slowly brooded over what had happened just now, he found himself inadvertently flashing a look of content at the monitor. With fingers trembling, nerves rattling, every muscle contracted, he cautiously reached for the enter key that will presumably be a sanguine response from his daughter
acceding to his re-proposal of a family.
However, the mail wasn’t at all what I expected. It seemed to be some sort of a bill notice with a list
of products that I purchased back in the day. Some of the items were as follows;
Diapers (age 0~2) $3600 +
Bicycle (7) $109 +
a set of headphones (11) $58 +
my first car (16) $12000 +
(and so on)
minus (-)
the heart rendering pain of losing a beloved father
=0
At the end of the list,
in the bottom right corner, it read,
“Sir, you and I are now clean. We owe nothing to each other. So, please, for the love of god, do not
contact me again.”
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