{"id":9949,"date":"2020-07-28T01:07:23","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T01:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/?p=9949"},"modified":"2020-07-28T01:37:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T01:37:12","slug":"turing-test-2-2-2-2-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/absent\/","title":{"rendered":"Absent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Absent<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My friend’s father is a dead soldier.<\/p>\n

By dead I mean, he blinks, he breathes and shifts between spaces<\/p>\n

Every now and then but that is all.<\/p>\n

Like clocks with batteries soaking wet but somehow still working,<\/p>\n

Though not properly because the hands stay twitching in one spot,<\/p>\n

He stares into nothingness while sitting on a sofa he bought,<\/p>\n

once at a thrift shop with his wife by his side,<\/p>\n

a child in her belly and glee surrounding them.<\/p>\n

My friend’s father’s wife walks in every day and see him on the couch,<\/p>\n

and does not know him<\/p>\n

The memories flash in her head and she knows who sits there,<\/p>\n

But she does not recognise him anymore.<\/p>\n

Everything has changed about this man,<\/p>\n

He touches her like one trying to tackle a bear with his bare hands,<\/p>\n

losing but not quite.<\/p>\n

He looks at her with bloodshot eyes and listens keenly,<\/p>\n

Not at what she says but at everything else,<\/p>\n

Like one at alert waiting for chaos to come.<\/p>\n

And when she tries to calm this fire, she realises she is just gasoline,<\/p>\n

Everyone is, all he does is burn.<\/p>\n

So when she walks out her door every other day to the farmers market,<\/p>\n

And familiar strangers ask how her husband who came back from the war is,<\/p>\n

She replies, saying, “He is well.”<\/p>\n

But they do not know that now the war exists inside of him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Absent   My friend’s father is a dead soldier. By dead I mean, he blinks, he breathes and shifts between spaces Every now and then but that is all. Like <\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\nAbsent - Ake Arts & Book Festival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/absent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Absent - Ake Arts & Book Festival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Absent   My friend’s father is a dead soldier. By dead I mean, he blinks, he breathes and shifts between spaces Every now and then but that is all. 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