How Could You Forget The Sun

I

When the night begins to whisper of the dawn through lightening eyes, I close my own. I'll succumb to a deep slumber until my alarm warns me of the time. It is then that I become what I hate most: a product of society's expectations. So I express myself during the darkness between twilights: I keep myself busy in art.  

Definition of 'Art': the expression or application of human creativity or imagination 

I open my eyes instantaneously as my alarm beckons me towards the light of day. I feel heavy, drowned in the sunlight flooding my bedroom. My keen fingers find my ears and tug the headphones free, letting my ears relax to the silence of my room. I love this silence: the calm before the storm.

I make a rustle to get out of my bed and out from under my checkered blanket. My bare feet find the wooden floor and I pull myself up to sit: my spine facing the window. 

I continue on with my morning routine: slip into a second skin of clothes, trudge downstairs and swipe a quick breakfast of toast, brush my teeth, brush my hair, and you can guess the rest. My mornings do not differ from the majority of the population's. The only difference might be that, once I've finished my leisurely fifteen-minute preparation, I find content in the notes of piano.

I do not have many pleasures in the life of day and family, but I can find retrieve in my piano digits. My father is already gone: programming computers to earn a quarter-million a year. I would not be complaining if only the job did not order him to be there at five every morning and be finished ten every night.

Adding in the half-hour commutes, I only see him at night during the hour before he went to slumber for the next grueling day. 

Imaginably, I rely on my own self for most things. My father is fair too: we've already agreed that a quarter of his salary every year goes to my college funds. In return, I take care of the house and make my own money for my own usage. Another quarter of his salary goes to food and the pet and his needs. The final half is saved for his retirement and for my starting house once I break free from my schooling.

It is a fair system to say the least: very respectable and manageable. So, I follow suit to his wishes. I've held my own job since fourteen, I've taken care of myself since twelve, I've kept myself in line. I haven't so much as broken his trust by stepping a toe out of line.

That's how we are, my dad and I. We're the Pavlov family, descendants of Ivan Pavlov: we're strong, smart, responsible, and respectable. 

It is a wonder that my father ever dated my mother. He and she were always complete opposites. My mother was your average, bipolar, cruel, cold-hearted bitch. My father had a temper that could stretch around the world more than a couple times, not to mention a firm sense of independence and manner. If she hadn't gotten pregnant, then he would have never married her.

Being the gentleman he was, he however did marry her. It was the worst mistake he made. The verbal abuse was the worst.

If I brought home a ninety-eight on my report card, she wanted a one-hundred. Those were the insensible words that came from a woman who barely got ninety-two's.  

If I didn't exercise for a couple days because I was hooked on a spectacular book, she criticized me on my weight and commented that she knew why I didn't have a boyfriend. I guess she never bothered to get on a scale herself.

She stood at five foot and weighed around one-sixty. I stand at five foot and weigh around one-fifteen. That was when I was twelve: just before my father couldn't take it any longer and divorced her.

He knew he deserved better, and I suppose the attorneys realized that because they let him take me. That was the day I realized that I was my father's pride-and-joy.