Not expecting a response, my mom almost pleaded, “Sam, you don’t have to be the girl who cured a malignant disease, or who already has had an impact on rocket science. You don’t have to be a national spelling bee winner. Just be good to yourself and others, and you have already succeeded in being a human being.”
The room was quiet; the bright white lights continued to flood the room.
There it was. It hit me. My nose was running and my eyes were pink and wet again. I wasn’t whimpering, but I was laughing at myself. She was right.
I was rubbing my forehead and wiped my nose and brushed away desolate tears. I said to her, “Well, I can’t argue with that.”
I sported a smile and laughed.
Chapter 5
Suddenly, without any warning, my alarm clock began to ring. It was placed atop the wooden desk. The metal contraption buzzed with a distinctive and loud bell sound.
My mom jumped a little at the unexpected ringing, and turned around and grabbed at it quickly. She put her fingers all over the clock until she managed to nudge a switch for it to turn off. Although her hair was still in a bun, some of the loose hair that dropped down her cheek became slightly dislocated and parts of her bangs were also disheveled. Her legs were a little crooked as she avoided using her feet as a source of balance; I suppose she didn’t want to rely on her brown high heels for support.
“Sorry, that startled me” she finally said, with a half smile on her face, her eyebrows embarrassed and startled.
“No it’s fine Mom. Don’t worry. It scares me, too, when I put it too close to my bed. That’s why I have it on my desk over there,” I added.
I couldn’t help but think of how unfamiliar she was to me. We both carried a resemblance, but we were so different and—and distant. I hadn’t seen her in such a long time. I couldn’t recall how long it’s been.
“Listen,” she said to me. “Sam, I have to go, I have errands to run here, and I have to finish some business affairs.”
“Oh, okay,” I added. “Will you come back?” I asked, with no certain motive or incentive.
“I’m not sure when I will be back, or if I will come back. I’m sorry, Sam,” my mom responded. She adjusted her burgundy and gold, medium sized purse at her side. She held on to it so closely, the way someone holds his or her belongings before walking into a new city for the first time, or leaving a place of security or attachment. She wasn’t sure what to expect from the outside world, and neither would I.
She inhaled and exhaled with a sigh. My mom looked at me with heavy eyes that showed concern for a child. Walking towards me, she gently placed her hand on my shoulder. I looked back at her and smiled, and I offered her extended and assuring arm by placing my own hand atop hers.
“I love you, Sam,” she said to me.
“I love you too, Mom,” I responded awkwardly.
That’s one of the things that I often think about—a mother unconditionally loving her child, and I struggle to respond. Sometimes I wonder if it’s from some sort of embarrassment, or if it’s from mistrust. At any given moment, the world can turn and hurt someone.
I let go, and so did she. My mom stepped away a bit as she began to search for her keys. Once she made sure they were still in there, she tightened her purse against herself to make sure that her belongings were secure.
“Goodbye, Sam,” She said to me as her eyes adjusted on my figure.
“Goodbye, Mom,” I said, with no resentment or excitement. I didn’t feel any specific way towards her, just a small gratitude that she stopped by.
She proceeded to the door, and I found myself staring out the window again.
‘Protect you from getting lost,’ I thought to myself. As the pale sky and ocean-like mist persisted outside my window, I asked myself, how could something so unclear be so bright?
Faint ticks, ticks, ticks, resonated from the high heels and the cold ground coming in contact. The sounds of metal contraptions and switches came from the cold doorknob. It opened and a few small and irregular ticks followed. The door slowly swayed back, and with a slow series of clicks, the door readjusted itself and was now closed again.
The faint caw of a crow echoed somewhere outside in the city. I let out a sigh and indulged myself in closing my eyes for a few seconds until I opened them once more. I finally stood up again, felt the freezing silver tiles beneath my feet and walked over to my alarm clock.
The two metal arrows were adjusted to 7:55 A.M. It was time to go.
Part 2
Chapter 6
I rubbed my eyes and leaned on my desk for a moment. Pushing my hair upwards and swooping it to the side, I walked over to my dresser. I rummaged through my top two compartments for clothing. I didn’t bother to open the third drawer because I didn’t keep clothes there.
Deciding on what I should wear for today, I finally decided that I would simply wear my lightweight, pastel green uniform. I steadily walked into my bathroom and slid my grey pajamas off, and slipped into my pastel green pants and shirt. The material was airy and fresh, but also thin.
Collecting my brown wavy hair, I pulled it to my left side of my shoulder and laid it so it dropped in front of my chest. I was staring at the mirror, debating whether or not I should use a comb. I decided to give it a quick rundown with my comb to get rid of any tangles. I avoided heavy combing so that I wouldn’t lose the waviness that it maintained. I patted my hair down as it continued to drop onto the left side of my chest. My hair is moderately thick, but thins towards the ends.
