Selma squeezed his face the moment he heard a man laughing inside his mother’s bedroom. It was noon, his father was supposed to be at the workshop and his mother was supposed to be alone.The laughter came again, low, comfortable, too comfortable. Selma stood in confused in the narrow hallway with his school bag hanging from one shoulder. Sweat clung to the back of his neck from the long walk home under the afternoon sun, but suddenly his body felt cold, very cold.Another sound followed the creak of the bed. Then Matilde’s voice drifted through the door soft, playful. A voice Selma had never heard her use on Rafael.“You worry too much,” she said between quiet laughs.A man answered something too low for Selma to hear clearly. Then both of them laughed again. Selma’s fingers slowly tightened around the strap of his bag.The apartment suddenly smelled different today. Masculine cologne mixed with his mother’s perfume, the scent sat heavily in the air, he stared at the bedroom door. Hi

Selma jerked awake when something crashed in the kitchen. For one confused second, darkness swallowed everything around him.Then came the sound again, glass rolling across the floor. A chair scraping roughly, His chest tightened instantly.“Dad?”No answer, only heavy footsteps. Selma pushed off his thin blanket and hurried toward the bedroom door. The apartment sat in darkness except for the weak yellow light glowing from the kitchen.Rain hammered softly outside, The clock above the television read 2:17 a.m. Rafael stood near the sink gripping the counter with both hands.His work shirt hung halfway out of his trousers. Rainwater dripped from his sleeves onto the floor. A nearly empty whiskey bottle rested beside him, Selma froze.The smell hit him first, strong enough to sting his nose. Rafael turned slightly at the sound of movement, His eyes looked swollen, Red veins stretched across the whites.For a moment he simply stared at Selma as if struggling to recognize him. Then he fo

Selma nodded his head at the sound of laughter coming from inside the house again but this time it wasn’t Matilde alone, it was deeper. Like someone who had been there before. His fingers tightened around the iron gate as he stood outside the compound, rainwater dripping from his soaked uniform onto the dusty ground.The front door wasn’t fully closed, It was slightly open just enough for voices to escape. Selma stepped closer slowly, The living room light spilled onto the porch inside, Matilde’s voice floated out, soft and playful.“You always exaggerate.” A man chuckled.Selma’s stomach tightened instantly, He recognized that tone not again he pushed the door open just slightly. The first thing he saw was Matilde sitting comfortably on the couch.Her legs crossed, A glass of wine in her hand and she looked relaxed across from her sat a man Selma did not know who’s well dressed and clean shoes, expensive wristwatch glinting under the light.His father’s place on the couch once sacred

Selma jolted awake when his father first hit the gate again like a man knocking on a door that already belonged to someone else, he sat up instantly on his bed.The room was dark except for the faint glow of the streetlight slipping through the curtain, then he heard his voice again calling “Matilde”. Selma stood up slowly, barefoot against the floor, and moved toward the hallway.The house was too quiet, except for the knocking and he reached the front door but didn’t open it. Instead, he listened and a few minutes outside, rain had just started falling. It started soft at first then heavier, Rafael knocked again and this time weaker.“Open the door”Selma’s hand hovered near the lock but something stopped him, the sound of Matilde’s voice came from the bedroom.“Go back to where you are coming from!”Selma froze, his chest tightened instantly. Rafael went silent for a second and then a low laugh escaped him, just something broken slipping out.Selma pressed his forehead lightly agai

Tears dropped from Selma's eyes when he saw the wooden coffin being lowered into the ground. It didn’t feel real, neither the soil nor the crowd, not even the white cloth draped over trembling shoulders around him.Only the sound was real, earth hitting wood each one heavier than the last. Selma stood at the edge of the grave with his shoes sinking slightly into damp soil. Rain had stopped, but the sky still hung low like it hadn’t decided whether to cry again.His hands were numb completely and behind him, people whispered voices he didn’t care about. “He was a good man.” “Such a tragedy.” “Alcohol took him.” Selma heard none of it properly, only fragments of broken pieces like a radio too far away.The priest’s voice rose and fell somewhere in front of him but Selma’s eyes stayed fixed on the coffin, the same coffin that held his father inside it.Rafael Elias. A man who used to fix engines with tired hands, a man who used to smile softly when Selma came home from school, a man who