Dawn
It had been an unusually busy morning.
Woken at 5 by a neighbour’s insistence on publicising
their departure for work, Dawn had found herself in an irritable mood and such
a discovery could never be met with even a degree of appreciation.
She had risen at 5.10, offering herself a ten minute
possibility of returning to the dream she had resented being jolted out of, but
soon resigned herself to the reality that her inability to sleep once roused
was unlikely to be solved, today of all days. Slinging her faded pink
dressing-gown over her stuttering frame, she crept out of her room, glancing
furtively towards Jarrod’s door-knob. Sucking in her breath, she turned back
towards the stairs and slowly slid down each step, still steeped in slumber,
carefully avoiding the ‘creak zones’ that he had so helpfully pointed out the
morning after he moved in.
Yesterday’s post had been tidied into size-order, leaving
Gemma’s wedding invitation – years of copying her work in French lessons had
left Dawn over-familiar with the handwriting – at the very top of the pile.
She’d spent almost twelve hours not opening it and so she could surely wait
another few minutes, if not hours, before tearing through the ‘G & T’
heart-shaped-seal securing the envelope. There were few suitable activities one
could perform at 5.10 and that most certainly was not one of them.
She shuffled towards the breakfast table, eyeing-up the
‘to-do’ list she had composed under the new-found semblance of organisation she
was keen to bring to her life.
7 am – wake up.
She had known at the time it was a ludicrous waste of
ink.
Slumping into the chair before her, she noticed that an
additional column had been added on the far-right of the A5 page she had
meticulously mapped her life upon.
‘Jarrod’s day’.
A blank column. An empty day.
He would, no doubt, express some notion that one can
never know what one’s day might bring and that we are merely actors ready to
walk upon an empty stage, encountering whatever God/fate/chance (delete as
appropriate) lay before us. But, what was of more pressing concern to Dawn was
the manner of his intrusion. Intrusion was to be expected – desired, at times –
but never in the same colour. This was addition.
She shook her head, bemused at the time it had taken for
her to fill the kettle. Perhaps it should have been on the list? Or was the
very presence of the list the reason for her delay?
As the water powered into the limescale-laden kettle, it
occurred to her that she had always awoken and prepared her morning tea without
prompting from last night’s pen. The list had brought nothing but guilt and
confusion. If she had the energy, she would tear it from the pad.
She glanced down at the faded guide outlining just how
much water she needed for a single cup of tea. Images of innocent birds trapped
in monstrous mounds of discarded plastic bags flooded her head, while the
unnecessary water wound its way ever downwards – recycling in action. She would
do what she could.
Don’t up-set, off-set!
It was unlikely to launch her to international
slogan-stardom but she was, nevertheless, impressed by her creativity almost
two hours before her official wake-up time.
‘You’re making tea.’
It took a moment for Dawn to realise the words had been
voiced by a whisper in the doorway. She replayed the last five minutes at
breakneck speed, querying the decibel level of each action, before recalling
that the breakfast chair belonged to the same
early-morning-avoidance-areas-family as the ‘creak zones’ she had remembered to
side-step only minutes earlier. She winced, as his disappointment drove deep
down into the –
‘It’s 5 am.’
‘Quarter past actually.’
‘You’re making tea.’
She glanced down at the crumpled tea-bag clutched within
her left hand, briefly considering returning it to the canister in an act of
defiant contradiction.
‘Yes’.
‘It’s 5 am.’
She finally turned, his fingers lingering on the frame a
little longer than the rest of his already-departed body. Slowly, he peeled
each finger away, as if counting down to the deadline for an appropriate
response to warrant his return to the scene.
She feasted her eyes on the flaking paint of the
door-frame as her ears traced his ascent. Her fingers closed around the
tea-bag. Instinctively, she thrust a mug beneath, half-expecting brewed drops to
begin filtering through. Slogan-stardom and the world’s first human tea maker
in one morning. And all before 5.20.
The click of the kettle confirming it was ready to do
what her hand could not prompted a sharp ‘shush’ to pass through her slightly
dampened lips. She closed her eyes, willing him away in case he were standing
behind her ready to identify how illogical it was to command inanimate objects
to be quiet.
Enough. Pour the water. Brew the bag. Drink the drink.
Regain control of this morning.
She
nodded to no-one and proceeded to fill the patient mug before her.
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