A mere misunderstanding ruined a ginger's life once, and one single death ruined his and everyone else's once again. The cozy restaurants and all, gone. What can a family do to save the world?
"Just a little." Erica shot a look at their relatively dark floor.
"Is your sugar lever stable? Did you eat today?" he kept asking.
"I ate some lettuce today, yeah. And my sugar level is quite alright." she smiled her tiny smile and glanced at her dad. Joseph sighed in relief.
"It's good to see my sister be as healthy as she can be." Rosa called, still partially covered with the blanket.
Erica hugged her sister by wrapping her arms under a blanket around her shoulders and chuckled.
"Well, I'll probably do the laundry, you two can do whatever you please." Joseph called, turning to the washing machine, that's been waiting for him already.
"Wanna go check out our garden, Kiki? I'm not finished with it yet." Rosa called and dragged Erica along with her. She didn't protest at all and just nodded to herself.
As soon as they were gone, Joseph sighed and glared at the ceiling. Then he grabbed the piece of paper and went by the instructions.
Every time he pushed a button, the laundry machine made a beeping noises, that wasn't loud, so it never really annoyed anyone.
Joseph leant on the machine as soon as it started shaking and the wheel inside spinning along with the wettening clothes. He started inside and whispered something under his breath.
"I feel like an old loser."
Suddenly something happened. Joseph didn't know what was it, or why this feeling appeared, but something was seriously wrong.
It felt like a dark green slime with dry chunks mixing along with pieces of black fabric and some yellow pieces of wallpaper. It was spinning like crazy, like the laundry machine when it's dying the clothes and it was spilling all over the place.
But that thought didn't bother Joseph as much as another one. It was mixing rather calmly, no wild spins, it wasn't stinking, didn't feel like if someone blended spinach and a decaying body in a blender. But it still bothered him much more.
It was a feeling of nostalgia, his bedsheets back when he was in middle school, baby blue and white stripes, popcorn, a Lypsinc LP was playing somewhere in the backround, crappy soda from a grocery store. And Joseph realised, just how much he missed that time. Or was it the people that appeared there, in this time of life?
But he had to shake both of the thoughts off, because of that knock on the door. A special knock. Three confident, strong knocks in a Siciliana rythm*.
He didn't even bother to yell something like "Coming!", because the stairs were close and the door was too.
As he opened the door, two people he was expecting to show up anyway stood before him. Joseph smiled and let them in.
"Wassup, Pepe! You're strangely quiet today." a tall humanoid creature (probably female) in a basic white shirt with lavender-coloured skin and darker dots all over it walked into the house and straight to the living room.
"Sarah! How many times do I tell you to stop calling me that?" Joseph exclaimed.
"Oh, so you can talk after all." she shouted from the living room and laughed, Joseph had to laugh too, after all, it was pretty funny.
"How are you doing, pal?" a smaller, quieter humanoid creature (probably male) waved and asked.
He was chubby, shorter than Joseph and had big, brown puddles of pigment all over him along with big, pointy ears (which is cute). He walked into the house and stopped in front of Joseph, who was closing the door behind them.
"I'm alright. Finally found out how to use the washing machine. Thanks for asking, Sean." he answered. They both chuckled and went into the living room to sit on the couch next to Sarah.
She sat in the middle, while Joseph sat down to her left and Sean to her right.
"Where's Jessie?" Sarah asked out of nowhere. "I saw the two other girls in the frontyard, but not her,"
"Ah, Jessie's out with the dog." he answered. "she'll probably come soon, too." and added.
"Oh, that's nice. Looking forward to see her." Sean smiled softly while staring at the ceiling.
They chatted for a few more minutes, until Sarah was ready to come out with some unusual news. Only a tiny creak of the door interrupted her.
Paws running across the wooden floor could be heard as the door closed. A regular brown dog with short fur ran into the living room, immediatelly running to the couch to be patted on the head by Sean. His name was Alice.
"Hello, Jess!" Sarah immediatelly stood up and went to greet Joseph's oldest daughter.
"Hi, Sssa-Ssarah!" they greeted each other with a somehow special high five.
"Welcome home, Jessie." Joseph finally spoke, turning, but still sitting on the couch to face Jessica.
"He-hehe-hello dad," she smiled. Then she took her time to wave st Sean, who eventually waved back.
"Sooo, I'll call the girls and then I'll tell you all something." Sarah spoke as she walked away. No one bothered to comment on that.
She opened the front door and shouted something towards the two girls looking after flowers.
They all patiently waited, until the whole family gathered in the living room.
"What is it, that is so important, that we've got to hear it all?" Rosa spoke up.
"I was in the city today, before noon." she inhaled and exhaled calmly, then continued. "It's all chaos. The president is no longer with us."
"Oh woah, what a drag." Erica reacted first. Everyone else was basically speechless.
Joseph suddenly felt something else. Again, it was spinning like crazy. But this time, it was a mix of water, blood and coffee. There were pieces of cardboard flying everywhere, and some papers, that seemed like important documents.
What woke him up, was the laundry machine beeping. He stood up slowly, tried not to faint.
"I'll get it. Don't mind me." and with that, he rushed upstairs.
"That guy's nuts." Sarah spoke rather quietly, so Joseph can't hear it.
"That's why we love him, don't we?" Sean places a warm, calming, chubby hand on her shoulder.
"Well, that's our dad." Rosa chuckled.
"Dddd-did you dis-dismm-dddiscover that-that-that just now?" Jessica asked, jokingly.
Erica just let out a tiny giggle, that nobody really noticed.
Joseph was upstairs, taking out the laundry into a plastic basket and rethinking all of these strangely vivid thoughts he had today. The chatter downstairs could be barely heard, and it was a little windy on the balcony, where they usually hanged their wet clothes for them to dry.
"Today I'll have a gig at the city, at that disgusting jazz café." Joseph groaned and rubbed his eyes with his hands.
"There's too much going on, too much going on, too much going on..." he muttered as he stared down the streets.
*Siciliana rythm
Rất tiếc! Hình ảnh này không tuân theo hướng dẫn nội dung. Để tiếp tục đăng tải, vui lòng xóa hoặc tải lên một hình ảnh khác.
A note that lasts 1.5 of its original lenght, followed by a note that lasts half of its original lenght and a note that lasts exactly its original lenght.
