MYFATHER
Episode 8

Rick Felds slept that night not as soundly as the previous nights, although Stella lay by his side, the atmosphere of the night was similar to the night when he slept for the first time in his house. Full of anxiety because they feel threatened in a situation that is all new and foreign. Bontang is certainly different from Chicago, very much different, the heat here is more stinging and affects his sleep. His sleep is like a chicken bed, a soft shadow or the slightest sound makes him wake up without ever getting a second of the needed sound, making him more tired from minute to minute.

The removal of the blanket that he thought was the cause of his overheating, but for a long time felt the heat was not only coming from the blanket but from all corners of the room. Rick Felds tried hard to close his eyes, thinking it was just his outrageous feelings torturing him into not being able to sleep. What happened was just the opposite, the more his eyes closed the heat was more burning, the more, even the darkness that usually decorated when her closed eyelids were replaced with something shaped like a flame tongue danced around with a bright yellowish color of smoldering, keeping her consciousness awake.

Exorbitant heat, murmured Felds. Free AC installed in this room. Irritatedly the man got up from the bed and approached the window. It might be better if the window is left open so that air circulation from outside can reduce the heat of the room.

For a moment the Felds noticed the silhouette of the trembesi tree that stood closest to where it stood. The tree is creepy, not only when viewed as it is now but also when it is during the day, and interferes with the view to the beautiful forest area in the backyard of his official home. Last year the tree was cut down, inexplicably in just a few months the tree grew back, bigger and busier than before, and until now Felds was reluctant to re-logge after seeing that the tree became a shady home for a flock of birds and insects.

Sayup-sayup sounds frictional tree foliage, the movement of each leaf shows a stream of wind that splashed into the room and sweat on the face of the Felds. The temptation that arises from this fresher atmosphere is that his numb tongue misses the sweetness of cloves in nicotine, especially in the cold of the night.

He will certainly light a stick when he is alone but it certainly can not be done with his wife there, he said, moreover, the condition of Stella who is pregnant does not allow her to breathe in cigarette smoke which often makes the woman suffer from nausea. So Felds finally got back to bed by leaving the window open. Just now he had infiltrated the blanket when he suddenly heard meowing. Her heart was beating.Why is there a cat in her room?

Indeed, several times this service house has problems with pregnant cats who often make nests on the roof of the building, just that the sound had come from inside the room. The meowing sound was heard again, this time louder and clearer, forcing Felds to open his eyes and not be able to pretend to care when he felt something scratching his leg, something sharp, something sharp, and made him strangle in shock until he turned on his back, and then his eyes met the eyes of the creature.The green eyes of the black cat who looked at him smartly and brilliantly.

The animal's snout twitched until it seemed to have a cute moustache before moving next to Rick Felds. Brazenly the cat walked in a flirtatious motion up Stella's stomach which formed a hill-like curved mound under the blanket. Felds was only able to be astonished at what the wayward cat was doing who was now sitting on Stella's distended stomach and looking at the woman fixedly.

Rick tried hard to move his hand to drive the four-legged animal from his wife's stomach, only to find a pair of arms suddenly stiff. Stiffness also runs a pair of legs so that he is not able to do anything other than just being a spectator of what the cat will do. The man tried to wake his wife to drive the cat away, he called hoarsely, “Stella...Stella..”

Stella Felds soon awoke from her sleep, shocked to see a cat standing on her stomach, but seemingly unaware that her husband was sleeping next to her. His eyes returned the gaze of the black cat so that for a while the two different types of creatures looked at him. Stella, on the one hand, looked on with fear while the cat was in a threatening position, the bastard animal seemed to warn Stella not to do anything if she did not want to be attacked.

The woman realized something was wrong but had not had time to do anything her body had stiffened. An expression of pain blushed across Stella's face, there was a great force pressing on the woman's body, as Rick felt, to the point of making Stella unable to move the body. The great power not only made Stella's body helpless but also made her stomach start to move oddly.

The movement in his stomach was getting faster and faster, Stella's stomach was like a rebel wanted out, Rick vaguely saw a head pressing out...then the bottom that resembles a heel, where each push makes Stella grimace to withstand pain. She wanted to scream out loud but it was the force that held her body that did not allow the scream to come out of her mouth, as a result of which Stella breathed in between her matters while sweat flooded her face.

Stella's stiff body was restless, the urge inside her stomach surged and churned increasingly faster, harder, and excited. Pushing at the bottom of her stomach and making her baby move more wildly than normal. He felt the heat rising, burning, and perhaps soon scorching his body.

And the intense shock to Stella's belly increased in intensity each time the black cat gave small pats with its tail on the belly of Rick Felds' wife. The pain in Stella's stomach turned into a kind of powerful fist-box that made her want to die rather than be tormented for longer. Rick screamed inwardly, anger bubbling in his heart, unable to bear him seeing the woman's suffering, ”This cannot be allowed! This is not true!”

The man tried hard to break free, or at least moved his hand to make the cat go away, so that his wife could rise from this stupid situation, but the cat apparently understood what Felds was thinking so hissing furiously, baring his teeth near Stella's nose, signaled that he did not hesitate to tear one of the limbs that made the woman attract attention until it was destroyed.

