Tales

It was an ordinary day, or so it appeared.    The alarm went off at the time the alarm always does.  Twice, in fact, as it always does.   She set a weekly recurrent alarm every week, then each evening she set a daily alarm as well, JUST in case.  She smiled as she turned first one and then the other off, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, feeling in the dark for her glasses ( used only for reading) and her book (almost finished but thick as a doorstop).  

The carpet kissed gently the bare soles of her feet as she padded to the door and pulled the door to behind her ( so as not to wake him).  The lounge light clicked on at her request.  She grabbed up her clothing with one hand and dropped the book, her mobile phone and her glasses on the arm of the lounge with the other.  

As she wandered down the hallway to make her coffee, she noted again that late summer and the evening just ended had endowed the floorboards with a pleasant coolness.  She noted, as she always did, the difference between the bedroom’s lush carpet and the floorboards and how in the lounge and the hallway. Into the bathroom to turn on the shower so the water came through hot by the time she put the jug onto boil and readied herself.  

The jug boiled and coffee was readied in what seems like no time at all.  She had her shower as usual and wrestled with the hot and cold flow control to attempt ( and failing as always) to find that perfect temperature. 

Ah well, she thought, at least this way I am not at all tempted to stay under that flow for too long.     She showered, as always, and dressed in the clothing she had painstakingly laid out  just before sleeping in readiness for the morning haze.  

As always she padded in and kissed his sleeping cheek and as he always did, he reached over and tried to hug her into him.  Carefully she extracted herself and collected her already packed bag, and her key for when she came back.  And with a last click to extinguish the lounge room light she quietly unlatched the front door and headed into the day.

The concrete path still carried vestiges of dew drying quickly at the sun ascended and gilded the morning.  Gold lit the pathway turning specks into mesmerising jewels.    Upwards she looked to greet the orb spinner sitting smack in the middle of his web high between the two trees at the edge of the balcony. This now became a glimmering archway through which she walked before treading nimbly the meandering pathway through the blousy and overgrown late summer garden.

As always, the traffic chugged and thrummed determinedly down the roadway she headed upwards to cross.  This early the work bound traffic had still some breaks and breathers; gaps in the relentless morning migration southward, cityward.  To the east the gold of the rising sun and the shimmering heat called her across the road, carefully.  Eyes open she slipped deftly and carefully through a break in the 6 lanes of traffic. Immediately the route sloped downward which she took at a  steady lope towards her morning train ride also into the city and her day’s work.

To her right the agapanthas blossoms were drying on wilting stalks, no long standing proud, seedboxes awaiting the first of the autumn storms to scatter their tissue like casing and bed them for next summer’s display.  But there was no sign of that, yet,  this morning.  To her right the jacarandas that had a strong presence reached verdant branches across the macadam,  no longer adorned with girlish purple. 

Just there, a haze frantically swirled just discernible beneath one of the trees.  The fact that the smudge beneath the tree branches was a living mass only became apparent when she got closer. She watched intently, to find a furious flurry of midges just in one place.  

As always she walked the pathway, iPod earphones on and half listening her feet automatically adjusting to the rhythm of each successive song. She rounded the corner and headed up to cross the parking lot.  The gravel and bitumen appeared to be shimmering gold and silver. The sun loomed closer than she expected. It filled all her senses and she was drawn in and mesmerised by it.

As she stepped out onto the gilded path, all the ordinary things seemed suddenly just to no longer be there.  The usual two trees through which she walked on the final approach to the morning commuter rail station were still there. High up in the branches a lace work of spider webs draped the tree tops. 

Her usual five steps through and onto the road near the station did NOT happen.  She turned around looking back and found a silvery golden light obscuring where she had come from.  Surely her thoughts had not wandered so successfully that she was somewhere else. Where had her errant feet taken her.  Yet she recognised the trees, the shape and silhouette of them being familiar. 

“What do I do now? ” Panic curled momentarily deep down in her belly and she forced herself to breathe.  ”What do I DO?” she thought.  

She could not go back and could only see a few steps way forward.  To the right and left the usual sights and smells and sounds had ceased.  There was no morning commuter train rattling, no other footsteps behind or in front, no sense or sound of others breathing, no birds chattering or small animals snuffling in undergrowth.  It was almost as if the golden pathway painted by the rising sun had carried her elsewhere and the only way to find out where she was and indeed find out how to find her way back to her life, was to go forward.  

These thoughts powered her impetus forward.

It was dark; thick and inky blanket of opaque blackness that almost had a living presence.  

For one moment I hesitated to turn over.  The hairs that rose on the back of my neck frantically told me without words that should I turn, there would be SOMEthing there.  reason and logic argued with visceral reaction.  I enforced my will and turned. And I found, nothing there.  I took a few deep breaths.  

Even with my wide eyes open I could not see a thing - nothing in fact.  I could hear the fan sitting just at the foot of the bed stirring the summer night into something alive and breathable.  I could hear faint distant thunder rumbling and stirring the silence of the early morning. layered with that was the occasional thrum of wheels  and engines, flinging themselves purposely up or down the highway not too distant from where I had spent most of the night trying to find a lengthy rest.

I stirred and threw back the covers.  The quilt bunched into a mound at the foot of the bed and the sheet tried to follow me to the bedroom door.  I needed no light for this journey knowing every creak in the floorboards and where the doorways should be. 

Chill air met quilt warmed bare skin as I padded barefoot down the darkened hallway and straight into the kitchen.  This route I can and do traverse often, usually several times a night, without thought or bumping into any doors or tripping over anything.  The entire house is quiet,  and heavy with the dreams of those sleeping under the roof.  Only I was awake.  Their snuffled breathing follows me down the hall.  I walk with their silent dreams as witness.   And I smile.

The digital clock display on the oven greets me brightly as my eyes adjust to the dimness of early morning.  I find the cupboard door and open it quietly, careful not to bang or thump or make any large noises to disturb the dreaming of the others locked into deep rest.  By braille I find a suitable cup and after filling it quietly, I  sip the water thoughtfully briefly resisting the urge to gulp it all down greedily.  

Mentally I debate what my next steps will be.   

Should I return down the hallway and fold myself back into the bedding slipping back into sleep for a short while or should I give up on my attempts and settle myself against a mound of pillows and drift through Cyberia as the minutes become hours and call up the new day?

Words have lived as my first love as far as I can remember and early dreams of making a living writing disappeared under the weight of supplying a growing family with the fiscal means to survive and be educated.  Always writing has taken a place far down on priorities, as rent was needed and food and school fees and money for clothing and excursions for those I have borne and bred.  Therefore my responsibility.

Yet now largely they have grown and sometimes now in the quiet following their movement out into their own lives, still covering so many small necessities, one thing I finally have is time.  

I have promised to myself that I will write 30 minutes each day faithfully and allow some of the tales I have grown inside of me to finally find their way unfurled into being.  This is my outlet.  Will be.

Coming soon: Commuting Tales - Little Brown Hen, I know Where Clouds are Born, … Travel Tales - Journeys in Exotic Lands, …  Love Stories, of course my Poetry and more as it grows and flows.  let’s see what issues forth