It was a bright sunny day; the sun was shining with all its might. The birds flew all around in search of food while chirping and tweeting their coarse tunes. A cuckoo flew past the garden and sat on the tree stealthily watching a nest which lay near to her. All this was happening while I sat on the steps of my porch, staring at the emptiness lost in my deep thoughts.

It all began about three years back, when I accidentally found documents in my mother’s cupboard. I was looking for my vaccination card schedule since our teacher had asked us to bring it to school as part of our science project. While looking for my vaccination schedule I stumbled across an old file which had a blue tape across it. It looked old and yet untouched. Me having little control over my curiosity, quickly got a pair of scissors and made a little slit at one corner of the file and quickly opened it. What I saw in that file, was something I never thought I’d ever see or ever dreamt of. There lay a stack of papers, with a lot of legal terms and signatures. I couldn’t understand what they were, but I was determined to find out what they meant since they looked important. I flipped through the pages skimming over the contents of the page quietly trying to make sense of what those typed words on the pages meant. I saw my name on one of the pages, and then I stopped on that page and read it carefully.

I once read somewhere that words can **** as good as a gun, and that line made so much sense to me at that moment. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It all slowly began to make sense. Hoping that it was just a bad dream, I pinched myself half hoping I’d wake up and sigh in relief that it was all but a bad dream. Alas! That didn’t happen; I could very much feel the pinch and see my skin turning red and swelling up thanks to the pinch. The papers said I was adopted. But how could that be possible? People often said I had my father’s nose, then how could I be adopted? I had my mother’s temper, that can’t be a co-incidence! Or could it? It just didn’t make sense anymore. From confusion, betrayal, anger to sorrow, I was feeling every grim emotion possible.

Three years flew by and I still can’t accept the shocking revelation I discovered. Time and again, I subtly hint at my parents, trying to nudge them to confess about my adoption. It never happened; they never confessed to me and chose to keep me in dark about it, thinking I didn’t know anything about it. But as time passed by, I started wondering about who I was? Who are my parents? Where were they? Do they miss me? Do they even think of me? Or was I just another unwanted child walking the face of this earth. I don’t have the answers to my question. But I always thought for several hours about the answers to these questions. Often weaving stories mostly happy ones, but occasionally when I am sad, a really sad one about my past. But at the end of the day, they were just a fragment of my imagination, not the truth. But these stories often comforted my troubled mind. At least I could end the stories the way I wanted to and steer them just the way I’d like it. Someday I’ll know the truth, which may be better and more comforting than the stories that I had in my head or may be a sad tragic one which I won’t be able to endure.

Just then, my mother called out for me. Running inside I found my father holding a cake and all my friends singing “Happy Birthday” at the top of their lungs. My mother and father buried me in a huge hug while kissing me and wishing me birthday wishes. The cuckoo laid its egg while singing a sweet melody and then quickly flew away before the crows arrived.