Prodigy
Adeeb was sitting on his bed watching an award show on his laptop when his phone rang to life. The award show was called 'Talent Teens, Talent' from the category 'Can You Write And Create' that happened every year but wasn’t with joy that he watched it...
He grabbed his phone that was resting on the bed beside him and answered it, during that, he plucked an earphone out of his left ear to place the phone on it to listen to the call. He tsked when he saw the contact name of the person on the line. “You can’t wait for a single day, can you?” he said while looking at the phone's screen with a sour taste. Nevertheless, he still answered. “Hello?” he asked.
“Adeeb,” a thick fat voice rang in his ear. It was his landlord. “Where in the world are you? You’re late on giving rent.”
“I understand,” Adeeb answered. He would have liked to answer in a different way but held his tongue. “I had exams this week, so I was unable to come over and pay you.”
“Just pay me the rent,” the landlord bellowed, “or I’m throwing your things out of that house. Why do you even still pay the rent when you're not even there most of the time? You don’t live there anymore. Just cut your contract with that house so I can get people who actually need a place to live."
You don’t understand, Adeeb thought. That house means more to me than your rent. Just take your money and shut up. “I will arrive tomorrow to pay you your rent,” Adeeb said, trying to conclude the irritating call.
“You better,” the landlord threatened as he cut the line.
Adeeb sighed and dropped the phone beside him on the bed. He turned his attention back to the laptop screen, putting his earphone back on.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen! The moment you’ve all been waiting for,” a woman in a bright sparkling black dress spoke loudly, hyping up the audience that was clapping and cheering from the front stage, “The best writer of the category 'Can You Write And Create' goes to..." and she said a random name that Adeeb did not pay attention to. What he did pay attention to was "... of 18 years old!"
"Eighteen huh?" Adeeb muttered to himself. The youngest person to win first place was 14 years old and that was 5 years ago... "Guess they won't be throwing in the title of prodigy to anyone else any time soon..."
Having enough of it, he closed his laptop and rested his head on the bed headboard. His eyes closed on their own accord as he thought. "Prodigy, huh? If one really is a prodigy, then how come that person can't write anymore...?" Adeeb asked seemingly to nobody.
The door of his dorm room opened and in came his roommate, eating a bag of chips. "What were you watching there," the roommate asked while pointing to his earphones in his ears.
"Nothing," Adeeb answered while sighing heavily. "Just reliving painful memories..."
After a three-hour train ride from his college city to his home city and a bus ride from the station to his destination, Adeeb stood in front of his house with a look that said little. Visits to his house had been less frequent due to the fact that his years in college became tougher as the semesters progressed, boiling down to returning just to pay rent. Yet, if he could, he would visit more often, for it wasn't the house itself that held meaning to it. It was a particular room inside it...
"Did you bring rent," Adeeb heard a familiar voice question him. He turned around and saw his landlord hobbling down to him in nothing but his torso undergarment and baggy pajamas. "Or do you want your stuff thrown out like I promised I would?" The landlord was always rude, to begin with, so Adeeb ignored it for the most part.
"Here you go," Adeeb said, emptying his pocket and bringing out a stack of notes. The landlord hungrily grabbed it from his hand and started counting, forgetting that Adeeb ever existed at that moment. "Then I'll be in for the night, excuse me," Adeeb said as he headed inside his house, leaving his landlord outside counting papers from the slim stack.
The sound of the key turning on the front door, the creaking of the door as it opened, the sight of the living room being lit up from the orange incandescent bulb, and the sound of footsteps on the carpeted stairs going up; they were all so familiar.
But the sight of his father's desk in his room, where he used to work was nostalgic.
Adeeb stood at the doorway for a minute or so, taking in the flashbacks that always ensued when he entered this room, memories of when he was a child, running around and playing with his toys as his father worked silently and restlessly.
At first, young Adeeb would just enter the room and start playing with his toy. His father wouldn't mind but once Adeeb would make too much noise, his father would stop working, shout a few words at him and kick him out of the room, locking the door and leaving Adeeb alone for an indefinite period of time. Adeeb never cried in retaliation though, for, in his childlike mind, he somehow knew that his father's work was important, hence would just go downstairs and play in the living room all alone.
It all seems like a dream now, Adeeb thought as he approached the desk. The desk itself was made of oak wood with no special features to it. It was a regular table with dust covering the top of it due to it not being used much. Adeeb wiped the dust away with a table cloth, opened the table's drawer, and took out the contents that were inside.
One of the two contents was an old black notebook, its binding barely holding on to the pages as it was quite some years old. Adeeb felt the cover of the notebook and casually flipped through the pages. It had just about two hundred pages and half of it was filled.
"This is the notebook that I wrote my story on..." Adeeb muttered as he set it down on the desk gently. The other of the two contents was the ink pen, being the same age as the book; years old. "And this was the pen I wrote the story with." He flicked the pen between his fingers and laid that on the table as well.
"Prodigy... I'm no prodigy, I'm just someone who got ridiculously lucky, that's all." Adeeb said in a quiet voice, consoling himself.
He casually opened the notebook and flipped to the first page of the story...
Family is something that I cherish, something that I never wanted to lose. So if my mom dies in a car acciden and my dad goes missing, does that mean I didn't cherish my family enough?
"What the hell was I writing?" Adeeb questioned himself, half puzzled by the introduction. Yet, he continued.
I live with my aunt, uncle, and my cousin. They're all very nice people and technically family, but I don't like them as much as my mom and dad. Should I cherish them as well? Am I being selfish for thinking this way?
