Fireflies (Part II - The Brown Package )

Hello There.. As promised.. here is the continuation to what I posted yesterday...!!
Hope you like it :)

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I dropped Casy back to our home who was trying to be strong in her words to comfort me and occasionally wipe a few tears of her own. I wasn’t crying, but unlike her I was not able to speak anything. In fact I had hardly spoken anything after receiving the early morning call. Half an hour later I reached back to the old house again where Mathew uncle had called up all to read out Aunt Judith’s will. Mathew Uncle was her lawyer. Her classmate and her best friend whom I personally knew. 


Aunt Judith had no kids. She lived alone, as if she had been punished. Apart from a few visits from me, Annie and a few of her friends, nobody ever came to visit her. Neither did she go to visit anyone either.

Post the Sunday mass every week, we would drive back to our place where she would stay till lunch. She always insisted to walk back to old house but at times she did stay back till late evenings and at times for dinner too.

She loved Casy and so did Casy. Both would sit and talk a lot with the topics drifting from some secret recipes to the current economic situation of the state. Surprisingly she never spoke to her in public or with people around so much. Just like how she never spoke to me for long unless I was visiting her all alone.

Sitting inside the old house with so many strangers around I was feeling obnoxious. My eyes still looked out for aunty to come out from within and surprise us all. Everybody else apart from me seemed to know somebody or the other. They were busy talking in low voices.

Sitting inside the old house.

Old house called Philo.

Philo, the Greek word for Love. That seemed to die with Aunt Judith.

By the time the will was read and everything was shared among the people gather, it was 6 PM. It seemed that she wanted it to finish this the day she departs. Everybody except me had received something. She meticulously had sorted out everything she owned and distributed it evenly among her beloveds. Except me. Then, why was I even called then? Casy got the old house and it was asked to go down to our first born when our time was done.

I was walking back to my car when Mathew uncle called me from behind. He walked balancing himself with a walking stick. The evening sunlight shone on his silver-streaked-coconut-oiled-hair. He must have been pushing 80’s yet his voice had the firmness of a man in early 40’s.

He kept his strong hand and patted my shoulder and said, “I hope you are not upset.”

“Why? Not at all uncle” I tried speaking normally. This day had too much that I could handle.

“Are you sure?” he asked again suspiciously. “Judith was expecting you to be” he continued with a grin.

I dint know where he was heading to. “No uncle, nothing like that. Am glad she had things to share with Casy. I miss her. It so hard for me to believe her that she is gone. Am just blank here at present, than being upset about the will.” My voice sounded chocked. True. I was upset about not able to see her again than the will.

Mathew uncle smiled. He got what he was looking for. I was upset over the will too. Nodded his head in agreement.  He took out a package and held it out to me. “She had asked me to give this to you personally. She din’t want you to feel she dint leave you anything.” He said again coughing twice in between.

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Contd....