Father and daughter.
They were on the top floor of a shopping center. This time he wanted to buy something for her, like he sometimes did when he saw something nice he liked.
A performance was running on the first floor, and as usual, shoppers on the higher floors leaned against the glass banisters to have a peek below. Neither of them were usually ever interested enough to stop for such a thing, but this time he wanted to have a look below. He tried to look over the shoulders of the people who were already starting to crowd around the railings, but to no success.
After a while she found a space for him along the banister and called him over so he could stand there and look below. He came over and for a while they watched in silence. The action below was incredibly animated, making her think of Commedia.
Suddenly she looked up at him, and to her horror saw that he had somehow climbed over the banister and had placed his heels on a tiny ledge. His hands gripping the banister behind him were the only thing preventing him from falling to his death.
"What the hell are you doing?! Come back over! You'll fall!"
No response.
There were fireworks going off in her head.
She grit her teeth and looked below, not really seeing anything.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him let go of the banister.
She heard a loud thud from below.

She was kneeling on the floor now, not daring to stand up incase her eyes managed to look below through the glass.
As if to confirm her fears, she rose slightly. Just enough to see a tiny image of a person lying on the marble all those floors below. A puddle of dark liquid around the person's head. From above she noticed that the person was wearing the same beige shorts that her father wore.

She was screaming and crying by the time her aunt appeared out of nowhere. She had obviously been shopping. She had a bag.
Her aunt handed her a phone, telling her that she must call her mother right away. The girl refused.
"I have nothing to say to her."
The aunt kept insisting, but the girl would not touch the phone. Instead she sat there, her mind spinning. It might have been an accident, but she would not have been surprised if her dad had done it on purpose. Maybe he had problems she never knew about. Maybe he hated his life more than she hated hers. Maybe...
But what would happen to her now? Life would be different without him. She would miss him. She needed him.

What am I going to do?
What am I going to do?

She woke up.
She didn't have to do anything. It was only a dream. Her bestfriend lay awake next to her. She couldn't see her eyes open or the expression on her face, but she was moving, causing the burry colours to move.
The sinking feeling in her stomach had stopped. None of it actually happened.


She sat in the food court with her father hours later. Everything was normal, just like it was every time they came.
She was just about to get up and order the food when he grinned boyishly at her.

"That shop of yours is having a sale," he said. Do you want to have a look later? We might be able to find you another nice necklace."

It was one of their little jokes. Recently he had been saying things like that all the time because she had dragged him into that shop a couple of weeks ago and had admired a pair of jeans. He had bought them for her, as well as a pendant of blue stone which he had admired himself.

"Don't be silly," she replied, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. "Knowing you, we'll go broke if we go in there too often!"

"But I like buying things for you," he said in a more serious tone. "Who's going to buy you things for you when you're older? And I can't buy you things when I'm not around anymore, so I might as well buy them now. Besides, you might as well have them now when you're young. No point getting them later when you're old and wrinkled!"

She smiled at him, then got up and ordered their food.
All she could think about was her dream from the night before.
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