Finding Light In A World Of Darkness..

I wake up to the sound of Dad slumping off to bed. His feet drag up the stairs and he says every curse word he can think of in his drunken mind. Who knows where he was last night? Of course I’m the only one that wonders. None of the neighbors like him, well, most sober people don’t like him. I drag myself out of bed after he slams the door. He must be too drunk to know I’m even here. I slump down the stairs, but in a softer sounding fashion than my now snoring father. Every night, before he goes to the bar, and even before I get home from wherever he sent me that day he leaves a note on the old, white fridge. On it is my daily schedule, which jobs I’ll be doing that day, what times to be there and back, and what to make him for breakfast. Today, I’ll be in a factory that takes wood from the forests surrounding the District and manufactures it into paper. Today, I’ll be doing a six and a half hour shift there, and then a two hour shift at the market. Then, I’ll come home and make lunch for Dad, then do it over again. Today isn’t so bad. Only a sixteen and a half hour working day and three twenty minute meal break my bosses, not my father, force me to take. Then, after work and dinner, Dad will go to the bar, and if he is to return before midnight, I’ll have to bathe him, and put him to bed. So tonight, I’ll go to sleep at about 1:10 if he comes home, and 12:15 if he doesn’t. Usually if he doesn’t come home before midnight he doesn’t come home at all. So, this is the daily thing. My days are planned out to the very minute. I slip on my clean-ish clothes and working boots with the soles worn out and step out onto the stoop in the morning air. Oh, how I wish I was in the forest today. A layer of mist softens the ground’s hard and uneven appearance and gives it almost a warming feeling. The sun is just starting to rise. I sit on the stoop and tie my boots slowly. I think about how down pat I have this routine. I know just how many beatings I’ll get, what I’ll be late and early for, who I’ll talk to, what I’ll be doing at every minute, and how my life is the most boring life on the planet. I’ve come to memorize all that, in just a few years, though it seems like an eternity.