Accident or murder? How my father died?

What happened to my father? What happened the night he died? What is the truth? Accident or murder?Are there answers to these questions? No!

When I decided I wanted to take part in the writing prompt #5 by @JonicaBradley , I didn’t know what I was going to write about. I thought a lot about what kind of questions were going through my mind. Is there life after death? Will scientists find the secret of eternal life? Which came first, the hen or the egg? How many lies can there be in history books? Is there love at first sight? Are there real witches?

Then today a question came to my mind that I was trying to hide and not think about. What happened to my father?

My parents divorced when I was 5 years old and my father died when I was 11 years old. I have few memories of my father, and he is always drunk in my memories. He was an alcoholic.

It was November, that day was my birthday party. After my friends went home we planned the next day with my sister. We took out of the closet the clothes we wanted to wear the next day. My sister just took the black clothes out of the closet and i jokingly asked her, "somebody died?" When we went to the living room, my mother had just finished a phone conversation. She didn't say goodbye, just hung up the phone and buried her face in her hands, crying. We asked her what had happened but she couldn’t answer because of crying.

I asked "Dad?" She nodded. I asked "was he dead?" She nodded. I don't know how I could have known.

The first version described the story completely, and I didn’t even think then that it could just be an assumption.

My father went home drunk at night, pushing his bike on the sidewalk. He fell into the ditch and punched his head in a large stone, fainted. He later woke up and, wiping his bleeding head, set out to ask for help. His bloody fingerprints were on the bells of the houses, but where he rang there was just no one at home. Meanwhile, the blood clot caused by the fall reached his brain and he collapsed dead. His face was wrecked on the concrete.

But how does anyone know how he pushed the bike or sat on it? How does anyone know that he passed out and later got up? How does anyone know he fell at all?

When we went to his house, we saw a hole in the bathroom window. My dad’s brother said someone fired an air rifle through the window when my dad was shaving right there. Actually, as a kid back then, I didn’t think much of this, I thought someone just wanted to scare him because they might be quarreling drunk in the pub.

Years later, my sister told me that the story was a little more complicated than I know. But I was a kid, they couldn’t tell me more then. The information is still confusing and everyone is silent.

My dad was in the wrong place, he knew something he shouldn’t have known. And a few days after his death, he should have appeared in court as a witness. What did he see? Who did he see? I do not know. Coincidence? Or do I live in a damn movie? It’s all like a fictional story in a movie, like a cheap crime. But my father’s brother knew about the trial, and I’m sure he knows more, but he’s quiet.

Someone threatened my father, they didn’t want him to show up at the trial.

As an adult, my sister wanted to go to the police and check the documents. She wanted to know the truth. But our family told her not to do that! Don't get confused in the past. Maybe it's dangerous.

Nor am I sure my family doesn’t know the whole truth.

And what does a shattered face look like at the funeral home?

No one in the family saw the body ....