Last Day On Earth

2

Derryn

From outside the dreary depths of my room, as my mother would call it, I could hear the soft spitting of weightless drizzle tapping on my window and the swaying of ancient trees that stood watching over society for decades. It was a pleasant sound which, recently, I found myself enjoying quite a lot. August this year was not the best I've encountered; in fact, maybe it was the worst, hence the undying need to pile bricks in front of my bedroom door everyday to stop my parents from forcing me outside into the dark world. I couldn't blame them. I was a hermit.

Soft sheets slowly slipped away from the curves of my sore body as I lay there regretting last nights drinking incident, fluttering to the ground, sweeping a breeze over me. India, my best friend, decided it was only right to spend the last Friday of college getting wasted at a skanky club down the road; one of which I promised myself never to visit. She persuaded me with one of the many motivational speeches she had under her sleeve for these occasions. Alas, she had won again. Now, at twelve-thirty in the afternoon, I was staring at the ceiling, not bothering to pick up the polka-dot bedding that had left me so suddenly because of the gradually building ache that rested in my head. My parents knew of the 'incident' in which I came home blubbering about how my ex-boyfriend Kieran had been trying it on with Alana from Math class right in front of me, and about how much I wanted to dent his face and rip out her hair. Not to mention the excruciating talk about my hatred for my mothers red tea towel with the little chickens pecking at the seeds sewn below. She was disgusted in me. Which was why I wasn't surprised she hadn't bothered waking me. But now it was late, and I couldn't hear a single movement besides the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall downstairs. Damn thing kept me up every night.

I lifted my head slowly off the pillow, listening out for anything else. A minute or so had passed, and still nothing. Maybe they had gone out? No, it was a Saturday, they never went out.

"Mum?" I called. "Dad? I'm sorry." again, nothing. There was a soft buzz of chatter outside, and I assumed it was the neighbors. Gathering my quilt back onto the bed, I crossed the room, wrapping my warm fingers around the icy brass doorknob. When opening it, the door creaked agonizingly loudly, and I squeezed my eyes shut. The noise bothered me everyday, sometimes I resorted to leaving it open all night so I wouldn't have to hear it the next morning, but this time it made my insides run cold. Where were my parents?

I tiptoed across the landing, quickly lifting each foot from the cold laminate boards to avoid as much discomfort as possible. Mum and dad's room was only four feet in front of me, and I couldn't help but for the first time feel a vibe that wasn't cheery and lighthearted. A sudden lump grew in my throat just as I was about to speak, so when the words came out, they didn't. It was more of a strangled whine, where no words were actually spoken. As I edged further, I was surprised that I wasn't greeted by the usual soft sweetness of my mothers favorite pomegranate candle and my fathers David Beckham cologne he'd been savouring for about seven years when he received it for his forty-second birthday. Instead I smelt a slither of copper lingering in the air, the kind you'd get smelling your hands after holding a pound coin during the wait to pay for six jam doughnuts at the corner shop for sixty-five pence a pack. The lump stuffed up in my throat suddenly felt suffocating as I placed my hand flat out onto the wood, ready to push it. For a while, I didn't, because I assumed bad things. Things like blood and wounds - things like death. So I stood there, maybe for a good few minutes before I took a deep, well needed breath, and I pushed it gently with my fingertips.

The room was dark and cold - curtains pulled across the rail, leaving barely a strip of daylight to peer through and across the blanket of their bed. I popped my head between the door and the frame, my gaze wandering the scene. Their blanket was draped over mum completely, her hand holding the fabric in place under her neck. She looked slightly uncomfortable by the way dad's left arm was draped over her torso, hugging her a little too tight, but she made no movement to push him away, and I presumed she ignored it and fell back asleep. I wasn't properly convinced they were okay, not until I stepped a little further in the room, squinting my eyes. Mum's hair was forced away from her and pulled back in every second, her breath puffing it away and then sucking it back. Dad's chest was rising and falling rapidly.