“No!” I hollered.

I, in my adolescence, I’d often speculated on the issues of life and death. What would my life be without my parents? Well! This was no dress rehearsal. I couldn’t have prepared for this, even with warning signs. This was the real dice. If the man standing before me staring at me unflinchingly was right, my parents were dead, and the montage of thoughts was of morbid despair.

“No! They can’t be dead. I saw them, a few hours ago!”.

His silence roar on, then he tried to help me up.

I raised my hand signaling him to stay his distance. I knelt there, my face planted in my hands, bawling.

“Would you like me to call someone?” he asked, calmly and professionally.

I rendered a hollow stare as the images of Ari, my ‘soon to be ex-boyfriend who doesn’t know it yet,’ and my best friend Joni dangled before my eyes. A river of tears streamed down my cheeks.

“But I was there last night,” I wailed between gushes of tears. “I had dinner there like I do every Monday night.”

Still silent, he tried once again to help me up. This time I allowed him to assist me up onto the armchair.

He strolled over to the window. He opened it, stared out for a few minutes and then without turning around, ask, “Miss Apika . . . Miss Shade, how do you pronounce your first name?”