EPILOUGE
I cracked open my eyes and allowed the sunlight to shine all around my face. I turned to see Marla next to me on our old flimsy piece of trash for a bed. I looked at my watch that I received as a present from my mother, before she was gone. All I remember about her is that. The watch. I laid for a while and heard kids no younger than us talking outside. I sat up and noticed that it was 10 past 7. I nearly fell off the bed, shocked that my alarm clock didn’t go off earlier. It was one of the last days of school. A few more days and I’ll finally get my first award. I hastily got up off the bed and shook Marla, warning her that we would be late for school if we slept any longer.
“Marla!” I whispered, trying to make my voice as low as possible, in fear that Dad’ll wake up. If he did, we wouldn’t even get to go to school. I could smell the beer from his room sliding it’s way into our vents back into our room. Disgusting.
“Wake up! Or we’ll miss the city bus. Again! Do you really want to run halfway through Manhattan?”
“Ugh.. Hold your horses, I’m up. Why bother even going to school today anyways? It’s like, the last week. We’ve had enough. Let’s run away before the next school year starts.” Marla snickered, and ruffled her hair to gradually be awake fully. She yawned and smiled at me and made that distasteful remark of hers “Oh, I forgot. You’re a goody two shoes, can’t miss a day or you won’t get that award. Oh, we can always put that escape plan for another day I guess.”
I threw any random object my hands could reach at Marla. A dusty old glass case hit her smack in the head. She yelped, and I heard our dad shout at us to leave, or there’ll be trouble. Marla didn’t want to be around him just as much as me. She looked me in the eye saying ‘This isn't over. not yet’ Marla sucked her teeth and walked down the stairs quietly. Though it was no use due to the fact that the floorboards and stair steps creaked every two seconds. The weightless wind even makes more of an effort to walk than our actual human dad. Eventually after eating our pieces of toast and whatever handful of cereal we could find by rummaging through the wore down cabinets, we both put on our old worn out Nike sneakers, tied the laces and ran outside into what would’ve been the last time I got to sit down and tie my shoes.
