Brave New World

Good Morning, NYC

~Cory Matthews~

It was a new day. 

I opened my eyes. My heart jumped at the sight of my unfamiliar surroundings. I suddenly remembered checking into our hotel room the night before. I glanced at the window crowded by tens of buildings. Faint car horns sounded in the distance. I never wanted to leave that bed. Getting up would mean facing the real world. I was sure those car horns would've been much louder in person. I decided to distract myself from my priorities and look at Topanga. She was still asleep. I watched her shoulders rise and fall with every breath. I wanted this moment to last forever. The sun lit up her golden hair. She looked so peaceful...

CLANG! 

But nothing peaceful ever lasted when sharing a room with my brother. I sat up to find him struggling with a coffee pot. I looked to the left side of the room. Shawn was sitting up, in the same position as I was. Funny thing... I was startled, yes, but not surprised. Eric did things like this so often that I should have seen it coming.

"Who wants Ramen?" He asked, holding the coffee pot in between his legs as he used his hands and teeth to open a packet of the wannabe noodles.
Shawn's hand shot up. 

"Eric, could you keep it down? You're gonna wake up Topanga," I said, my voice coming out as more of a growl than a whisper.

"Who wants Ramen?" He said, much more quietly than the first time.

Shawn raised his hand again.

Eric set the coffee pot in the sink and filled it with water. As he walked, drops of water spilled over the sides.

"What are you doing?" I asked, still trying to keep quiet.

"I'm using the coffee pot to boil water for the Ramen," he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I stared at him. "It's called being resourceful," he added, and plugged the simple machine meant for coffee into the outlet.

I looked at the clock.

"At six in the morning? Eric, you're never up this early," I said, desperate for at least five more minutes of laying in that bed next to my peaceful wife. 

"Couldn't sleep," he responded. 

"Why? Was Shawn snoring and talking in his sleep again?" I teased.

"I told you, I don't do that!" Shawn said with an attitude, followed by a pause. "...Every night."

"No," Eric laughed, "he might've kicked me a few times while he was asleep though."

"Oh I wasn't asleep," Shawn confessed.

Eric shot him a look and kept on talking.

"I was thinking."

"About?"

"About our lives. I mean... Here we are in New York City, staying at a hotel that has food lying around that you can't eat unless you can afford it--who in the right mind would taunt us like that?-- we don't have a lot of money, jobs, or any plans for the future. Except for sleeping beauty over there."

He pointed at Topanga, who, surprisingly, hadn't woken up yet. Eric dumped the packet of Ramen into the coffee pot. "Now how am I gonna stir this...?" He mumbled, almost inaudibly. 

He had a point.
About our current situation, that is. I didn't know what I was going to do with myself. I didn't even know what I was going to do that day. Or the next. I couldn't even bring myself to think about the day after that. I flopped back down in bed. 

"Use a straw," I heard Shawn say, his voice semi-muffled by the pillow against my head. "Well, we've got our whole lives ahead of us. I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually."

"Eventually... When is eventually?"

Eric struggled to stir the noodles with the straw, and soon gave up.

"As soon as we take action," Shawn said. I couldn't tell how he was feeling.

Eric poured the Ramen into two of the hotel cups and slid one to Shawn.

"Silverware, darn it."

I put the blankets over my head, tried to escape reality, and the smell of cheap Asian food. 

That's when Topanga woke up.