• The following links are links to prior chapters:

    Death is no joke: http://gaiaonline.com/arena/writing/fiction/vote/?entry_id=100410509
    Death is no joke-part 2: http://gaiaonline.com/arena/writing/fiction/vote/?entry_id=100411039
    Death is no joke-part 3: http://gaiaonline.com/arena/writing/fiction/vote/?entry_id=100447527












    I remember grasping my father's hands in a small chapel, looking at his emotionless face. It was pale. But of course it was. He was dead, after all.

    "Father..." I started, and then choked. I let go of my father's hands, shook my head, and left.

    My father was buried next to my great-grand parents. His grave was a large cross, and inscribed on it was one of Shakespeare's famous sayings:

    "All the world's a stage,

    and all the men and women merely players:

    they have their exits and their entrances;

    and one man in his time plays many parts..."

    I looked at the grave. Did Shakespeare know what it was like to go through a death? "they have their exits and their entrances"...could anyone possibly be so calm towards death?

    As our pastor stepped on the altar and started to end the burial service, I was wondering. Wondering, what next? Who was I going to live with? Who else was to be murdered in my life? And then, I thought something. After all the movies I've watched, with all the guns and the killing, I think of something. Death is no joke. No matter who the person is, you can't laugh at death.

    The judge lended me over to my grand parents. My grand parents were nice and all, but oldies, sticking close to their traditions. They wouldn't buy me anything "high tech", because when they were my age...Anyway, in the end, I only got to bring some of my own "high tech" stuff.

    But that was all five years ago. I'm 15 now, and I'm still living with my grand parents. I visit my mother a lot, as if waiting for some miacle to happen, and then my mother would be revived, and I could live with her. Like your typical "happily ever after" story. But my mother hadn't moved one bit since the day of the murder. Not the single twitch. I heard that sometimes, if you read a story to the person in the coma, it might spark some life into them. I started reading Winnie the Pooh, her childhood favorite book. I could only hope that she was listening.

    If you think that the death of my father is the only thing on my mind, it's not. I live a pretty normal life. I have a girlfriend, well, at least I'm interested in a particular girl. Not quite sure if she's interested in me. I have friends, I study for exams, I laugh, I talk, I hang out. That's not to say I still don't think of my parents. I was scarred, and no matter how hard you try, scars will not go away. They may tame down, but they never go away. You can cover scars up, but they're still there, you just can't see them.

    There was really only one thing keeping me up at night. The murderer himself. The police haven't caught him yet. They have comfirmed, though, from the ballistics markings on the bullets, that it was a .38 pistol. They say it's a rare find, and not many people have it. I think they know who the criminal is, because I told him his name was Frank, and how many Franks have a .38 pistol?

    But what worries me is the fact that murderers like to kill witnesses, and I think he saw me watching, he just didn't shoot. But why was he waiting so long?

    There was another thing. What was the connection with my father and Frank? It boggled my mind that my father, a buisness man, could have any sort of connection with a random bum on the street. I decided to put all my questions to rest. No sense in worrying about the innevitable. No sense wondering about the past.

    To Be Continued...