When I open my eyes, purple light of dawn is flooding my room. I get out of my bed and raise the blinds. The city outside the window is still shrouded in the remnant of the night. Some lit windows of the buildings shine in the gloom. I hear the sounds of cars. A distant siren of a police car.
I get into the bathroom without turning the lights on. I only see my silhouette in the quasi-darkness. The average height for a 14-year-old boy. Two hands holding the rim of the washbasin. Two arms upright. Head slightly turned downward.
I hear nothing in the direction of my mother’s room. I normally refrain from nearing that realm of the apartment, but the lack of human presence comforts me. I carefully approach the door of her room. I listen in. Nothing. I am a good listener and our apartment has good soundproofing. I hear no breathing. There is no one inside. She is in some dude’s place somewhere in the city, as always.
I plop down on the sofa and turn on the television set. Colors and sounds pervade my consciousness. I respond to none. I just love that they kill the quiet in me, the unbearable silence that haunts me.
The sun rises and ousts the gloom from the city. Everything loses the purple hue like stonewashed jeans. I get up and wear my school uniform except for the tie, because it feels like it’s strangling me all the time. I’ll wear it in front of the school building. Then lose it again once I’m past Mr. Keenan.
I check my hair in the elevator mirror. The elevator stops at the 27th floor and a man in suit carrying a briefcase gets in. He eyes me briefly then loses his attention in his smartphone’s screen. I see it all in the mirror.
#
I cross a few blocks through the forest of buildings reflecting the morning sunlight, before reaching my school. One of few things I don’t hate about my mother is that she bought this apartment so close to the school. She definitely intended it to benefit herself, who works in this neighborhood too. But I do benefit from it. I don’t have to endure the hellish morning commute in this city. The rat-ridden subway, bedbug-ridden buses. But rats and bedbugs are okay. Their biggest problem is that, they are human-ridden.
A few early arrivers in the same uniform as me emerge from the subway exit in front of the school building. I pass the gigantic revolving door with a few of them.
Damn, I forgot to put on the tie. I hurriedly take the tie out of my pocket and accidentally elbows a girl next me.
“Watch it!” She snaps. Her navy-blue eyes are full of irritation.
“Sorry.” I say.
“You don’t sound like you’re sorry at all.” She snaps and walks away with her friend. Her brown hair bobs up and down to her irritated gait.
I see the girl and her friend approaching the scanner as I tie my tie. Mr. Keenan says hello to them but they ignore him. They scan their cards and pass the turnstile.
Geez, I didn’t even elbow that hard. She acted like I’m a plagued corpse or something.
