Facing The Reaper

I

The day always started the same way, with mum stood at the kitchen sink, humming as she cleaned and completely oblivious to the chaos that ensued behind her. Dad crashed into the kitchen, mumbling his usual obscenities under his breath as hr ran around looking for car keys, work notes and a matching pair of black socks that preferably didn't have daisies sown into the sides. Edna and Bernie were sat side by side, picking dry cheerio's from their breakfast bowls, licking one side before stacking then to another cheerio lying on the tabletop. Seeing who could create the tallest tower and competing with one another until mum came around with her dreaded yellow washcloth and erased all evidence of the great cheerio mountains that they had created.

Uncle Floyd; mums older brother who moved in 5 years ago after a collapse in the job market and seemed to have no intension of ever leaving; sat across the table, browsing through the obituary section in the Daily Times. His grotesque interest in the deceased is what led him to become a funeral director. I think it was the sinking fear of his own death and the possibility of dying alone that kept him with us. The sinking unwarranted fear of his own mortality that made him want to keep his only family close.

I sat quite happily among the madness, not quite as unaware as my mother but probably just as unseeing to it all. I was just a kid.

My father finally flew out the door after abandoning his quest for a pair of matching socks not belonging to one of his three year old twins and pulling at the knees of his trousers, probably hoping that no one would notice the flash of pick that peaked out the tip of his shoes.

My uncle then slowly took his last sip of tea, folded his newspaper neatly onto the kitchen table, and made his even slower escape from the house.

Mum took that as her usual que to sweep around the kitchen for the final mourning clean up. She collected the empty cup from my uncle's spot and the half empty cups of juice that sat abandoned in front of the twins, ignoring the wobbling lips they made as she demolished the towering stack of now soggy cheerio's that sat disintegrating onto the table surface. She unhooked the belts of the high chair setting the twins loose to resume their mourning routine of preparing for nursery. She dropped my lunch bag in front of me and ruffled my hair as she exited the kitchen following suite of the twins.

I herd her voice telling then to hurry or she would be late for work, despite the fact they were already halfway up the stairs. I made my own quite escape from the house. Nocking my knees on the table as I tried to avoid Bernie's toy car that had been abandoned under my chair, as I went.

The stagnant summer air hit me as I closed the front door behind me. My jacket flapped open as I tugged the strap of my backpack over my shoulder with one hand and smoothed my hair back into place with the other.

I turned the corner of our cul-de-sac and headed past the wall of oak trees that decorated the pathways of our quite neighbourhood. Mothers and fathers bustled children into cars on their school runs, checking phones, checking watches, checking they had all children present and ready to leave, noise was everywhere and yet it felt completely detached from everything else. Like it was washed out background noise.

A young boy stood alone at the bottom of one of the trees, looking up at a stray cat that had found its way up into the tree branches and sat purring down at the child. They stayed there, staring at one another in silence, as if engrossed in a deep conversation that no one else could hear.

I looked up at the cat as I passed, feeling as though I was intruding as I did so. The cat was pitch black, with smooth sleek fur and a few grey furs sprinkling from his nose and ears. Neither one noticed me passing, but the intent look passing between the two wasn't the most bizarre thing, it was the deepness of the cat's eyes. A startling bright red, that seemed to see nothing past the young boy's existence. Even though a nest of young birds sat nestles on the edge of the branch, completely unguarded by any parent bird, its only interest was the child. As if the boy was the real prey. I struggled to suppress the shiver crawling up my spine as I moved past them.