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The Bottle of Ink
“It’s all my fault.” He muttered to himself, staring at the precious note and the delicate bottle of ink that he held ever so gently in his still slightly trembling hands.
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It was that Sunday afternoon when everything happened. Lloyd came out of the shower and stepped into his room. What greeted him was the sight of black ink. Almost everywhere was tainted black. His paper work that he diligently worked on for hours and hours, his study desk that held all his university textbooks, the once beige-coloured carpet beneath, the chair on top of it and his laptop as well as stationery. He felt his jaw drop as he surveyed the damage before his eyes. “No…” he started to curse under his breath, taking in the scene, rage quickly building up within his being.
Lloyd dashed out of his room, furious. Just like an extremely annoyed and enraged bull. He shouted for his younger sister and found her washing her blackened hands and knees in the garden. The sight of her trying to clean herself of the evidence was too much for him. His bottle of anger buried deep inside him finally popped open. Lloyd grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her with unexpected strength. Cecily stared at her elder brother in surprise and fear. She gasped and tried to make sense of this sudden outburst from her brother.
Before Cecily could say anything, Lloyd was already shouting at her in frustration and despair.
“How could you do this? Those were my assignments due tomorrow! And my laptop, my desk… Why the hell did you go into my room without my permission in the first place? That bottle of ink was expensive too! How did you even spill it? What was going through that dumb brain of yours! I thought we agreed that you should NEVER TOUCH MY THINGS!”
Cecily felt billions of razor sharp needles, each piercing through her heart, leaving her paralysed by those cold words. Red raw hand marks still hurting her even though Lloyd had already stopped harming Cecily. She thought she must have done something terribly wrong to make her brother this mad and upset, even though she couldn’t make head or tail of what he was shouting about. Confused and hurt, tears started to stream down her flushed cheeks.
“I…” She stopped as she thought about her words carefully. ”S… Sorry,” she stuttered between sobs. “I fell just then and… soil got all over me, and…”
He accused her of lying. Bitter disappointed crept up to Lloyd as his anger faded away. He sighed.
“What’s done is done,” He said, with resentment as he finally let go of Cecily. “I’ll redo my papers now. Don’t ever step into my room ever again. Got it?”
A silent nod. With that, Lloyd left her there alone with Cecily tear-stained face, without another word.
Lloyd gave his all, engrossed his entire being in his work, and tried his hardest to recover what had been lost in the shortest amount of time possible. Looks like he would have to lose some sleep for tonight. Lloyd glanced at the clock hanging above his desk wearily and realized it was near dinnertime already. Letting out a quiet groan, he inched himself out of his stiff working position and headed for the kitchen. He was supposed to fix dinner for Cecily and for himself, as well as for their cat, Midnight.
He called to Cecily to see what she would want for dinner. There was silence. Perhaps she had not heard him. He raised the volume and called again.
