Trapped

Chapter 3

The golden sunlight breaks through her window, landing right on her sleeping face and lighting up the room with its glow. She scrunches up her face and shrinks her eyes to avoid the bright light dancing behind her eyelids. With much effort, she manages to open her lazy eyes and looks at the clock that is hanging on the wall opposite to her. 7:30 am, it says and she is in no mood to get out of her soft bed.

When she can ignore the sun no more, she shifts slowly, dragging herself out of her bed with lazy movements. A cup of coffee is all she needs, she thinks but heads towards the bathroom. Getting a nice cool shower will surely get her back to her wakefulness. Cool showers are refreshing and that's how she gets rid of her laziness, even though its kind of cold outside.

There are things to be done for the whole coming week, things that she may not find time for. There is laundry to be done, rooms to be cleaned, shelves and furniture to be dusted off and then there is grocery shopping. Well, today is going to be a one long day for her. She sighs and hops on the kitchen counter for a bowl of cereal. She ditches her coffee because she feels like she has turned into a caffeine addict.

She checks her mental checklist, counting on her tasks. Laundry, cleaning, dusting and repairing done. Yes, she found herself one more task of repairing the broken tap near the washing machine, that would just keep dripping water on the floor. Lucky enough, she knows her basic repairs. She doesn't need a man for these petty tasks as she refers to it.

The only task she has on her hands is grocery shopping and she is not going for it. Not now. After all the day's hard work, she needs a rest on the couch with a nice lunch which as a matter of fact, is another task on her hand. She groans but slips into the kitchen for a nice lunch and suddenly, she doesn't want to work hard for a meal.

"This shall do." She mumbles to herself, looking at the canned soup tin. She pours the contents of the tin can in a vessel, adds water and sets it on the gas burner, stirring it with a spoon until it boils.

A filling lunch always makes her drowsy, lazy and craving for sleep. Though, it was not one of those luxurious heavy meals, yet somehow it was a meal that made her feel content. So, grocery shopping can be delayed. No, she won't postpone it for a Sunday which is in fact tomorrow because that's the day everyone's rushing in the stores to grab their weekly needs. A nap won't harm her schedule much. And with that thought she slumps down on the cosy feeling couch and breathes a sigh.

Alisha jerks awake, all startled up like someone has just emptied a glass full of cold water on her face. It was a bad dream, she assures herself as she registers her surroundings, her home sweet home and not some dark alley where she was trapped in her dream. Her eyes casually land on the wall clock and that is another attack to her newly found calmness. 6:03pm, it displays and she is late for her grocery shopping. She was supposed to go at around five but it’s an hour over five so things need to be rushed.

She gets ready in a matter of minutes, taking a quick shower and changing into a decent pair of denim jeans and a soft shirt. Pulls her hair in a messy bun. She grabs her purse, her jacket, car keys and the list she made, lying on the kitchen counter under the basket of fruits. She is outside her door when she realises that she has missed something, her glasses. She is the one with glasses on her eyes instead of contacts because she feels comfortable with them and that doesn't give anyone a right to call her a nerd, even though there is nothing wrong in being called a nerd. That's what she thinks. She hurries back inside to grab them from the table and steps out. The door is locked and finally she is off to the store.

Why does everyone had to chose the same street or same route at this time, is what she is currently thinking about. It’s already 6:46 pm and she is just ten minutes away from the supermarket but the traffic is just crawling on the concrete road instead of bustling at full speed. She would have been at her destination by now if only she had ditched her car like always. She sighs because that is what she can do until this traffic jam breaks up.