The Beginning, Middle, but not the End

Day 5,961 (February 11th)

I swing my arm over and hit my alarm, successfully turning it off. The comforter is still warm from my body heat, making it hard for me to accept the fact that I have to get up soon, so instead I roll over and look at the ceiling. It's seven in the morning, and I have to be at the swim meet for yearbook. It's days like these that I dread being on the yearbook committee because I could be sleeping in. The guy who was supposed to cover this though has a funeral to attend out of state this weekend. He and his family left on Thursday, but that morning he came to school. He explained the situation and resigned himself from the assignment. No one raised their hand in the class to take over, which I thought was pretty uncool of them. I tried seeing the best in them, hoping that maybe they had other things going on; I raised my hand and volunteered to cover the assignment. I'm not usually up for the early shifts, but I almost always sign up for them so the other kids don't have to. Besides, the guy told me he'd pay me back when he gets back. I didn't want to be rude by rejecting his offer, so I took it.

After a few more minutes, I pull myself out of my bed and get ready. I'm welcomed by the smell of sausage and pancakes as I walk downstairs. Mom must've woken up earlier to make me breakfast before the meet. "Good morning, Hun," She kisses my forehead.

I smile and hug her, "Morning, is this for us?" She nods to me.

We fill our two plates and I grab a glass of orange juice, then we go to sit. Instead of sitting outside like we do in the spring to enjoy the cool mornings, we sit in the breakfast nook in the kitchen. The lights in the house are still off; the early morning sun shining in through the window is enough. Through the curtains, I see a light sheet of snow coating everything.

"Thanks mom," I dig in. We eat our breakfast and chat. These are one of the few things I look forwards to whenever I do have early assignments; eating breakfast with Mom and just chatting about life's simplest things. I've always liked simple things. We finish up our breakfast and I help her clean the dishes, then put aside a plate for Dad whenever he wakes up. That probably won't be for a few hours, but he loves mom's cooking so we never forget to spare him any leftovers.

Mom tosses me the keys so I can go to warm up the car. I put on my boots and one of Dad's coats, which was hanging on the coat rack by the front door, then head outside. The sun is nearly blinding, but I quickly recover. I start the car and blast the heat, not forgetting the defroster. After a minute of shuffling through the compartments in the sides of the door, I find the ice-brush and begin to clean off the windows. I return the brush and go back inside to finish getting ready.

The air horn blares and soon after, the varsity girls dive off their starting boards and begin swimming. I begin taking pictures as I walk around the border of the pool, finding the best possible angles. The swimmers seem faster than sharks chasing prey. I watch Luna thrive in the pool. I wonder if the pool is her home, like how Dallas' garage is his because of his music. I grew up playing and listening to him and his band jam in there. Maybe Luna grew up swimming and playing around in a pool. She's always here in her free period and lunch. I'm getting distracted. I need to pay attention to what I'm doing. I continue to photograph the varsity swimmers as they do the different strokes and laps. They're like torpedoes in the water so I have to be careful when taking the pictures as to not get too many blurry shots.