Ting-tong! The doorbell rang.
The only soul in the house, twisted in her bed. She opened her eyes just so much that she could see the clock on her bedside. The 5” tall miniature version of a Big Ben, now had its long hand pointed at 12 and the short hand lay on its right, making a perfect ninety-degree angle.
It was –
3:00 AM.
A snake of fear slithered down her spine.
Then a memory flashed ---
Just a month after receiving this ‘Big’ Ben from her grandma, Beckham had knocked it off the bedside while playing his evening games, disabling any movement of the clock’s hands further than the present time then – 3:00 PM.
--- a feeling of relief.
She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes slowly, yet steadily. A yawn broke out.
Ting- tong! Ting- tong!
“Ughhhh…what time is it anyway? WHO is it? How come I didn’t know about this arrival?” Lisa half-groaned and half-talked to herself. Being one of the most organized people on the planet, everything in her life was pre-planned. What time she’s going to wake up, where she is going to go, who’s she going to have breakfast/ lunch/ dinner with and at what time, what amount of work she will finish and who she will have at home. Her friends often told her to live life a bit freely, and enjoy at least ONE day, without knowing what will happen next. But they didn’t know the sole reason for Lisa’s strict planning.
Having been brought up by a symbologist father, and an artist mother, Lisa had grown to admire the world around her, for its natural beauty as well as the secrets hidden inside it. Being Italian she travelled to many places that had the intriguing mixture of the two. Rome, Tyrol, Vatican all held beauty unmatched and truths untold. However, growing up, she chose to live in Sicily. The homeland of the Sicilian Mafia somehow attracted her more than any other place in the country.
She shoved her blue blanket aside and set her brown hair behind her ears. Taking one more minute to open her eyes fully, she slid her feet into her red floaters and walked towards the door. Her house was nothing more than two rooms, a bathroom and a controversial kitchen. Her bedroom consisted of a white metallic bed, an old teakwood desk to its right and a white wooden bathroom door to its left. The only partition between her bedroom and the living room was a set of old wooden bookshelves, with about a space of a meter between them which acted like a ‘door’ or ‘entrance’ – Lisa didn’t care much. Filled with works of authors like Mark Twain, Einstein, H.G. Wells to Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling, the bookshelves looked like they were borrowed from a haunted house. Having not dusted the bookshelves for about half a year now, Lisa had to use a duster to read any book’s title. The condition was so bad, that when one day, Lisa had mistakenly tilted one shelf, causing a few books to fall, half of the living room and half of her bedroom had their atmosphere filled with dust. Nevertheless, Lisa never had the time and will power to clean the shelves. She had much more important tasks to do than that.
Crossing her bookshelves and entering her living room, she could see her leftover pancakes lying on her round red dining table to her right. Moving her gaze up the table, she finally acquired knowledge of the present time.
6:00 AM. It was a good one hour early for Drake to appear for their morning jog. Who else could it be? Taking a left from her bookshelf ‘gateway,’ the shelves high on the walls, the basin, the cook top, the ledge and the oven beneath it, smelt of one heavenly thing. Ahhh chocolate cupcakes….Lisa remembered the cupcakes she made last night – and her mistake of using the electric mixer on a bit of an unnecessary high speed.
Baking. It was an obsession.
She went near the cook top and inhaled. No smell of burning – this was no 6:00 AM version of The Exorcism of Emily Rose coming alive. She exhaled with relief. Lisa did not believe in spirits, ghosts and likewise, but the film industries were sure making beautiful films to give the audience a cardiac arrest.
She moved towards the main door. Reaching the door, Lisa turned the key and twisted the knob. Drake had better have something important to say.
As she swung the door open, what she saw was something she had not expected. Something she did not think she would ever see. Something she never wanted to see. Something much more unbelievable than any scene of the movie she had thought about earlier.
Lisa wanted to run. Run as fast as she could.
Run away.
