I run to the window. I open it wide.
You don't just open windows - never - you open them wide, so you let the whole world in, and it's huge.
Cherry blossoms are flying everywhere. There must be a tree down there - somewhere I can't see right now - and it's sending flowers around.
I scream at it: "You know nothing about this virus, do you? It's springtime and that's all you care!"
Then I come back to the table and we eat. In silence. Grandpa's pasta goes straight from new entry to number one in the charts. He eats in silence because when he does something, he does it with complete dedication.
"When you do your homework, you do your homework. When you play, you play. When you listen to music, you listen to music," grandpa always says.
Humanity before multi-tasking. Well, I don't know if he's right, but what I'm sure of is that when I'm with him everything is more intense, more alive, more beautiful. But when I'm not with him it's a very difficult game to play. I mess up, I start over, I interrupt myself, I do something else, then I start again, and so on.
At the end of lunch, I wash the dishes while grandpa makes himself coffee.
"Oh boy, this stuff I made ..." he says to me, while he drinks it pulling a thousand faces because he doesn't like coffee. He started drinking it when grandma passed away. She always liked to have coffee after lunch, like always. Grandpa would chat with her during the ritual, and now he keeps her company by drinking coffee himself.
Another thing grandpa has done since he was left alone is to give away the double bed replacing it with a wooden table which has become his work table. The table where he does his stuff.
"I got a clock, a radio, a toaster and an electric teapot. I wired them all together, so in the morning the alarm clock goes off, the music starts, I make toast and a nice cup of tea."
"Cool," I say, "and it works?"
"No," he says, laughing.
"But it will work one day, won't it, Grandpa?"
"Sure it will. One day it'll all work."
Then I hug him and run upstairs, flying up the steps three at a time. I barge in the house yelling, "It's me!" even though I know there's no one there.
I throw my backpack in the corner like it's a bomb about to go off. I rush to the bed, lie down, stare at the ceiling for eight seconds and then I get right up. I've had enough rest.
I go to the bathroom and wash my hands singing a Joey Badass song:
"And I really can't take it no more / I've been fighting temptations, my Lord / I'm young and I'm restless, and I really can't help it / I never felt selfish before / I've been living so reckless, I know / Tell me Lord, can you help me?"
Perfect duration for a perfect hand washing.
I pee.
More hand washing. More Joey Badass.
YOU ARE READING
Alice Stays Home
General FictionAlice Lai is 15. It's the last day of school before the lockdown. She must now stay at home, an empty apartment where she spends a lot of her time by herself. Her parents work on endless shifts at the hospital (her mum's a doctor and her dad's a nu...
