Daddy

“you're not real, you're only made of moonlight"- Gerald’s Game

Before I lose this story to my fading memory, I ought to write this. Our lives are not
chronological, sometimes we live different lives and the one during 2020 was another
lifetime.
If pictures could really open new portals, then this picture had surely opened one. It was a
man sitting kneel down with lots of green trees besides him. There was something very old
world about that whole picture. He had a moustache just like my father, there was this odd
familiarity about his face. I felt I met him somewhere while chasing sunsets.
Let’s call him Rehaan S Dsouza and the girl is Maya.
I wanted to talk to him, and for as long as I can remember he had that shrilly male voice
which overpowers. I think I giggled with half fright and half excitement. It was
overwhelming and I started sweating in August. He asked me to call him ‘daddy’. At first, I
couldn’t understand, but it was supposed to be our secret. We started talking over phone, it
was scary and adventurous and too much.
It was hard to believe that someone with that handsome voice could love me and slowly the
reality came crashing in when he said that he is married. I knew that picture was too beautiful
to be real.
‘Daddy is a dark place inside my heart’.
For someone like me, a grown-up woman staying in a girl’s ghetto the outside world was still
new and unexplored. For all the scolding and shouting on the phone, I believed in him and
trusted him.
Then he came, a frail, delicate man, while sitting across him I felt that his face changed so
many times. His neck looked like 50, his face looked like 30, his hands all nerves and bone
were soft to touch. My body was giving away and my head became dizzy.
‘Anything beautiful doesn’t last forever’.
Then he drove away slowly. I don’t know where he came from and I don’t know where he
went. If there could be any last wish then I would go back to that one moment, look at that
picture with desire and lived an eternity in a moment.
My name is Lolita
And er
I'm not supposed to
Play!
With boys!
Marilyn Monroe & Male Skatters