In a dream I met my father. He was wearing a worn-out woollen sweater. The thick fabric of his shalwar-kameez was a dull brownish-gray hue. He looked slightly tired. However, it was quite obvious that he had convalesced from the ailment he had actually died of one morning in December.

We had a brief conversation, the greater part of which has already slipped from my memory.

As I saw him I had a strong feeling that he was physically alive, living a mundane family life somewhere in the lower middle class quarters of the city.

Earlier he used to be a journalist but now he was working as a technical supervisor in a factory probably located somewhere in the dust-filled northern industrial zone of the city.

He was going home – his new home – with an unhurried stride. He did not show much excitement or surprise at meeting with me – his only son – after such a long time in such a coincidental manner.

However, I must confess that at the onset I was not disappointed at my father's lack of zeal.

He talked to me in a calm, soft manner, quite unlike his usually aggressive and forceful way.

“He has changed,” I thought. I could not help noticing that he had put on considerable weight since I had last seen him on his deathbed.

Then he was a tall, bony skeleton of an existence, from which life had been drained drop by drop by liver cancer. That skeleton had a bulging belly filled with yellow water, which, doctors said, was a sign of his failing organs.

But now he had a real belly – the flabby stomach of a healthy aged man. Secretly I had taken a breath of relief that he had at last defeated his disease despite all speculations of his medics.

I did not want to think about his illness. I felt that his convalescence should not be noticed or commented on – as if there was a danger in it of a relapse.

As I looked at him with frightened eyes, I saw that his complexion had also improved, regaining some of its caramel fairness. He had gotten rid of the spots that were marks of tiny boils that slightly itched and left a dense almost black drop of blood when forcefully rubbed.

He was not carrying the stick that my mother had bought him during his last days. As he talked, he looked at me with a fixed stare that he had lost in his last years.

I, however, felt a sense of uneasiness at his changed manner of speech.

“His last devastating experience has had a deep effect on him,” I said to myself. “He talks like a man who has survived Noah’s deluge and who knows that no bigger trial can come his way now.”

As I looked at him my eyes wandered to the white bag, dangling in his left hand. The bag was bulging with large elongated mangoes. He was taking it home for his other family – for my step-mother, step-brothers and step-sisters.

Something snapped in me and I was seized by a sudden fit of jealousy. During his life, he had managed by some smart, sly means, to steal a few secret moments to lead a double life and now, after his death, he had completely retired to this shadowy second family.

I once again looked at his impressive face. It bore no signs of regret or desire to re-associate with his former life, his real family, his friends, his cherished profession. It struck me as an abnormality. He had lost a great and valuable part of his personality. He had undergone a sort of degeneration.

I could picture him talking with foul-mouthed mechanics; eating with greasy technicians and exchanging civilities with simpering, imbecile female workers in a bland voice, so uncharacteristic of him.

How aggressively hyperactive, short-tempered and energetic he used to be! I could bet he had lost his mental acuteness, his knowledge and skills even, I thought.

I scanned his face again. He had the same firm aquiline nose, small sharp eyes, developed chin and arching eyebrows, and yet it was not that face anymore. As he started walking again after casually telling me that his house was not far away, a doubt arose in my mind.

Was it possible that this man, with whom I had talked, was actually someone else; some imposter; some distant, unknown relative; some utter stranger, who had mistaken me for his abandoned son?

I turned around and watched him go down that deserted street, lined with multi-story houses.

No! He was surely my father! I could not mistake the peculiar movement of those broad shoulders, the barely perceptible tilt of his head, his easy and graceful gait.

Something began to choke me up. Memories had started drizzling down like the first drops of a rain. A fog had started to lift, revealing a past as fresh as the flowers of early spring.

On that morning in December, he had grabbed my hand with a desperate, beseeching intensity; just as I held his hand when I saw that terrible dog on my way to school. I felt a convulsive flutter in my vocal cord. I tried to shout to him but my voice failed as I saw his distant figure turning into an alley.

The night was calm. As I washed my face I heard the distant siren of a factory. “The factory is already awake,” I thought. From the window I could only see a sleeping city. Far away along the horizon there was a streak of light. A cold wind blew into my face. The day was about to be born again.

This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious

The writer can be reached at farrukhkamrani@gmail.com