Where Night Meets Day

Chapter 1: Annemarie

I woke up covered in a cold sweat; I can already feel the memory fading, fading like the sun into night. In only a few moments I will not remember that dream, I will not remember what caused me that cold sweat, that frantic heartbeat. I do, however, hope that one day; I will be allowed to keep my dreams. Keep them private, not out there for all of the leaders to see. Silently I unplug the suction cups from my head, with that last pull I feel the final strand taken with it, His face. I have been seeing it for weeks now, always the last image to leave me. His dark black hair shines out over his pale skin; I can't ever see his full face. Either it is.... It's gone now. Slowly I get up stretching my tight muscles, they don't unravel, and I like to think that in the mornings they prefer to stay constricted; ready to snap at any given movement. I carefully walk across my hardwood floor to my window, looking outside I see the beginning of sunrise. The bright yellow pushing away the menacing black. Creating fascinating colors in-between the opposites. The black that keeps us stuck inside our house all night, the yellow pushes and pushes until the black is gone leaving us with only the pure light to work with.

"Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life-"I whisper out the closed glass pane. Cutting myself off, leaving the rest of John Ruskin's quote for the dusk. It's a ritual I whisper a quote to the glass pane every morning and every night, saying what I read, telling it my secrets my stories, my life. That glass pane is all that I have to hold onto in this simple life. I blink 3 times, hold my breath for 3 seconds, exhale for 3 seconds and turn away. That is my signaling to my glass pane that I am done, to a officer it will look like I am looking off into the sunrise, but I am stealing a moment, one in which I don't have to follow any rules, one in which I can be myself. Annemarie Carroll Tayer.

Slowly I descend the stairs into our family room, no one sits there. No one lives there. A fine layer of dust covers everything; the couches, the old movie screen, even the floor, other than the track that the 5 of us have made every morning and night. I enter our small kitchen; it has a simple window with it's curtains open to let in the sun. On the black and white checkered floor sits a wooden dining table with matching chairs support yellow fabric that captures the cushioning inside. I am the first one there, as usual; I walk over to our ice box and grab the eggs. I dance over to the cupboard, to get the pan for our eggs. Leaping over to the stove I turn on the gas, ignite the flame and start to cook our eggs, another moment stolen.

As I plate our eggs the rest of the family comes down, everybody gets one equal sized egg portion. Its required for us to eat these, they give us enough nutrients and energy to get to lunch. My younger brother hops into the kitchen first; he knows how to steal a moment too. Then my older brother simply walks into the kitchen with a ghost of a smile on his lips, he must have seen Roger that is his stolen moment. Whether he admits it or not, Tre loves to see us steal our moments. It reminds him that we are still kids and that we need to have little moments where we can keep ourselves young and pure, Tre knows that he has already been adulterated, he can never go back. He has seen far too much, and experienced far too little to be able to steal his moments again. Mother swishes in next, her yellow dress standing out from my nightgown and Brothers' work clothes. Mother does not work in the field; she serves us, field laborers, water and lunch. Father comes in last, just as I am finishing setting up our table. He trudges in with his muscles still tired from yesterday's work, with a plop he lands ungracefully in the chair and grabs his tiny plate of eggs. I carefully slide into mine; the cotton material hates the pleather of the seats. I am the last to be seated and we all grab hands, no words come out of our mouths, the rule, we need to save our energy for our jobs today. So instead we all think about how grateful we are for our portions of food and how grateful we are for our time of day, and how grateful we are for our new life, one in which there is no discrimination, prejudice, or unfairness. All of the farmers got what they needed to survive and they factory workers got what they needed to survive. It's a win-win situation, even our government officials are a farmer and a factory worker. One works in the day the other works at night, easy enough to understand... Until you try to actually live the system. We unwrap our hands after what seems like infinity and begin to eat our egg. Bite, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow, bite, chew, chew... I finish my egg first, eager to get my nutrients and energy in for the day; others like to savor their egg.

Slowly I get up, without unsettling the quiet teetering in the air, back and forth, suffocating and comfortable; I march upstairs just like the good girl that I am supposed to be. I tiptoe to my room careful to not cause a noise, for that would be disrespectful to my family. Mornings were built around silence, silence is for thinking and saving our energy; not one bird sings... Reaching my room I pull my curtain close, so no one can see me in here, stealing another moment. Quickly I grab my work dress from the wardrobe and lay it out on my bed, I look down at it. The simple cotton dress cover my forearms and goes down to my ankles, the blue fabric keeps me cooler so I can work longer without getting heat stroke. I slip off my wool nightgown and the cold night breeze wraps around my bare skin like a silk cocoon; I shiver partially in delight, partially in fear. Fear from the unknown of the night; fear from where the night breeze came in the day. But delight in the mystery of the night, the unknown of the darkness, the unknown of what lurks in the shadows. I quickly pull on my work dress and my brown stockings. I stand there in my stockings for a few hidden moments with the occasional breeze swishing my dress and wrapping itself around my ankles. With a sigh I bend down and pull on my brown working boots and creep back down the stairs, by the time I arrive my family is waiting by the door, I get in my place between Tre and Robert. My father looks back at us and smiles the perfect image of his family. We begin to walk out our door and down our dirt road to town. We walk for miles and miles never breaking formation, never talking, the only sound is the pitter patter of our boots hitting the ground, patting down the dirt. That's how my day begins...