Chapter 3

Jackson stormed into the house furious, making sure to bang the door behind him. He dropped his briefcase on the table and threw himself on the couch. The night descended quickly but he maintained a professional demeanor throughout. He was in a complete dwaal and had a sense of impending doom. He stared blankly at the ceiling and his face was expressionless except for the dryness of his eyes. Sophie noticed that her father seemed very deep in thought. His remorse mood elicited great sympathy from his daughter as it made him appear like an embittered old man. 

He gathered his remaining strength and ascended the flight of stairs in silence to the master bedroom. He was extremely tired but sleep eluded him. Most people considered Trenton a harmless eccentric but Jackson was determined to expose his conspiracy to defraud the company. Trenton had taken a cavalier attitude to the problems of staff exploitation and deftly avoided answering questions. The 'accidental' erasure of important financial records and computer files of the company was a matter for conjecture. 

Jackson's face was ashen and wet with sweat and his mouth was contorted into a snarl. He knew he would be forced to resign after being beleaguered. It was as if Trenton had called him to the meeting to harp on his obscurity. Sophie left her mother to clear the dishes as she went upstairs to her parents' room. When she entered, she noticed that calm had descended on him. Her presence dissipated the tension in the air. He sat up, moved aside to make space for her, and sparked off the conversation, "Here's a pop factoid for you; never forget, it is axiomatic that life is not always easy," he said cryptically and remained adamantine to divulge what had caused his somber mood. He leaned back exulting at the would be success of his plan. 

Sophie kept her feelings hidden fathoms deep and headed to her own room. She considered it her own private fiefdom. Her father had a good job, plenty of money and he was enjoying life in the fast lane, which made her wonder what could possibly have gone wrong. Her father had made one mistake by protesting against Trenton and his career was coming to an ignominious end. Jackson stood immobile by the window. He had attempted to redress the imbalance between the company's import and export figures and the prospects for the immediate future had been good until today. 

He was overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of the task. Trenton was a man of ill reputation. His views were grounded on the assumption that not all people are equal. He had hankered after fame all his life and his high- flown style had sounded absurd that day. His voice had an almost hypnotic effect on Jackson, which almost made him be swayed by the new system, which imposed additional financial burdens on most of the staff workers. 

His calm expression hid his inward panic. There was a note of irony in his voice filled with suspicion of financial irregularity. Jackson did not have the intestinal fortitude to implement his plan. Yet, he had no choice; he only needed the patience of Job to deal with Trenton and await his downfall. He brushed his hand through his iron- grey hair and imagined himself leading an itinerant life in the village. The village itself was pretty, but the surrounding countryside was rather dull. That was when he realized that a person's wealth is often in inverse proportion to their happiness. 

The more money one had, the less happy he was. He took the example of Michael Trenton who... a van parked in the front alley caught his attention. He groped through the darkness and edged closer to the windows to get a better view, and then it suddenly hit him... but it was already too late when he noticed the sniper perched on the roof of the next-door house, a grand and imposing building. The sniper's uniform bore the insignia of a captain.                                              

Both Sophie and her mother heard the gunshot and sped to the source of the sound. They jiggled with the lock and when they finally got in, their eyes were suddenly intent. Jackson lay inert with half-closed eyes. This, to Sophie, was a day that would live in horror and infamy. Victoria stood, jiggling her car keys in her hand as they waited for the medics. She was fully aware that any delay at medication would prove fatal and kept grumbling about the ineptitude of the police in handling situations of this caliber. 

Sophie blazed with impotent rage and sat next to her father on the floor. He felt her presence, took her hand in his and said painfully, "Sophie, many... a true word... is spoken in jest." He kept his statement intentionally vague. It seemed a perfectly innocuous remark in the way that he made her feel insignificant and stupid. She hid her worries behind an air of insouciance. His flippant tone irked her as she reasoned that he had that je ne sais quoi that distinguishes a professional from an amateur in literature.                        

Victoria rushed to unlock the door as paramedics swarmed into the compound and carefully fitted her father inside the ambulance. The vehicle had its little idiosyncrasies when it realized that driving on icy roads could be hairy. For the first time, Sophie realized the landscape intersected with spectacular gorges and almost measured up to the incomparable beauty of Lake Quercus, as it seemed to stretch into infinity. A guttersnipe lay by the road, drunk and incapable. 

If Sophie's father had not faced up to his own inadequacies as a father, she, herself, would be in that same condition. Ideas were beginning to jell in her mind but were disrupted when the car came to a halt outside the intensive care unit of the hospital. Sophie and her mother stayed back and made themselves comfortable on the lounge chairs; entrusting Jackson's life into the doctors' hands. Victoria cupped her face in her hands and mumbled a short prayer to the High Deity; The Master of Providence, for Jackson's safety. 

Her parents were staunch Christians. She and her siblings had been indoctrinated from an early age with their parents' beliefs and she passed them on to Jackson and their three children. Sophie was hollow-eyed from lack of sleep and felt faint with hunger. At that point, she would kill for a plate of hollandaise sauce and a dish of ratatouille and posset for dessert with a cup of mocha to gulp it down with. A bird with iridescent blue feathers flew in and settled on the windowsill. Sophie waved it away with an impatient gesture. 

That was when she noticed the painting pasted on a corner of the hall. She stood up and walked towards it. It was an artist's impression of the new stadium. That painting was indisputably one of his finest works. The door to the intensive care unit swung open and Sophie and Victoria whirled towards the sardonic sound as a doctor in full kit stepped out with a clipboard in his hands. He was dressed in a suit and an impeccable white shirt. His hair was an improbable shade of yellow.