Counting the Stars

Chapter 12 - The Hour of Daylight's Rebirth [END OF PART ONE]

The first light of morning to hit my bedroom walls sent me up and out of bed with the rising sun. The rain of last night was finished and sunlight stretched across the wall as a gentle glow as early as eight. I'd spent the night drifting in and out of a light sleep that hardly lasted long at all and the sun couldn't have ascended over the horizon quick enough, as I knew that once it did, I could finally set my new plan into action.

Despite my restlessness to begin the day, I squeezed out the most rest I could get until eight o'clock. When I rose for the day, I did so with a fresh new perspective so far from the one that had overcome my previous few days. At sometime late last night, when I had been considering the extent of the control I had over my own life, I'd come to the realization that because it was purely my own, I had the power to turn it into whatever I chose, but with the cloudy dreariness that had conquered my senses, this didn't mean as much as it did now. It was my life, after all, and not anyone else's; I was going to make sure I lived it to the fullest. After the tense past few days, it was as though an entirely different set of thoughts had been thrust into my head as I was finally reminded just who I was. I was as bright, radiant, and bold as the sun itself and I wasn't going to let anyone take that away from me anymore.

After pulling myself out of bed with an excitement like pins and needles pinching my gut, the very first thing I did was tidy up the massive clutter that took up the space on my bedroom floor as well as properly make my bed. I carefully slid the drawers back into their sectors in the desk before gathering the materials and various tools that had been scattered across the floor to return them to their drawers, and then I picked up the books that I'd thrown around the room. Several of the books were bent and creased, and some were even torn, but I set them back up onto the shelves as neatly as I could. The phone that I'd destroyed was still completely unusable, easily forcing a cringe to my face at the sight of the damaged dents and the bright wires hanging out of the bottom, so I tossed it into the trash and accepted the end of contact over calls.

By tidying the chaos I'd created in the intensity of a moment of loss, I considered it like I was cleansing the past to pave the way for a better future, patching up what no longer was and starting anew. I was turning over a new leaf, preparing the first foundations of the future I was soon to build for myself and starting it off right. It was time to begin the next phase of my life.

I dressed myself in a set of dark pants and a pale yellow t-shirt, tossing on a navy blue sweater as I ducked out of the bedroom door no later than eight-thirty. It was already sunny outside, something I had been unable to say for the past several days, and so surely the temperatures had warmed up to some degree. I made myself a quick yet efficient breakfast, two scrambled eggs which took ten minutes to cook and much less time to eat, and left the table with a warmth from the heavy meal settling comfortably in my stomach.

By nine o'clock in the morning, precisely as I had planned, I was out of the house but not for long. Once a month, usually towards the beginning, a newspaper was dropped regularly at the bottom of my wooden steps for the town's residents to receive their news from the outside world, but since I'd done nothing but try to get away from the outside world for years, the only reason that I'd brought in the newspaper to my house before was to throw it out. Today, that was about to change. I had neglected to carry in the edition for the month of February when it had appeared almost two weeks ago since I saw no benefit, so as expected, I located it tucked up beside the side of the stairs, slightly dampened by yesterday's rain but it would still do.

I seated myself at the dining room table as soft sunlight blanketed the floor and the walls, opening up the newspaper I had retrieved and hearing it crackle faintly from being rustled after drying as my eyes darted across the lines of text. It wasn't a strict guarantee that I would find a column directing me to someplace I could find work, but as it covered several bits and pieces of information, there was a good chance that I could discover something that would help.