Swapping The Deads

Bella visited the hospital in the suburb again, taking Oriel with her. On reaching there, Oriel once again attracted towards her queries and pitiful gazes. "Do you not have anyone else in your family?" they asked.

"Poor girl, orphaned at such a young age," they pitied.

"What happened to her father? I heard he was driving under influence to smash his car against a tree," they speculated.

Bella was giving her attention to the formalities at the desk, while seating Oriel on the bench inside the corridor teeming with some people ill from all kinds of diseases and some bleeding from wounds and perishes. Oriel couldn't sit still, she swung her legs from one side to another while waiting for Bella. She was expecting to see her father once again, not knowing that the pen in Bella's hands had just allowed the hospital to cremate him.

She was unaware of the ways the world worked, not told of the things that a signature on the paper was capable of. Bella was signing as a guardian of the bereaved Oriel. She came back from the desk and reached for Oriel's hand, forcefully taking her out when she resisted. "Dad! I will go to him!" she exhausted her energy trying to break free from her grip.

"Oriel! Now don't create a scene. It would help if you grew up now," said Bella. "Your dad is not in this world anymore, when will you understand?"

The corners of Oriel's lips curved down as she looked at the hospital mortuary. "He is inside!" she mumbled.

And then suddenly Bella's phone rang inside the bag that she was carrying on her shoulders. She didn't free Oriel and used her other hand to take out the phone ringing and vibrating. She flipped the screen up and pressed the button to answer it. "Hello!"

For the first few seconds, she didn't hear anything from the other side. "Is there anyone who knows that a phone is used to have a conversation from both ends," she shouted.

Meanwhile, Oriel was still in the middle of the effort of freeing her hand but Bella's grip only fastened during screaming on the phone. "Forget it, looks like someone died after dialing the phone." She was going to hang up the call when suddenly a faint voice came through it.

"It's me, you noisy woman," a cranky voice of a man sounding similar to Bob's.

"You! How dare you try to contact me after almost killing my child yesterday," she replied raging up. Her anger could be felt by Oriel on her wrist.

"Calm down, there must be people around," he lowered his voice. "Listen to me! I need your help."

"Help? from me? do you really think that I will help you after all this?"

"Please! If not for me, you will have to do this for Collin. He should never know about the reason I was attacked yesterday," he was going to great lengths to protect his secret.

Bob began to explain the incident to Bella and she gradually invested her concern in it, following which Oriel grabbed the opportunity and shook her off to run inside the mortuary. She begged the nurses and the staff to let her meet her dad again, but all of them asked her, "Is there any adult with you?"

However, she did manage to get the possessions found with his body. She was handed a sandy-colored leather wallet and a watch with one side of the strap missing. She was told that it belonged to her father but, Oriel being the dyslexic and slow child, didn't know if it actually belonged to him or not. She opened the wallet to find an identity card in it, but the words on it were also unreadable to her. In reality, it was the same wallet that Collin identified as his father's.

She came back to Bella, requesting her to read the identity card for her. Bella was sitting on a bench, mulling over something intensely. She was in a dilemma after the phone call had ended. "Can you read the name on it for me?" she asked while passing her the I.D card. She noticed that the picture on it was scratched and scrapped off with a sharp object and Oriel was unable to read the name and other details.

"Can you not read it?" asked Bella, looking viciously at her.

Emma slowly shook her head in disagreement. "It's hard."

Bella sighed knowing that and read it out to her, "It says George Baker, your dad," she lied, looking at the name legible as Bob.