and now for Jenny, my unworked crative writing assignment
Brilliant beams pierced into the cold room as the figure they caressed slowly drifted awake. Little brown curls crawled around the pillow case in anticipation of their master’s rise. A few more minutes and the almost lifeless walls would burst open with the flare of a child on Christmas morning.
Kate wasn’t the type to just lie around all day, especially on a day as important as this.
Christmas only came once a year, but a Christmas with a dusting of snow in Virginia? Once every decade maybe, and even then only if you were lucky. This made it all the more crucial that she should try to arouse her parents as soon as humanly possible, which tended to be alarmingly slow for an adult when a kid was waiting.
She hastily threw up the covers and hopped out of bed flying straight as a German torpedo towards the door. However, in all her excitement the toilet became more important a good morning then her parents.
Now that her mind and bladder had settled, Kate started to creep across the hall into her parents side of the second floor. Although she was more then excited about the prospect of presents, she decided that a gentle wake up call might be better not only for her parents but for their response as well.
The tiny shape of a girl not yet ready to start her journey into the mysteries of woman hood but hardly young enough to fooled by the sweet whispers of Santa Claus slowly turned the knob on the polished wooden door. The creak of hinges in dire need of oil chased back the silence. The room smelled slightly of varnish and dusty novels though it looked much less refined. The lamp on a bedside table was still on, towering over the backdrop of a water glass and women magazines piled next to the phone. Kate noticed the bed held no sleeping faces but only the signs of a rushed escape near the lamp and on the right, nothing but smooth linen lines.
Kate wasn’t sure what was happening but she knew that this hardly seemed like her annual Christmas morning. She couldn’t remember the last time her mother managed to climb out of bed before her when she wasn’t working and she certainly had never seen her father up as early.
She ran from the room and jumped down as many stairs as possible, all efforts of being quiet quite forgotten. As she skidded into a sharp turn towards the kitchen Kate slammed to a full halt as she gazed on. Her mother was sitting there swirling a cup of tea with her face angled down and hidden, and in front of her there stood a sad eyed man with a story on his face he wished to take back and a uniform of the deepest blue.
“Momma, where’s daddy?” The sound echoing across the void.
Her mother’s eyes stared up with the look of molten glass which seemed to tell more volumes alone then one could using all the texts of Britannica. “Sweetie, I-I’m afraid that,” Kate’s mother sniffled, “daddy won’t be here to open presents with you this year.”
The sun shone off the kitchen table spitting up at Kate’s face and ears as it wrapped itself around the room making the yellow walls look like they would bleed. Kate wasn’t sure if the other man was saying anything or just exercising his gums, but it hardly mattered now even if she did listen.
She turned and wistfully drifted into the den. There the giant pine tree stood in all of it’s glory, decked with glittering bells and flakes of snow and the multi-hued bulbs. All of which was topped with an enormous star of gold on the tip of the tree; and underneath, a mountain of boxes lay stacked up to the underbrush. The room shone brighter then the reflections of snow outside. Kate only felt bare.
Kate Whitney closed her warm eyes and wept them into ice.