a Series of Unfortunate Events Part: 44

[Only this time his fingers lazily find the switch and flick off the alarm. Shortly after, a leg protrudes and Nic commits to the slow procession of waking up and crawling out of bed.]

The morning is serenely quiet as the low levels of sunlight sneak through Nic’s bedroom window. The cold air flowing in through the partly open window reminds Nic of the sadness he has been choking back from over the weekend. He thinks to himself “This house will never be okay” as he stares at the ceiling waiting for his body to give him the O.K. to continue forward and get himself ready for school. From that thought his mind digresses to the fact that he’ll never get over the emptiness that has now come over the house. He feels the tears beginning to well in his eyes and quickly rejects them, shakes off the gloom and begins moving about his bedroom gathering clothes and toiletries and heading for the bathroom. As he exits his room heading for the bathroom he can hear Stan’s faint snoring emanating from the living room. He looks down the hall into the living room at the bundle of blankets on the couch shrouding the shape of the sleeping man. Even Stan who’s always slept in Candace’s bed in her absence is driven to the wholly uncomfortable couch to sleep due to the discomfort associated with being in this house.

Nic’s emotions begin to hamper his morning productivity once again at the sight of Stan on the couch. Once more he looks to the ceiling and chokes back the tears before allowing himself to be presented with his own weakened face as he steps forward into the bathroom and turns to the mirror. Here, he is proud to see himself emitting a small smile in lieu of the fact that he know he has to do this to keep himself from breaking down. It tickles him a little bit to think of all the silly things he has to do to make sure he has defenses up against his own emotions. He breaks himself away from his thoughts and commits his mind to getting himself ready for school and the first order of business is to begin brushing his teeth.
The walk to school later that morning seemed far too arduous and long. It allotted for far too much time to think. Even the usual “hood” sights and attractions even seemed to be missing or inactive that day. There was no crazy wino outside the corner carniceria ranting at the sunrise. There was little to no early morning stereo thumping, or mothers hear cursing out their daughters for trying to wear something slutty to school. The traffic on the streets was either light or non-existent. Even the bad little kids that never seemed to go to school that lived in one of the drug-inured apartment buildings he passes were nowhere to be found. The surreal nature of the morning wasn’t helping him at all. It was taking a great deal of work to keep his mind from wondering onto emotionally sore thoughts. This is no way to start off what was already promising to be a rough week. The only counter measure he has left to use is to get away from the abnormal calm of his surroundings. Thus, he quickens his pace in an attempt to get to school faster. At least then he is guaranteed the distraction of the bustling campus in the morning.

There was still a good distance to travel and no matter what he tries, Nic’s mind can’t help but continue to try to linger on the losses he’s enduring. The more he attempts to block them out the faster his feet began to carry him. Before he could even take into account what he was really thinking, he was running at a good clip down the block. His gaze hardly lifting off the ground, as the cracks in the concrete passed under him, it was apparent he was running nearly full speed down the street. Anyone on the sidewalk was forced to sidestep him or risk being run over. The jostling of the contents of his backpack timed with the sound of his feet hitting and lifting off the pavement, built on his rhythm and propelled his faster as he blindly dashed in the direction of a safe space away from his thoughts. He successfully ran about two city blocks before the inevitable would occur and he was brought to a halt by an impact that knocked him flat on his back in the middle of the sidewalk, crushing the contents of his backpack with the force of his body weight slamming down on them.