They're watching us

Desolation

When I arrived back home I was grateful to be graced with a quiet, empty house. It would not be dark for hours, so there was no need to fear anything.

I wasn't expecting the desolation, and even though I knew it's existence shouldn't be, as my sister was meant to return home at least an hour prior, I still embraced it gleefully.

A confetti of notes was daubed in a blanket of ink and flattened ideas that covered my entire bedroom floor.Each page, each idea that even mentioned a thing I felt related to, was viciously torn out and systematically placed on an empty square of my carpeted floor.

Each page had at least three words that popped out as relevant to me, but none yet could help me. I had torn through thousands upon thousands of ink stained paper, yet not one so far had the knowledge I seeked.

Restlessly I continued to search, my fingers bright red and dressed in paper cuts. Without realising it the clock had driven a full 4 hours around the face and with a ding my mom walked through the front door.

She was quite the picture of an upper class party woman( although her partying was no where close to classy) her blonde dyed hair was muffled and stuck to her head only by little squirts of alcohol that still lingered from the night before. It happens often that she chooses to disappear off into the darkness of the night, choosing only to return the following day with a fake smile and a lost explanation.

She never came up to my room, but on instinct I coerced the sheets to slide into a gnarled pile and shoved it into my school bag (which was already full enough to fill a swimming pool)

I knew that if mom were home dad would see the car in the driveway and back away to an "emergency meeting." He didn't enjoy dealing with her when she is like this, it required effort and he was never one for effort if it meant benefiting my mom. On the days that she's gone you would hear him complaining," if she were here I would be going mad, wouldnt have been allowed to rest for even a second."

I don't blame him for it, my mother is definitely the definition of waking up on the wrong side of the bed...or the bar.

So that leaves me to do all the work and daily chores, seeing as mom has most likely fallen asleep by now. It's always the same, the routine of chores is never different. But due to my distraction on different matters, my head refused to stay in the single thought pattern of getting things done. I turned on the stove and began to throw all different utensils out onto the shiny stone counter. The pasta noodles danced as they were freed from their mold in the booking hot water, and the tomatoes shriveled up in the opposite manner until they all blended into one. As I began to dish out the food into three plates, as per usual, I realised I had forgotten something. My sister was still at school.

She was 6 years old, so according to school rules she couldn't walk home alone and if she was not fetched by 5 at night there would be a problem and they would have to bring child services into the matter. It was 6pm, and the darkness was already beginning to eat away the sun.

I knew I shouldn't have, but realising the time frame I jumped into my mom's stuffy Mercedes and sped across town. I was too young to drive, but I knew how to since my dad, before he became a total absent minded drunk, taught me how to drive and do all the odd jobs around like house.

I parked a block away on the dusty, deserted side of the road, and walked to the school. When my foot stepped on the schools ground my watch read 6:17 to the backdrop of deserted hallways. Sitting in the corner of the stuffy third grade classroom was my tear stained little sister.This had happened before, and she had never cried, she was always stronh.So when I saw the red puffs on her cheeks I knew something was wrong.

Tiptoeing I perambulated around the forest of desks that barricaded my sister. Clasping her tiny cold hand I pulled her up and two the door, instinctively wiping the last of her tears into my sleeve.

A ruffle of movent darted noise from the other side of the room. There I saw a tall dark haired lady, so skinny and delicate she might break. Like a shadow she slid over to us, not saying a word until her breath was tickling the hairs on my arms. "I'm afraid you can't leave. I have some question for you Mz Zničení, concerning your home life in particular..."