The Search

Is published in Loss Lifespan Vol. 9 which is the latest anthology project by Pure Slush, featuring a collection of stories from various authors. The anthology showcases a diverse range of writing styles and themes, providing readers with an engaging and thought-provoking reading experience. As a contributor to this project, I am thrilled to be a part of this exciting anthology.

I traipse through the mud wishing I’d worn different shoes, wellies perhaps. But I’d no idea the alarm would be raised so quickly. Sometimes my father could go days without a visitor. The social worker visits Tuesdays and Thursdays and today is Saturday.

Luckily, the woman from the adjacent bungalow had called to question him about why EXACTLY his bin had remained uncollected from the end of the path for an entire day. Rosie? Rosemary? I try to bring her name to mind, but all I can picture is her barely concealed snout protruding from her starched white net curtains. Rosaline, maybe.

“Your father is missing,” the disembodied voice had told me over the phone.

Missing? My initial feeling was panic, swiftly followed by relief. My cheeks flush with shame.

Brambles scratch at the exposed skin between the bottom of my shorts and the top of my socks; I push aside the worst of the undergrowth with a stick. I’m surprised so many people have turned out for the search. Covering my eyes with my hand, I count twelve bowed heads, all scrambling in the scrub for any sign of my missing father.

The woodland backs onto the assisted living complex and, shortly after Rosaline had alerted the warden, the search had begun. A picture of him had been quickly photocopied and handed out to the swarm of volunteers. I overheard one of them say, “We must find this poor old man.”

I can’t quite reconcile with the fact my dad is old. At six foot three and seventeen stone, he’d towered above me all my life. I’d never grown big enough to fill his shadow and he’s never let me cast my own.

Now he’s 81 and his tongue is as sharp as ever. If anything, the belittling remarks had become more frequent in the past few years. More than the, “You a man or a mouse, Lad?” or “You ever going to grow into those ears?” which had been the soundtrack to my formative years. Now, his comments were crueller, digs about my life’s unyieldingly flat stomach. “No lead in your pencil, Lad?”

I shake the thoughts away and focus my attention on the task at hand. We’ve all been given a designated search area and mine is complete. I skulk furtively further into the woods, no doubt encroaching on somebody else’s ‘quadrant’.

The day is bright, but the deeper I venture, the less the sun can penetrate. A chill gathers around my shins and I pull my thin jacket closer. It’s gloomier here, so I move slower, probing the undergrowth, my knuckles white around the stick.

I think I see something. I rub my eyes and wait for the shadows to reveal themselves. I look again. A leg, pale and donning a tartan slipper. Dad’s slipper.

“Over here,” I shout.

Movement and voices are closing in. I look before they arrive. My dad is splayed, dead, his accusatory eyes still staring. Right where I left him.