Stella's eyes suddenly glared at something that appeared behind the cat. Rick looked at the direction Stella was looking at and his expression turned tense. His hair stood looking at the strange figure, which was a thin-faced old woman similar to a skull, her eyes were concave and watery, and she was, while from his mouth flowed a black-colored saliva whose smell was reminiscent of the got ducts in the market. She looked at Stella with an ugly smile between her cheeks that resembled rat cheeks. Stella Felds was so eager to shout to expel the demonic woman but the one that came out from between her lips was only an obscure stifled voice, ”hmmppfff....mmmppff.”

The thing that happened to Stella in the next second was something that no one on earth had ever thought of. The thin-faced old woman brought her head between Stella's legs and knew that Stella's round belly was beginning to deflate, moving down, until it finally turned flat. At each level, every minute, where her stomach began to deflate the woman felt an odd thing, the lower part of her stomach felt sucked up like a giant vacuum cleaner, and that sucking force pulls out his entrails in the form of continuous clumps.

In the end, Stella realized that the baby in her stomach had disappeared completely because she no longer felt movement in her womb. Rick couldn't see the heartbreaking sight as a liquid resembling brown mud soaked the bed and the entire lower part of the woman, the stranger understood that the brownish mud was part of what was once her baby. Stella cried, howled, and cursed but the old grandmother just smiled and disappeared with the cat swallowed by the darkness of the room.

”Our baby..she lookour baby..” weep Stella Felds wept.

Along with the disappearance of the cat and the strange old woman also disappeared the power that shackled the bodies of Rick and Stella Felds. But both of them realized that it was too late for both of them. Rick was only able to hug the body of his crying wife sobbing nonstop, saying the same sentence, “She took our baby..she took our baby.”.

***

Yudi listened in astonishment, without feeling his body shivering withstanding the anger and sadness that would have been experienced by the Felds couple because of the loss of a baby in such an unnatural way. Cigarette smoking rush to relieve tension, “That’s. awful...”.

“You tell me...” Rick responded.

“Have you consulted with..an expert..” Yudi paused for a moment as he hesitated to continue.

“You mean?”

Rick took a deep breath and shook his head, “That's a stupid idea...and as I thought the medical couldn't explain what happened to Stella.”

“I see,” Yudi.

“Moreover two days earlier we visited Silaban doctor, the obstetrician who treated Stella's pregnancy, for a routine check-up. She made sure Stella's miscarriage case was almost impossible.” Rick continued. “...yet, that shit happened.”

The foreign man threw away his cigarette butts before picking up the following rod which was immediately lit. A long pull from his lips made the coals glow up to half a cigarette, a habit that Yudi often saw from Felds while the man was agitated.

"You know what?" Yudi finally broke the silence. "I think you guys should take break for a while.get out of town to let the bad things gone."

"We've decided it will better for Stella to return to Chicago next week. I had asked for two weeks absent-leave permission already."

"That's good! The holidays will make us forget the horror for a moment. Keep staying in town where you experienced such horror is terrible" Yudi commented.

"If he hadn't come here we wouldn't have had to experience this" Felds said regretfully, his soft voice almost sounding like a cry. "I forced Stella to come here."

"It's not your fault" Yudi responded. "You just want what's best for him."

"We even just got a name for the baby on that fucking night" Felds said. "Do you believe that?"

"Nobody could have guessed the misfortune came," Yudi commented. "What's her name? Your kid?"

"Malachea Felds."

"That's a really nice name," Yudi smiled.

"A wasted name, because he's gone" murmured Rick Felds.

"So is it with us if you don't mind," someone said suddenly from behind. “We have to leave here immediately because it is already night.”

The short-bodied, bespectacled middle-aged man approached Yudi and the host, which made Yudi a little surprised that Mirna was tailing behind the man. Seeing Felds as the host stood up, Yudi also stood up to welcome the two.

"Once again I'm deepysorry for your lost," the man scolds Rick Felds. "We want to go home first, you and your wife will need some quiet time together."

"Thank you for your coming, Mr. Feng," said Ruck Felds, hugged the man back and nodded at Mirna.

At that time Mirna gave a code to Yudi who told her that she did not come home with Yudi because she had to accompany this man named Feng. His expression declaring guilt had made Yudi wait in vain. And it seems that this man had a great influence on Mirna because the girl chose to cancel her promise to go home with Yudi, an influence she only learned from Rick Felds after the two men left.

”Seriously? You don't know that man? He's Iwan Feng..”

Despite often hearing the name from Mirna or other employees, Yudi had never met him in person, so it was only natural that he did not know who the man Mirna was accompanying.

So that person whose name is Iwan Feng? Personnel Director and General Affairs, it's fitting that Mirna tail him without a fight because that person is Mirna's boss straight away. Somewhat strange also if a big boss of a division to want to take his men home, this question touched Yudi's mind and suddenly he became upset, he said, either out of jealousy, another man approached Mirna or for the second time failed to drive her home.

***