The Fourth Quarter

Before

I liked looking out the window.

Seeing the world, pondering my future.

I wore headphones, and Mom thought I was addicted.

But do you want to know a secret?

Sometimes I didn't even turn them on.

I only wore them because of the message they put out.

"Don't talk to Sabina. She either can't hear you or doesn't want to."

I really shouldn't have been like that.

Although, to be truthful, I don't regret it.

I wish I could talk to my family again, I really do.

But in all honesty I don't regret those moments, where I could still enjoy the world's beauty.

That was before it was destroyed.

I didn't want to look at my phone then. My sister hardly got off of hers. Even then I think I
heard her gasp over some petty drama. I didn't want that. I wanted to be different; I wanted to make a difference.

Anyway, that's what I was doing, and that's what my sister was doing. Now my parents? Mom
didn't come with us. She was never much of a sports fan. As for Dad, he drove in silence. He was a man of few words, and as annoying as that could be at times, I respected him for it.

Mom always was his fun side. She loved trips to the beach and lighting sparklers on toasty
July nights, dancing in the middle of stores and throwing her hands in the air. She was the one person who could put a smile on anyone's face.

My dad on the other hand was into Roman literature and history, a professor and researcher
of both. He spent his weekdays the same everyday: woke up at 4:45 a.m., did his devotions, took a jog, showered, put a suit on, and headed to the campus. Then he would teach until precisely 6:00 p.m. sharp, at which point he would get in his sleek teal smart car, drive to the quick store, buy a Snickers and a notepad, and come home. Next he sat down, ate his meal in silence, listening to all of our stories before speaking, so when dessert came, he could spend his time delegating our problems or commenting on our stories, especially when congratulations were in order. This kept him from feeling tempted to rethink skipping dessert. Finally, my dad would finish his day the way he started it, with devotions right before bed at 9:05 on the dot. He would continue to sleep and wake on the same cycle there on.  However, weekends were a whole different story...

Weekends were the time for the ceremonious notepad openings (and Snickers, but those
were more common than the sacred notepads). You see, we had a competition of sorts at my house. Dad, being the busy university professor he was, had a plethora of papers to grade and critique off hours. But Mom coincidentally worked shifts at the hospital on weekends too, so he came up with a little game of sorts to keep me and my siblings out of trouble when we were little, and it kind of just caught on. How it worked was that we each took a notepad. Consequently, for he next twenty four hours we were tasked with observing every happening in the world around us. At night we would rendezvous and share our journaling. Dad always seemed fascinated by what we wrote. I appreciated knowing he cared. He would end up relating what we shared back to his studies and using mythology as a lesson. Truly they were only stories, but it was the point of the morals. Then we would basically all pig out on our week long load of Snickers.

That only left the other two. Apollo was busy gaming furiously on his Signa, and Terra was
sleeping as usual. Allow me to explain some things. Apollo was my cellularly obsessed sister, Diana's twin, and Terra was the baby. Mom insisted on letting her stay with her at home, but my dad was more insistent that my mom needed a break. Now, you may think that a baby doesn't belong at a football game, but equipped with an infant sized team beanie and a chest strap carrier, that problem is easily conquered. Not to mention we had the baby whisperer present (a.k.a. me).