Choking on Poker Chips

Chapter 1: What We Were Before

"Cadet, come downstairs! The pancakes are almost ready!" My mother called to me from the kitchen.
I yawned and slipped out of my bed, greeted by the cold floor and the smell of something burning. The floor felt as if it a thin blanket of frost had covered it, my toes almost burning from the cold. After a long wide-mouthed yawn, I spoke up to mumble my first words of the day, "I'll be right down mommy..."

Of course, on a Saturday there's no need to check yourself in the mirror or brush your teeth, so I just head out into the hallway. Both walls were covered in family photos, frames of various colors and sizes gluing the pictures to the wall. There was one particular picture that made me smile. It was a drawing I made of me, mommy, and daddy. They had put it up on the wall and I've never been more proud. As I turned the corner to enter our kitchen my nose burned from the smell of smoke. Mommy had just taken out a batch of scorched bacon, completely inedible. Meanwhile, daddy was frantically waving a washrag below the fire alarm, covering his nose from the smell. Daddy was the first to notice my presence and a big genuine grin was drawn onto his face,
"Look who's finally awake! Sleep well pumpkin?"
I replied with a tired nod and sat down at the table, barely able to climb onto the chair. Mommy had copied daddy's grin as she attempted to salvage what bacon wasn't burnt to a charcoal black. She had a certain glow to her. I don't know if it was her pale blond hair or her bright smile that made her that way, or if it was something else completely different. Whatever it was, that's what made daddy fall in love with her.

A stack of pancakes had been neatly placed onto mine and daddy's plates, flooded with syrup and a thin square of butter. It was a heavenly sight. Usually, the smell of a crisp and mouth-watering bacon would be accommodated with the scene, but not this time. But that's alright.

Mommy was a bit upset, though, having almost never messed up a batch until now. My daddy tossed the washrag onto the kitchen counter and pecked her cheek, muttering something I couldn't hear to her. I'm sure it was something nice or comforting because it made her smile and roll her eyes.
I had already dug into my pancakes, my knife and fork easily breaking through the soft, fluffy treat. Daddy soon sat down next to me to enjoy his as well,
"You know what? You should start a cafe or restaurant! These pancakes would sell like slap bracelets in the 90's! You could be the chef, I could be the cashier, and Cadet here could be a waistress!"
Mommy giggled as the suggestion and set down her plate of pancakes, sitting down next to him,
"Sounds like fun, honey. Maybe one day..."

This is one of my greatest memories. Although it may not seem like anything special because nothing extravagant occured, it is a fragment of time that my mind can recollect so clearly that some days I can relive it as if I were still there.

And how I wish I was.
Oh, how I wish I was there, stuffing my face with fluffy, syrup-drenched pancakes to the brim of my mouth. I wish I was there listening to my parents soft and loving voices as they conversed about what they could do for the rest of their lives.
There's not one thing I'd change in this memory. Not the burnt bacon. Not the cold toe burning floor of my bedroom. Not the fact that that I was spending more time shoving poorly cut squares of pancakes down my throat instead of joining my parents in conversation.
No, because although it was not a good day, it was perfect.

I wish I could've gotten great detail of what happened the rest of the day after the burnt bacon and chit chat of future plans, but I can't remember fully. I can only recall that I had another day of preschool and my parents read me a story to put me to sleep.

The school day was nothing special as you may have guessed. I pushed a kid, though, and I got in trouble. The rest of it was just broken crayons and alphabet songs.

It was the same scenario with the bedtime story. My parents layed beside me, my daddy holding the book and turning the pages while mommy read. I can still clearly hear her soft and smooth voice reading the silly words in tune to the flipping of pages. I can still feel being suctioned to my mattress by the tightly tucked blanket, as if it were a sticky marshmellow.

I have many more memories of these kinds of days, but for some reason my mind decided to latch onto this one. I'm sure if I tried hard enough, I could remember a few, but none would be as glass clear as this one.

(Word count: 861
There's more coming soon!)