Story of Gau

The sound of rapid footsteps and the flickering of a lamp stirred him awake. Sluggishly sitting up from his bed, Gau saw his nursemaid enter the sleeping chamber. Though the light of the black porcelain lamp was low and shadows obscured her face, the clear look of meditation and concern was present and alarming.
With cautious hands she firmly locked the door behind her, sliding in the bolt with a small click. Looking out into the room, her eyes pierced straight through the dimness and found him on his bed.
Gau stiffened, wondering if he had done something wrong. Sleep fled from him like a wild bird, leaving him confused and fully awake.
The nurse’s fierce gaze held him still for a moment; then it softened, returning the golden reflections of the fire in the dark pools of her eyes.
“It is good I find you awake.” She spoke in a swift, low voice, “I must take you to safety.”
He rubbed his eyes and pulled aside his cover, “Safety? What danger is there this deep in the night?”
She did not answer right away, grabbing his clothes from the wardrobe and hastily folding them into a leather bag. “More than plenty young one.” She replied, “I fear your father is nearing his death and Yuo-Dhe Sin will arrive soon to take his place.”
Gau lowered his head, the thoughts of his sickly father rising to the top of his mind. A pale and emaciated form, resting in the lonely silence of a darkened chamber. Then his mind turned to his uncle, Yuo-Dhe Sin, a man Gau himself and many of his family’s cohorts disliked. Yuo had his own estate in Hlel La, but many times Gau eavesdropped around the mansion to hear of rumors that Yuo has been eyeing his father’s estate ever since the news of his declining health. At the time he doubted the rumor’s truthfulness but there was no use doubting anymore.
“What is the point of running away?” He asked despondently, “when my uncle will probably exile me upon his arrival?”
His nurse threw a heavy cloak on his shoulders, a cloak that was not his. It was pungent with the smell of dry grass and carried a stranger’s scent.
“This is one of my husband’s night cloaks,” she told him, “the air is cold and this will keep your warm on your trip.” Her callous embedded hands caressed his face, and though they were coarse, they were familiar, and they evoked calm in him. “You are his brother’s son,” she whispered, “it will not end just with exile. That is why you must leave now, before it’s too late.”
“Will I have time to give my farewell to my father?” Gau asked quietly.
The nurse nodded, “If you wish to then let us go, quickly.”
Hidden under solid shadows cast by the feeble moon, two figures made their way across the mansion’s courtyard in silence. Even the night lamps were doused at this hour and all buildings seemed devoid of life, and perhaps they were, with the arrival of a new master imminent, there was little for the servants to gain by remaining here, except maybe by sentiments of loyalty.
The master chamber was where Gau’s father lay, and seeing the customary paper ribbons hanging on the main entrance he felt a flash of indignation, already the servants were preparing for his death, hoping to assuage his passing spirit with age-old superstition. Taking off his shoes, Gau stepped barefooted into the well-polished wooden floor of his father’s bed chamber. The black porcelain lamps burned low, and as he neared his father’s bed the sounds of ragged breathing reached his ears.
The man that lay in the bed seemed alien to him, a stranger, a dying beggar clad in rich man’s clothes. Not even the half-forgotten memories of his childhood could indicate this man as his father. Apprehension swept him, was he to shed a tear for a man he had never really known? A man Gau knew only by voice?
He slowly knelt by the bed, confused why these thoughts were coming to him at this time.
A gray, boney hand reached out, gripping his hand. Gau felt a shiver travel down his back, the fingers were cold as stone.
“My Gau, how much you’ve grown.” A voice whispered to him, “It seems my sense of time is not what it used to be.”
“Hello father.” He replied, his voice seemed too loud when compared with this man who lay before him.
“My time here is drawing to a close,” his father uttered softly, “already a mason has carved out a place for me in the Gesheh Phol Precipice.”
Gau’s lips remained sealed, his voice found nothing to say, what could he say? How was he supposed to comfort a man whose death was shimmering before his eyes? He wondered if all of this was a dream, for he knew though the hand that touched him and the floor he knelt on was solid enough, this was something only a dream would allow.
“I wish things could have been different.” Gau finally confided.
His father laughed, it was soft as a passing breeze. “Don’t we all? But what the world has chosen for us is what we get. There is little satisfaction in thinking of what could have been, instead we must look towards what can be.”
“What good can come out of this?” he gestured the whole room, including both of them.
His father breathed deeply and began speaking, “I know I’ve disappointed you Gau, I’ve made you fatherless, for that you could have gone away without a farewell and I wouldn’t have blamed you. Yet instead, with what you have, you made a choice; a choice to talk to me one last time. And it does my heart well that we can at last talk, facing one another.”
Gau nodded. In his mind the bodiless voice from beyond the curtain and the stranger he saw before him slowly came together, and from the vague memories of the past, something called desperately, pleading for reunion.
Suddenly a fit of coughs tore though his father’s body and there was little Gau could do but watch, helpless, absent of hope. He saw the dark liquid trickle from a corner of his mouth.
“Father…” he said the word, this time free of doubt and apathy.
After clearing his throat, his father spoke again, “I’ve had much time to consider a respite from this…unpleasant end, to die in false peace. But I turned it down, do you know why? Because I was worried.” His boney fingers grasped strongly to Gau’s hand. “worried that because of my absence, you might have grown up as a human who has never known love’s touch. But…now I am relieved, your nurse is indeed a good woman.” He could feel the grip on his hand fading. “Gau, you have the heart to give others a second chance, even ones like me. You will be a good man.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong father.” He said softly, barely audible above the rattling breaths. “I’m the one who is guilty, I doubted you.”
There was a sigh, “It is sad we must depart when we’ve just met, Gau…” his father lifted his head, a sallow and wrinkled face, a tired face, exhausted from fighting for his life. “you must always learn to forgive, a lot can be discovered and gained from forgiveness.”
Quickly as they came, the two figures left the master chamber, treading lightly, for soon the coroners will find his father. They will clean him, dress him in new robes, and set him in a coffin. So he may be placed in the cliff were all Sins are buried after their death.