The Suburbs

o n e

// d e d i c a t e d  t o  t h e  w o n d e r f u l  c a i t l i n ,   i l y   a  l o t   y a   b u m //

c h a p t e r   o n e

w h i t e   f e n c e   l i v i n g

l o u i s

Louis rolled over in bed, his fingers fumbling for the snooze button on his alarm that had obnoxiously honked at him five times already. He knew if he kept hitting the snooze button he was going to end up walking into the school in his pyjama bottoms and bed hair, but that morning he couldn't care less.

It was his twenty third birthday that day, and as the sun crept higher in the sky, the realization grew on Louis that he had been breathing for twenty three years. There were people who had done more with their lives in fourteen years than Louis had in more than twenty, and as he slammed his fist on the snooze button, the reality of that hit him just as hard.

He'd had dreams so big even he couldn't contemplate the extent of them, but his overbearing mother and cynical father had shot him down whenever he said he wanted to be a pilot, or a fireman, or a musician or an actor, and that was how he'd wound up in the same town he'd lived in and never left in twenty three years.

The alarm started honking again, and with an irritated growl, Louis kicked off the comforter and sat up, letting the warm morning encase him. Louis looked across at his alarm which told him he had a half hour to get himself ready for the day and into the classroom, which was more than enough time, especially seeing the school was a five minute walk from his small home.

Louis' ears pricked up when he heard the soft thuds of paws on the hardwood floors, and a few moments later a bundle of golden fur was throwing itself at Louis. 

"Hey boy!" Louis grinned, hugging the panting mound of fur whose tongue travelled every inch of Louis' face in the space of a few seconds.

"Whoa, calm down Taz, I've gotta get up boy," Louis laughed, gently pushing the excitable pup away from his face.

Taz leapt off the bed and looked back up at Louis, waiting patiently for him to get out of bed. It was a morning ritual Louis had come to love; Taz would bound in and attack Louis with kisses, then wait at the door to then walk Louis to the bathroom where he'd wait for him to get out of the shower. Taz would follow Louis as he got himself ready, and finally the two would sit together on the floor to eat their breakfast, Louis a bowl of porridge or cereal, and Taz a bowl of dog biscuits and the occasional treat Louis would sneak him. That morning was no different, other than the extra spoonful of brown sugar Louis stirred into his porridge.

Louis made it out the door and into the brisk early morning with enough time to make it to class before the first bell, which he liked to consider an achievement.

On the odd occasion, Louis would see a few of his students on the walk to school, but this morning was one of the mornings where his five minute walk was filled only with the soft chirping of birds and the sound of his shoes hitting the sidewalk. Louis enjoyed the fresh air in his lungs before being shut up in a blacked out room filled with stale air for hours and hours.

Slowly the high school came into view, along with a majority of the students who were lingering out front, waiting for their friends, or copying notes from their peers for a homework assignment they forgot about. Louis remembered those days all too well, being flustered and panicked about a test that he needed to do well in because he'd flunked the rest of the years work, but with a sigh he knew he'd do anything to have those days back. High school was so much more simple compared to the real world than he ever thought he'd admit to himself.