19 Astonishmen (1/2)
What Stephan saw, left him dumbfounded. From the time he came inside the room, he did not notice the canvas. Now that he saw it, he felt strange.
”Amelia”
”Huh?” Amelia answered absentmindedly as she was still telling stories about her Grandma to Brad.
”Amelia!!” This time Stephan called her in a high pitched voice.
”Yeah. What happened?”
”Look at this!” Stephan pointed at the canvas which stood by the window.
”How is this possible?”
”I dunno.”
They looked at each other, disbelief lacing their face. But Amelia's eyes widened suddenly. She inched closer to the canvas and raced her hands through it. She felt it clearly. There were three letters underneath those colorful strokes, and it was, ”M U M.” Amelia was astonished at the discovery. She immediately ran her fingers through the other part of the canvas to find any other leads, but found none. She looked at her husband staring at her with his eyes wide open. He asked, ”You know this art?” It sounded more like a statement than a question.
”I do. And I taught him.” She pointed at Brad who was lying peacefully on his bed.
”What is written?”
”Only one word.”
”What is that?”
”MUM”
”He wanted to pass on a message to you. Don't you find this unbelievable?”
”For God's sake, Stephan! Don't you think what you are saying is ridiculous? He has a fucking symbol on his forehead! Try to understand. Nothing is unbelievable anymore.”
Stephan was once again dumbfounded at his wife's outburst. He was wondering whether it was those times of the month when women have mood swings. His wife's mood changed faster than the speed of light. He felt sorry for his son in advance.
He tried to calm himself down and questioned, ”What did you deduce from this?”
”I guess, he is trying to communicate with us, but he might not be able to come forward for the time being so he passed on this message.” Amelia deduced quite correctly without having read the letter. While she was sharing her deduction with her husband, she suddenly remembered something and immediately realization hit her. She eyed her husband who was still standing at the doorway with batted breath. She called him. ”Honey, can you pass that to me?”
”What is that?”