Round One: Watched
Round Two: Watched 2
Round Three: Watched 3
"Stop snoring!"
The pen wanted to shout at the writer as he fell asleep seated in his sofa chair while watching television.
A pen is just a pen. It can't do anything, but be used if not empty with ink. Feeling itself full, an idea clicked in the pen's head. Well, that lower part which is the pen's point as if it is the head, and in the head lies the brain. Something like that, as the pen thinks.
The writer was holding a pen and with blank papers with him. He was about to write something while watching a favorite television program, when out of nothing he fell asleep and snored. So the pen took advantage.
"Before anything else, I will watch what's the latest news this morning."
That was the old man, the taxi driver's mind speaking to him as soon as he arrived home. After the robbery he suffered, he was given a day's off again by the office manager.
He looked at his hand watch and realized it was half an hour past midday. He threw himself onto the sofa in the living room to rest and watch television.
He, too, like the writer, fell asleep minutes after sitting himself with his feet lifted to extend his legs and had them land on top the low raised table in front of the sofa. He was snoring.
"Oh, these men!"
It was the pen complaining, annoyed to hear both men snoring while it was writing their stories. But it continued writing.
After an hour, the house entrance door opened. The old man seemed to be tired that he did not realize someone entered. It was his daughter, back from school.
As she came in, she saw her dad asleep and snoring loud while the television news was going on.
"Oh, dad."
She locked the door and went to kiss her dad on his forehead and sit herself beside him after leaving her school bag on another chair.
As she lifted her father's arms to hang it on her shoulder, he woke up. He just opened his eyes. He saw his daughter beside him, hugging him with her arms around his beltline and his left arm placed on the back of her.
"Hello dad."
His daughter greeted him.
"Hello dear."
Her father responded as he hugged her too.
He went back sleeping while hugging his daughter, but the television screen suddenly showed a car tumbling round several times in a car accident, yet the news was saying no one was hurt. It was a miracle.
"Just like what happened to us. Remember father?"
His daughter released herself from his arms and gleefully started to recount a past event.
"Remember what happened with our first owned car? That yellow, four door car with the trunk included at the back?"
She reminded her father as he was straightening himself, putting down his feet from the living room set table.
"That is exactly what crosses my mind."
Her father nodded, twisting his closed lips to a side as if not really wanting to remember the event.
His daughter laughed out loud in memory of the accident.
"Remember when you just started to learn to drive a car?"
He was just half listening to the television news. He was seeing a man with a teenage daughter being interviewed, while his ears were paying more attention to his daughter's recount.
"You refused to have a formal study in driving, so mommy would not trust you to drive her car. But you managed to get the car keys to take me to school."
His daughter was talking with amusement, while he was with a serious face. He just nodded.
"You were going to arrive late at school and you would have an important exam, because the driver has not arrived yet to take you to school."
He looked at his daughter to give his part of the recount.
"You remember dad!"
His daughter's eyes rejoiced at his contribution. Then passed her look to the television then back to him.
"And the same thing happened."
She continued as he agreed. She grabbed her father's hand to console him as she could see sadness in his eyes.
"But Father, it was a miracle! Our car turned around as we were bumped by a fast approaching car from the other side of the road lane and they had a break problem. Fortunately there were not any cars too close behind us.
Her father was quiet. He did not say anything but just kept his eyes on the television screen. So she stopped, got serious and hugged her father.
"Oh father. It was over. It was past. It was not your fault. It was the other car's fault and they recognized it."
She assured her father then released him again from her arms after something came back to her mind again.
"And it was Mike Bilbao! One of my favorite basketball players at that time!"
And she started to laugh with heartfelt joy.
"It wasn't him."
Her father disagreed.
"It was him!"
She insisted.
"He looked like him."
Her father argued.
They both stopped for a minute. Then her father spoke again.
"Well, you seemed to have found something good from that experience."
The old man looked at his daughter, relieved of something, maybe guilt.
"Yes dad. It was a miracle. I wasn't afraid, remember?"
Her father reached to her and hugged her tightly.
"Yes, you were not. You amazed me. I asked you how you were and you just laughed saying what was that."
He kissed the hair of his daughter then released her. His daughter looked straight to his eyes.
"Dad, it was not your fault.Neither your fault if I would have died, because I was sure you would follow me. We both know, mom would kill you if you would have survived."
Then both of them laughed loud together agreeing to each other while their minds were imagining the mother and wife. It was a very hearty laugh they shared that the old man's tightened muscles out of tensions suddenly relaxed themselves.
"Exactly what she told me after I confessed to her."
Her father added and hugged his daughter again.
"God always watches us. He is the Eye in the Sky that truly looks over the earth."
She said to her father warmly.
The old man felt lucky enough, after all, with his daughter, the only woman in his life after his wife died years ago due to cancer.
"I am glad you still remember that most important thing I have told you after that accident."
His daughter looked at him and smiled as she heard those words from him.
"You told me to write it on the rock of my head. It is still craved in there."
Since his daughter told him so, he gave a hand knock on her head and asked.
"Are you there? Knock! Knock!"
Both laughed hard that the writer suddenly woke up from his dreams, realizing people on his television screen were laughing. He looked at his blank papers and they were not blank anymore. He checked his pen. No more ink. Again.
(c) bbayonito20/bethbciar
