The Best Thing He Ever Wrote

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Four white horses stand before me in a strange manner. One horse leans forward on its front two legs, the middle horse cocks it head with teeth bared and the third horse is standing on its hind legs. Behind the horse there's a house it looks just like mine except that the front porch is painted a deep blue. Therefore, I guess, they don't look the exact same. I want to pass the horses but each time I take a step closer to the house, a step further from my original spot, one of the horses bites me. I hate horses, the cocky self-absorbed animals, or maybe I don't. Maybe it's these horses I don't like, I don't remember. I know that inside that house there is something I want, I think it's my mother, but I'm not sure. I walk towards the house again but the horse on the left latches onto my arm, ripping at it, I let out a yelp, falling back a few steps.

“Get up.”

I roll over; a thin line of drool has fallen from my mouth and onto the pillow leaving a sticky white lump of dried spit in the corner of my mouth. I swallow looking over at Cindy who stands still in the door way of my bedroom. I moan as I realise that the pain that the horse had given me in my dream was actually from sleeping on my bad arm. What a strange dream. A stupid dream.

“What time is it?” I say feeling as though it's only four in the morning, if that.

“Five to eight.” Cindy replies.

I sit up lifting my phone from my bedside table, it's flat. I curse at it for a moment before throwing it at the wall, I'm late. Just like that stupid rabbit in that stupid movie, Alice in Wonderland.

“Well I just thought I'd tell you, I figured you'd need to get up.” Cindy says, turning and leaving the room. I sit dumb-struck and tired for a moment thinking that Cindy is actually lying, playing a prank. Then I hear her say her goodbyes to my mother, I listen as I hear her shut the door.

Shit!

I stand up grabbing for whatever I grab first from my wardrobe. I pull off my track pants, bouncing on one leg to pull my pants up. Then I slip on my shirt, the fabric rubs against the cuts on my face and I swear at the shirt. Sure enough my mother's heard enough swearing in the past two minutes then she's ever heard in her life. I grab for my keys in the pocket of a pair of dirty jeans that lay sprawled across the grey carpet of my room. With no luck I drop to my stomach scanning under my bed for where they might have flung. When I find them I push them inside my pocket and do frantic run for my wallet. I almost trip down the stairs twice, I glance at the clock and realise that I'm ten minutes late picking Olivia up. It's not that long, but I don't like to be late.

I stop mid step at the bottom of the stairs- well the three of them- realise I haven't brushed my teeth so I dash back up the steps. Skipping all three of them. I squirt the green paste onto my toothbrush, it looks like a slug, half the paste falls off but I don't bother putting more on. I look in the mirror, brushing my teeth and fiddling with my hair at the same time. The toothpaste becomes so hot in my mouth that my eyes turn red and tiny dots of tears leak from the corners of my eyes.

I spit.

I rinse.

I rinse again.

I hurry back down the stairs and glance at the clock that now says I'm fifteen minutes late. I wonder who's playing this frustrating game with me. Who keeps moving the bloody hands on the clock? Time never seems to go fast enough, but today it's managing just fine. Too fine.

I spot my mother sitting at the kitchen table sipping her morning tea, she eyes me suspiciously and I disregard her look and hurry out the front door. It's cold and I've forgotten my coat, but I don't bother going back inside to get it.