The place you left behind

The last train

It was 5 in the morning, Kumiko had barely slept some hours before she could feel the warm sunrays bathing her whole face and coming through her eyelids. They sneaked in through the blind holes as long thin threads of lights and painted the walls with rows of orange splashed dots that lined up in order.

Her eyes started to open slowly. She blinked more twice and then once more and then closed them again, tighly, while stretching her whole body extending her arms in the air. She then opened her eyes again and stared at the ceiling from where some plants hanged in pots held by white and beige thick braided ropes.

Opening her eyes wasn't that much of a work, although it kinda was. But getting up from bed was the real problem. Her body felt tired and limp and the first thing she felt was her heart thightening. She'd been having that feeling for a few months now. Every morning. It left her body when she managed to be so busy she could distract herself from it; then came back the moment she got home, where the silence was loud and the solitude drowned her.

The room was tidy for a 23 years old girl that overworked almost every week. There were just some, neither dirty nor clean, clothes in a chair along a desk by the window, with some papers piled up and a laptop. In a corner, a high two-column bookshelf filled with comics and books. Some collection figurines decorated the desk and the shelves, some of them still in their boxes. There was basically nothing more, a small wardrobe and just some more plants in each corner. Last but not least, an orange and white tabby cat at Kumiko's feet, stretching almost the whole bed's width.

Kumiko incorporated on herself until being sat, the moment she noticed the cat's movements.

"Luna", she called the animal with a raspy but tender voice. She started caressing the cat's back making her purr. The purring increased the more she pet her and she ended up turning herself on her back, leaving her stomach exposed. With a soft smile and moving her hand to the white fur belly, Kumiko spoke again:

"Don't get angry if I tickle you then".

Some minutes later, after giving lots of belly rubs, she finally got up, followed by Luna, that tried to intertwine herself with her owner's legs with every step she took.

After giving a visit to the bathroom and clearing her face, Kumiko went directly to the kitchen, a small opened one, next to the living room, with rectangular white tiles and a mix of white and wooden furniture. Luna instantly jumped on the counter and sat on the wooden while moving her tail side by a side, harmoniously, looking at her owner with a bit of mischief on her face, her mouth curved up almost as if she was smiling.

"You really think I'm giving you my breakfast", Kumiko said with a baby vocie. "But you can't drink coffee".

She then started to prepare some wet cat food that Luna impatiently tried to eat before it was fully prepared.

They both ended up taking their breakfast at the living room. Some voices and sounds came from her phone, but she didn't really watched the video playing on the background. Her eyes kept looking at a framed photography in a shelf, on top of the TV table. In the picture was seen a woman with a baby on her lap and holding the kid's hands. The woman was not looking at the camera but, instead, with her head slightly down, her eyes were fixed on the baby with a tender smile.

She didn't have many recent pictures with her mother from the lasts years; most of the albums with her mom were from her childhood or when she was still a baby. Now, with the loss of her, Kumiko regreted not taking more pictures with her and with those possible pics, she also grieved many moments they could've lived before her parting.

She started to blank out and, when she realized the picture was already blurry, her eyes went other way and she took another sip of her, now lukewarm, coffee.