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| Lights On | |
| By rilLie | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 07 November 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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right.. hope you enjoy. Lights On She keeps the light on now. I don't know why. She used to scold me for leaving them on. Used to grumpily get out of bed, muttering about me wasting electricity under her breath, to switch it off. Now she doesn't. She keeps it on. Now, when I turn it off, she scolds me and makes me turn it on again. I don't know what she's looking for, now. "The lights outside our sleeping room, she keeps it on." I whisper to my sister. She has this eerie, far-away look in her eyes while she lies on the matress beside mine. She nods like she understood, like she's read my mind, like she's known even before I said it out loud. My dad's out again. With his mates, as usual. I don't remember when it started, the outings, I mean. Before, he rarely ever got out at night. He was always there, right there, sitting on his desk, arranging papers, or trying to solve those extremely hard Sudoku's he finds on the paper. I miss it, to tell you the truth. Him, sitting there. I miss the scuffling of papers. I miss the scratches his annoying ballpen makes when he's writing. I miss the irritated sounds he makes when he couldn't solve the bloody Sudoku. Believe me, he never could. I look outside the door again. My mom's asleep, as I could see. She was lying on the king-sized bed she shares with my dad, sleeping. But somehow, I couldn't reassure myself that she was sleeping soundly. Her position, her breathing, suggested that she wasn't. That she was going to be up with any sound that might come through that door to her left. I turn my head to watch the tv. It was playing "The Suite of Zack and Cody". I watched numbly, my mind somewhere else. Vaguely, I try to make out the story of this particular episode. Nothing came to mind. I dunno. It just seems like the people there: Zack, Cody, their mom, Carry, I think, her name was, Maddie, London, Mr. Moseby... They seem fake. Like they weren't really alive. Just characters made for low amusement on viewers. Then I mentally slap myself. Of course they were fake. I turn my head to watch the door again. A shadow appeared. I held my breath. I could never be sure if it was him, or a robber. I much prefer the first one, thank you very bloody much. It bothers me that I could never be so sure. I pulled the purple blanket I had tighter around me. It felt cold. Maybe I'll turn off the electric fan that's most carefully aimed at me. Maybe I'll do that when I find out if it is him or not. I stole a glance at the clock. 1:17 am. Maybe it was a robber. It was taking him long enough to open the door. Maybe I should wake mum up. But then again, it could just as easily be him having a hard time opening the door, drunk, probably. Surely he should be by now. My heart beating madly, I turned on my side and tried to close my eyes. For some reason, I couldn't quite stand it. I coulnd't close my eyes for more than a milisecond. Instead, I buried my face in the pillow I was hugging. I knew my sister was doing the same. As I heard the door opening slowly, I vaguely wondered when the hell this started to happen, the late nights. I wondered if this would lead to one of those tragic family tearings I watched my friends at school go through. Our Guidance Counselor had done well scaring us with the fact that it was actually NORMAL at our age. I heard the man stumble and nearly fall over. I heard him curse. "Putaragis!" And I know it's him. He always curses like that. It was a mix of the Tagalog "Putang Ina" and the Cebuano "Daragis". I sigh in relief. He was home.
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