I took one last look, adjusting my clothes as I looked into the mirror instead of looking directly at myself. I walked out, making very soft and quiet footsteps with my white socks. I sat down at the edge of my bed. The bed grinded against the floor and was quickly accompanied by a couple of squeaks from the springs that resided within the mattress. I reached downward towards the ground, and searched around the frigid floor for my shoes. Feeling for the soft material, I pulled the shoes forward—they were called Canvas Cordones. They had an asphalt color with a bronze tint for the shoelace holes. I slid them on while holding on to the back of the shoe. Grabbing the ends of the white shoelaces, I tugged and tightened the shoe, and proceeded to tie them. I finally stretched my toes within the shoes and relaxed. I was ready for my day.
I stood up and walked over to the door that led into the hallway.
I reached forward and unlocked the door. I clasped the doorknob and turned it to the right. Again it made a series of sounds as metallic contraptions began to interact. I slowly pulled it back and felt the hollow, empty, and desolate atmosphere from both my room and the hallway meet. I reached for the knob on the other side, took a step outside, and closed my door. I placed my left hand on the entryway and felt the cool frigidness of the door. I finally pushed away and disconnected myself from the door and turned so I was now looking down the hall.
I began taking slow steps and reached the stairway. I could hear talking in the distance. I knew that the others were also awake now. Descending from the stairway, one hand on the wooden handrail for support, I heard the voices grow louder as faint clamoring of plastic plates and cups also became present. The kitchen and dining room quickly came into sight. Both were intensely illuminated.
I was now reaching the bottom flight of the stairway. The light intensified as I drew near. I entered the extremely large room where light fixtures were hung from the ceiling. They were white and resembled a material like that of porcelain. The ceiling was about ten feet tall and the lamp fixtures hung from some sort of metallic string that dropped for about ten inches.
Still holding onto the handrail, my two feet paused side-by-side as I reached the last step. The large room consisted of tigerwood flooring that was polished to a shine and beige colored walls that were extremely clean and well cared for. To the left of the room, there was a smaller half room that was used as a kitchen. One of the walls had two doors that were adjacent to each other, and when pushed, both swung open. The other, and much wide
r wall, was more of a long counter. There, we interacted with the cooks to choose from the selected meals.
Ten clustered circular tables, each accompanied with four chairs, occupied the rest of the room. Two middle-aged women were sitting at one table within the middle of the cluster, while a young man who could have easily passed as a boy, inhabited another table by himself towards the exterior of the cluster.
Lastly, the large kitchen-dining floor was characterized by a distinct entrance that led to an even larger living room, more like a commons area, and after that, a front desk and waiting room where Nurse Jackie usually worked.
But what made that entrance distinct was not that there was no door, but that there was an object that set itself off from the rest of the walls in the dining room. Something was hung there, something that deviated from the monochromatic beige walls. A painting of a nightingale was placed there. This small bird with multiple shades of light browns and grays stood on a branch in some type of forest. And if I remember correctly, there was a small caption at the very bottom of the drawing.
“Hey! Sam! Good to see you!” suddenly interrupted my observations. I didn’t think anyone had noticed me; I must have forgotten how long I had been standing here. There was a man in his late twenties with an apron and a white rag over his shoulder. His apron was slightly stained from cooking.
“Hi, George. Good to see you,” I said.
“Glad to see that you’re awake, and early too!” he said with a pep in his voice filled with a mixture of surprise and hospitality. He removed the rag that lay upon his shoulder and proceeded to briefly wipe the counter with two long strokes.
“Yeah,” I added, “I woke up early today and got ready pretty early, too” with a shy, but pleasant sincerity in my voice.
“That’s good.” And with an abrupt ecstatic mood, his voice lifted with “Hey! That reminds me, it was freezing this morning! And it didn’t help that there was fog everywhere. I struggled a little when I was driving here.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I smiled back. I finally released my hand from the rail and took the final step off to stand on the tigerwood flooring. I took a few steps towards the counter and said, “Well, I’m glad you made it safely here,”
“Me, too,” he added, as sounds of metal pots, pans, whisks, and other metallic utensils made contact. George looked over quickly as other cooks dropped pans into the sink.
“Anyways, Sam, what can I get you?” he finally asked me, knowing he had to get back to work.
“Oh, emmm, well, what are you guys making?” I said, as I was not sure about which meals were being served. I looked over at the stoves and picked up on the welcoming smell of eggs, pancake mix, and meats being cooked or grilled.
“Well, we have pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, breakfast sausages, toast with jam and fruits,” George informed me.
“Okay, I think I will have toast with jelly, scrambled eggs and sausage,” I responded, as my body began to communicate to me that I was hungry.
“Sure thing. Would you like milk or juice?” George asked me.
“Milk please.”
He proceeded to collect materials and join in with the other cooks. I faced the dining tables again and noticed that a third woman had joined the other two women I had seen sitting at one table.
I picked up a plastic knife and fork and a few napkins. I was still standing near the counter. A few minutes had gone by, when George returned with a cup of milk and a plastic plate containing food.
“Smells good,” I responded with an eager smile.
“No problem, enjoy!” George said and went back to work. I picked up my plate and utensils and sat by myself at the farthest table of the cluster.
I took a seat on a thick, glossy, plastic chair. I proceeded to slice the sausages and take bites and chew. I chowed down the eggs and finally moved onto the toast. Finally, I washed it down with milk that was also in a thick plastic cup.