"That's right... I felt lonely when I decided to write this." As he continued further, his confusion only grew. "Did I... write this?"
My aunt and uncle are always beating me for why I try to run away from home. I always tell them the same thing, "This is not my home" and "I want to see my dad". In response to my pleas, they shout at me and tell me that my father is never coming back. How do they know? They don't... so they have to be lying.
And so Adeeb kept on reading...
At school, children keep bullying. They keep teasing me and telling me that my parents left because they hate me. That's not true at all! My father will come back and then I'll be the one to laugh at them!
And on...
My aunt and uncle forgot about my birthday again. Maybe you don't celebrate birthdays with people who are not your family. That must be it. Anyways, happy 15-year-old, me!
Until tears streamed down his face as he read the final paragraph...
There was nothing left to do but walk away. Dead men don't talk, so my father wouldn't either. A bitter end, suicide. These past six years, I waited for his return, yet he never returned. Here I am, twenty-one years old, and standing in front of my father's grave. What a sad man he was, giving up his life because he lost his wife.
Did you lose me too, I wonder? Huh, father?
Adeeb, in an emotion he could not pinpoint, flipped through a blank page in his notebook and filled his ink pen with ink. "I won't let his legacy die out..." Adeeb yelled in the empty room. "I'll write and write and write!"
But as the nib of his pen touched the paper, his hand stopped. He didn't know how long he had his pen at that one spot but it was long enough to blotch a lot of the page with ink.
Writer's block.
Adeeb shouted in anguish as he threw the pen on the wall with enough force to break it. As he heard the pen dash and fall, he slammed his fists on the table. "Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?!!! Why can't I write anymore? What's wrong with me? Was it... really just dumb luck? Why did this happen to me...?"
"Because you're too hung up on something from your past."
Adeeb reeled his head around to the direction from where the voice came from and almost fell to the ground in shock. "What the...?!"
"Calm down," the figure said. "Surely you recognize me, right?"
Adeeb steadied himself back on his feet but the fall left him somewhat shaken. "You're not supposed to be here..." he said to the figure.
"Is that how you talk to your favorite author?" the figure asked as he walked towards the bookshelf and pointed at the books stacked in there. "From what I understand, all you've read are works by me, correct?"
"What of it?"
"Is there anything in particular you think of about our writing styles?"
Adeeb thought for a second, looking at his notebook. "I try to mimic your writing style," Adeeb concluded, more to himself than the author.
"Correct," the author said while walking towards the desk and looking at the opened notebook. "There's nothing wrong about it but you can see how you wrote your story, right?"
"I know," Adeeb answered, "The theme of my story was dark and melancholic which suited more towards your writing style. Since I only read your books, my theme and your writing style blended together well."
"You were quite young that time and you wrote a beautiful piece of literature, then how come you can't write a single word this time around?"
"How would I know?" The residual anger Adeeb had, had come out unexpectedly.
"It's because you're tied down to your past," the author answered, ignoring his outburst.
"What?" Adeeb fumbled in the word, understanding close to nothing.
"Who did you write for, Adeeb?" The author's eyes now pierced into Adeeb's as he asked the question.
"I don't... what are you trying to say?"
"Did you write it for yourself, for the world, or... for a certain someone?"
Adeeb lowered his head, his throat felt tight as his eyes welled up with tears once more.
"My father..." he said in a soft whisper, "I wrote it for my father." Adeeb lifted his head up and down came the tears. "I wrote it for you!"
"Why?" The author asked, his voice also a whisper.
"At that time..." Adeeb tried to speak clearly but his voice was shaky with grief. "All you ever did was write in your room. I wanted to spend time with you, to be able to talk to you and be with you. So I wrote a story of my own accord... Father, you were happy... you were happy when I wrote that story and when I saw you smile at me so genuinely for the first time... I was happy."
The author stepped in front of Adeeb and placed a warm hand on his head, patting it softly. "Yeah, I'm sorry, son. I should have noticed..."
"I was so lonely!" Adeeb cried while trying to wipe the tears away with his hands. "When you died, I couldn't write anymore, because the reason for me writing was you! You left me!"
"All I can do right is apologize..." The author said but Adeeb shook his head at the response.
"Even though I wrote for you, I wanted to keep writing even after you were gone, but I couldn't. I lost my reason to."
"Then make your own reason," the author replied. "Start with writing for yourself. Get something down on the paper, anything. Once you write for yourself, you'll see results. I promise you." The author lifts his hand from Adeeb's head. "You'll do that for me, wouldn't you?"
Adeeb nodded.
"That's my son," the author said, smiling the same smile so many years ago. "Goodbye, Adeeb. I'm really proud of you. Remember that."
And he was gone, leaving Adeeb alone in the room with no company but his tears. Yet, Adeeb had stopped crying at that point. After wiping the last of the tears, he had made his decision. Fixing his pen with tape and sitting back down on the desk, he stared at the open notebook, this time with a feeling of content.
"Thank you, Father."
His hand flowed with the ink of words and creation.
One year later.
The landlord flipped through the channels on television with greasy fingers from eating chicken wings when he came across an award show. It was called 'Talent Teens, Talent" and what he saw amazed him... the host with a mic in her hand shouted...
"The return of the prodigy, Adeeb!"
"Adeeb?!" He exclaimed, looking at the screen more closely. "Huh, it really is him!"
Through the screen, he saw Adeeb holding a trophy with both of his hands, smiling to the crowd that cheered him.
"Heh, that cheeky bugger. You really are your father's son huh?" The landlord said as he grabbed another chicken wing and bit down on it as he flipped through the next channel.
