The Art of Sundays

I

The alarm clock rung and my eyes gently opened. A shaft of sunlight slowly made its way into my room. The glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling are robbed of their light and the creme colored walls of my room are now much paler than my skin tone.

The warm and lemony breeze gently touched my cheeks and blew a few strands of my hair away from my face.

It's just one of those normal and casual days I'd often wake up to knowing that Christmas had finally come to an end. The usual gelid air and the scent of freshly baked gingerbread cookies no longer filled the air. The atmosphere of Winter was now replaced by Spring's.

I managed to stand up and scratch my eyes while mentally cursing myself to wake the hell up. I looked at the calendar on my bedside table and grunted in dismay.

Sunday.

Out of all the days it could've been, it was Sunday.

Yes, I was fully aware that yesterday was Saturday. And that when sleep took over my body, I would wake up the next day with the full knowledge of the day being Sunday.

I've been praying though, hoping for someone from the other side of the universe to travel through time and stumble upon an enormous clock and wind it simply out of curiosity. I guess miracles just don't happen, right?

Aside from the fact that the day after Sunday was Monday, Sunday also meant going to church. And going to church wasn't really my thing.

My mom noticed this. My unending hatred for Sundays and going to church was hard to conceal anyway. She had scolded me once about this but I never bothered listening. She would tell me that there was only one Sunday in a week and that we should make the most out of it by spending time with our families and worshipping the Lord.

You could say my family was the religious type. Sundays and bibles were taken pretty seriously. We'd pray the rosary thrice a month and we'd go to church every single Sunday, something I'd managed to dread in the past few years of my existence.

It's not that I didn't believe in God. It was the fact that I had doubts and my faith wasn't fully educated. I was highly aware of that but I never bothered doing anything about it. Having doubts is normal, right? It's not like the church officials and the government would sue me for such inevitable thoughts.

"Lily! Come help me here." My mom called from downstairs. I rolled my eyes, imagining possible things she'd ask me help with. Maybe there was a big spider in the kitchen sink? A rat, perhaps?

"Coming!" I replied and alerted downstairs.

Boxes of Christmas decorations espoused me as I reached downstairs. It would be a major understatement if I told you that the whole floor of the living room was covered in boxes of newly removed decors. Snow globes on one box and Christmas socks on the other. The Christmas tree was still standing pretty well but it was naked this time. It was as plain as black coffee without the fairy lights surrounding it.

"Lily, where are you? I've been calling for you for the past minute!"

I sighed, thinking of a way to get through this river of madness. I tiptoed my way through the boxes and finally managed to make my way to the kitchen.

As I entered the kitchen, the scent of chicken and buttered pastry wafted out from the oven and it made me close my eyes in desperation. It was the same chicken pie my mom would usually bake every Sunday's.