Something was missing

Something was missing / Edna Aphek 2005

Ofra was climbing the staircase. The big empty house behind her.
She could not figure out where her mother and brother went, and why they left her
home, all by herself.They rarely left her alone in the big house , but it was daytime, and she thought it might be OK.

They had been acting rather strangely for the last few days, and hardly answered any of her many questions. She was still mad at them for not allowing her to go to the school play the other night, and no explanation!

Ofra was still climbing the stairs.
The flowers on both sides looked tired and unattended .
It was like that since her father went to the hospital.

Ofra was still climbing the stairs on her way to the street.
She didn't know why her mother didn't let her go to school today and why her older brother was all of a sudden so nice to her and didn't beat her as he used to.

She looked again at the flowers. She could see the weeds strangling the flowers.
"Daddy will really get upset, when he sees this, she thought.
Another thought gnawed at her : "what if there is a snake under the weeds?

Ofra was climbing the stairs. She was leaving the big empty house behind her.
Ofra was standing on the top stair entering the street.
Someone must have put a big notice on the fence, last night.
Ofra was curious.

She reached the gate. She opened the gate. It screeched.
"I'll tell daddy to grease it, she said.She left the gate open.
"No need to close it", she told herself, "the last dog I had never came back".

Ofra was now standing on the sidewalk. She looked at the fence and the big notice on it.
She started to read the notice. It was framed in black.
She was a good reader and won many prizes at the reading contests in school.

Ofra was trying to read the black framed notice .The letters were flying all over her.
She could not connect the letters so as to make out the words. It was all dots and specks.

Ofra was trying to read.
Her head was empty. Something was missing. Something was erased.
She felt vacant as adults sometimes do when something terrible happens, but she was only a child.

Something was missing. She could not figure out what it might be, until she realized
It was her father erased from the living.