Chapter 13 Death

 Kirk entered the room to see his father masturbating in front of the computer screen.

‘Dad, please!’, he shouted, closed the door, and waited for the old man to stop. That was embarrassing. Kirk remembered his father once catching a teenage Kirk doing exactly the same. The guilt was two-fold. The previous day Kirk had stolen one of his father’s adult magazines with an abundance of inappropriate pictures. Now roles reversed and Kirk was the one embarrassed by Kai. 

Kirk’s mother was long dead. Kirk often wondered what Kai did with his time, did he meet any women, was he all this time alone? Did he watch porn? Did he pay for prostitutes?

‘Someone can see you via the camera! You must be cautious!’

For the entire week, the snow was falling heavily. Kirk was worrying whether they would manage to be on time with the food delivery. It was snowing so hard that they didn’t even clear the main roads, not to mention the one abandoned narrow road that led to their house. Meanwhile, both of them were running out of food.

Kirk put on his better shirt, which he ironed the previous day. He was about to explain to the Chinese why they had to cover around 300 000 EURO compensation for the missing dildos, assure them that it will be nothing in comparison with the expected millions that they were about to make thanks to launching HENRY, and comfort them about all this extra money they made due to people Paula made redundant diving their work among other employees.

The Chinese organized the call during his father’s shopping hours and Kirk sat him in his teenage armchair and forced him to stay quiet. It was better to keep an eye on him than having him masturbating in front of the computer screen or flashing to everybody his elderly undressed parts, with which he was way too comfortable.

The call with the Chinese was the only thing Kirk was stressing about. Just like in the DADANTI’s office everybody was afraid of Kirk and his judgmental expression, Kirk was equally afraid of the expressionless faces of the Chinese. He didn’t quite get their humor, he didn’t know if they were angry or were in a good mood. They owned the company, and in the blink of an eye, they could get rid of Kirk, smash him like a little insect against the glass door. 

Kirk was getting sweaty again explaining the whole unfortunate situation of the missing one-ball penises, looking at the expressionless faces, who didn’t get the humor of the situation, and he glimpsed at Kai.

But Kai wasn’t moving. He froze motionless in the armchair and didn’t blink.

Kirk looked at him again and waved his hand in a way that wasn’t visible in the camera.

But Kai didn’t move. He was still and didn’t breathe.

‘Dad?’ Kirk reached out his hand but it was stiff and heavy. ‘I’m sorry,’ he turned to the camera, ‘I have an emergency. Can we postpone this meeting? There is something wrong with my father.’

There wasn’t anything wrong with his father. It was as natural as conception and birth. His father was dead. 

‘Three days?! I’m supposed to be with his body for three days?’

‘We’re sorry, but the whole town is snowed under. Schools are being closed. These three days, believe me, this is a positive scenario. We have a problem with ambulances and transporting people from accidents and dialysis patients. You mentioned that he’s already dead. What worse can happen?’

‘But I can’t move him, I barely walk myself. What if he starts to rot?’

‘Open the window, it’s cold outside. It will be like a freezer. We will get to you as soon as we can, promise.’

Kirk took a few days off from work. His father was in his childhood room, in his teenage armchair, still and cold, and stiff. Kirk moved downstairs to sleep as he couldn’t sleep in the same room with his father. At some point, he was afraid to even enter the room. He was afraid of his own dad.

Everything was quiet. Only dogs noticed their owner and master missing and started gathering in front of the door, driven by the smell.

After four days, Kai’s body was taken by the funeral services and the funeral was organized. 

It was a nightmare to arrange everything in this weather and with his leg broken. Kirk didn’t have any proper clothes for himself and his father. Kai was buried in a sweater. Kirk was wearing his office shirt, sports trousers, cut at the leg to fit the plaster, and a flashy green winter jacket. Almost no one from the family attended the ceremony except for a few of his father’s friends from the town.

Kirk was officially an orphan. And as an orphan, he came back to the house which was in a complete mess: dogs and cats running around, unwashed dishes and delivery boxes lying everywhere. 

His room still smelled of this peculiar sense of smell that Kai gave - both as an elderly person and a dead one.

Kirk opened his computer to hundreds of unanswered messages and calls. One was particularly visible, written in bold, and repeated many times in his inbox:

‘THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION!'