Kaleidoscope

Dream 1

Kaleidoscope is a goldfish. My goldfish. She's a palm sized comet goldfish, white with bright orange spots on her that look like hair on her head and a skirt on her tail. Kaleidoscope sings to me sometimes. And then she takes me far away.

"Curi, get up!" Mom calls from the foot of the stairs. "Breakfast!"

Oh no. Not breakfast again. The dreadful word. Eggs every time and if one egg decides to be slightly bigger than the other, you have to eat it all and it makes your stomach churn with vomit until lunchtime when you finally get the chance to rinse your mouth of slimy yolk. No, I want to yell down at her. Never again will I eat those awful eggs!

"Five more minutes!" I say instead. Five more minutes of what? Sleep? Suspense? I said it so I should know what I meant. But I don't. A hollow groaning sound leaks out from my knees as I sit up in bed and throw my legs over the side. Kaleidoscope is already up, blowing her morning bubbles at me from her bubble shaped bowl on my bedside table. I exhale most of my sleepy breath before blowing her a spit bubble of love back. The bubbles fizz on my lips until they all pop and fall down my chin. Kaleidoscope doesn't mind my non-fishiness but I can still blow bubble kisses. It's our secret morning ritual.

Five minutes, hmm? Mom didn't say anything so maybe I did actually give myself five more minutes to savor in my room before egg torture time. The carpet is freezing, just like yesterday. And yesterday's yesterday, and the yesterday before that. Autumn started on Tuesday and that's when the temperature dropped. Also since my mom's room and Xan's room are closer to the heater system, my room gets the coldest. I don't want to go downstairs, I never want to go downstairs every morning. If I could, I would buy a house where my bedroom is on the first floor. But I'm still a kid, unfortunately. It'll be forever until I can live on my own. 

Kaleidoscope winks at me from her fishy home. She can't read my mind, but everything she does makes me feel better anyway. 

"It isn't raining so I can take you outside again," I tell her. Her puckered lips continue blowing bubbles at me so I'm sure its because she's happy. I couldn't take her outside last weekend because the weather was bad, so she must be anxious to get out.

Cracking my cold knuckles as I walk to my dresser across the room makes me wonder what would happen if I punched the eggs so I don't have to eat them. Or what if I punched something I really hate? I have many things that annoy me, but I can't decide on any one thing to waste all my anger on. Instead I settle on taking the fish food container from the dresser's dusty surface. 

"Happy breakfast," I say as the rainbow colored flakes sprinkle onto the water like snow. Food comes down from above, all soft and beautiful. Perhaps tasteless though. But its still beautiful and Kaleidoscope floats her way up to the surface to nip at the fakes at her leisure. 

I try to press the wrinkles out of my nightgown before I go downstairs, but the ones in my sleeves won't budge like always. The skirt always come out fine but my sleeves, especially around the ruffles refuse to cooperate. Where's my hair comb again? I left it on my dresser I think... Nope it's probably in my drawers then. Had I put it in my hamper? No idea. I'll check for it after I choke down those poison slimes.

The handle creaks seasonally with the cold temperatures and a hopeful scent wafts into my face when the door opens fully. What's this smell?

"Toast!" I yell, feeling the tug of excitement on my ears so hard that it lifts me off my feet and all the way downstairs and into the kitchen before I can close the door behind me.

"Toast toast!" I chant, bending over the table and staring my glutenous buttery prey square in the face. Actually they might be rectangles if one bothered to measure.