After patting my mouth with the napkin, I stood up from the empty table and proceeded to the counter again. As I walked, I noticed two or three more people had also arrived in the dining room to take seats and eat as well. Some alone, and one joining the group of women, making a total of four.
“Hey George, thanks for the meal” I announced to him through the loud concoctions of clattering sounds in the kitchen.
A few seconds later, I heard George shout back, “No problem.” He had seemed to be occupied with cooking, but was now free and returned to the counter.
“I’m glad you enjoyed the meal, Sam.” He grinned at me as he threw the towel over his black shirt. Before I knew it, he was already walking away as he carried my plate and cup back to the kitchen, where he soon walked out of my vision.
I proceeded to walk near the entrance of the dining room, away from the tables and people, and entered a small washroom. I walked in and there seemed to be no one else there. Turning the faucet on, I placed one hand under the running water, and with the other, I dispensed soap. I patted my hands dry with a cardboard-colored, paper towel.
The washroom was cold and had this obscure heavy sound coming from an air vent in the room. The lights in the room were very artificial and emitted a very faint buzz. Although the room was maintained in a very clean state, there was a lack of homeliness to it at times.
In the short mirror located atop the sink, I ran my hand down my hair, extending my reach down toward the left side of my chest where my hair continued to flow. I pushed my bangs from out of my eyes and exhaled. I finally threw the napkin away and was ready to continue with my day.
Chapter 7
I slowly pushed the door open with my shoulder, making sure to avoid touching the doorknob. The clattering of utensils and subtle chatter from the cluster of tables were brought back to life as soon as I walked out of the washing room, and even intensified with the addition of three-or-so more people. From the small washroom, I finally walked over to the entrance of the dining room that led to the “Commons Area,” or “Commons,” as the rest of the individuals and I called it.
Right before I crossed the threshold, I noticed the clock placed up high on the wall. I had almost forgot about that. The entire building structure had at least one clock in every room. Time was important to us, to make sure we weren’t late to any activities, or missed any meals throughout the day, or any group sessions that we occasionally had.
The clock’s hands were now adjusted to signify “8:45.”
That’s when I noticed it again—the portrait of the nightingale. The clock and specifically the painting of the bird were both objects that stood out the most from the clean beige walls. The clock that ticked and reminded us of our place in time, but even more abstractly, the painting of the nightingale that also reappeared in a few of the other rooms in the building. The small, coffee feathered bird was perched on a light vanilla-looking branch with a few moss-colored leaves.
But there it was again, at the very bottom. There was the caption. It was always so unexpected, and possibly went unnoticed by many of the people here. At the bottom of the portrait, it said in a thin, small cursive, “I cry for you during the night.” But what was more interesting was the artist crossed out “cry” and replaced it with “sing.” It would then be read as, “I sing for you during the night” with the half legible, and more importantly, a recognizable correction or alteration from the artist.
The art piece was finished with an unreadable signature from the artist.
I broke my gaze from the nightingale and the artist that had added his further addition to the portrait.
I crossed the threshold and entered the commons area that was even larger than the dining room. This room varied slightly from the rest of the rooms in the building. The flooring was comprised of two different materials. For the most part, the tigerwood continued into the rest of the room, but carpets were built into certain areas to signify subareas to the commons area.
This room was one of the friendlier rooms in the building. Unlike
the kitchen, this room had windows that were so enormous, it seemed like the entire wall was made of glass. The windows were set to be perfectly square and reached from top to bottom. Sunlight entering these glass panes illuminated the room and brightened the vanilla carpeting and the tigerwood flooring that it sometimes created a glare in the wood’s waxed coating.
Even though it made the inside of the common area beautiful, the view outside was even more splendid. The outside had large cement tiles and young, thin maple trees in between every four tiles; the leaves were orange-red and were beginning to wither away. It was apparent that autumn was about to begin. On the tiles were stone tables and stone benches. This scenery stretched for about ten feet until the tiles were interrupted by a row of grass, followed by a chain-link fence that served to blockade a collection of trees that to my understanding, was a sort of miniature, wooded area.
The only thing about these windows was that they were only on the left side of the Commons Area, not the right. To reach the patio, a door located at a corner of the Commons Area had to be crossed. For the most part, everyone was still having breakfast, so no one was outside yet.
An hour after I had risen, the fog was now long gone, as were any clouds that may have lingered. The sky was no longer pale, and instead, had a pastel sky-blue coloring.
Just outside, a small gust rustled the leaves of a maple tree, almost caressing it for a second, but tore a few leaves off in the process. They fell onto the cement and rolled for a second and settled, until they were pushed away by another breeze.
I finally managed to break away from the breezes outside and focused my attention back to the inner Commons Area. I walked several feet till I finally reached the far right corner of the Commons Area. The corner section was roughly 10X10 ft. and had a small bookshelf and three beanbags. This whole area was a bit strange because the section was sort of sunken and we had to take a step downward to use the beanbags or books.
Stand Tall My Sweet Dandelion Girl Page 3