Being Shot

P h o t o #18 - Pictures Of A Forgotten Past

It was such a nice, clean picture. My grandmother had never in all of her years let even a speck of dust alter the framework of it. After all, it was a picture of her one and only son, who she adored with every inch of her heart and soul. Staring at it now only made me wonder why I always chose to ignore it, blocking it out of my line of vision whenever I went near the familiar frame.

A crack of loud thunder shook the house like the lash of a whip, lightning illuminating the first floor of the house in all of it's glory. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the suddenness of the noise. I quickly scurried up the stairs and to the comfort of my messy room.

Once my door was finally shut tight, I swiftly slipped into my old pajamas that always consisted of a T-shirt, this time a pink one, and gray sweat pants and crawled under my dark blue covers without a second thought, which was a new thing for me, given all of the overthinking I do in my spare time.

Misty pawed at the comforters edge, asking for entrance into my self made cocoon. After awhile the small cat stopped, deciding to sleep in her usual spot on one of my mismatched pillows.

But at the time I didn't notice the animal at all. I was to busy coming to the hard conclusion that I subconsciously never wanted to face, but always knew was there waiting for an answer.

I had never acknowledged the photograph because it was taken before I had been born. Before I was even a thought.

Before I had the chance to come around and ruin his life.

I fought back tears as I forced my eyes closed, my mothers signature that sat on the bottom right corner signed in gold print burned into the back of my eyelids.

***

I woke up once again with a throbbing headache. Of course.

"Uuuuugh." I dragged out, pulling an arm over my eyes to shield the morning's light away. "Why do I feel like I'm hungover or something."

If anything, I was probably hungover with all of the mixed feelings I've felt over the past twenty four hours.

At this point, all I wanted were a plate of my grandmother's famous blueberry pancakes. Those would melt away the pain, definitely.

But at the very thought of my grandmother, my whole body became as stiff as a board. Misty meowed and jumped off of my pillow in reaction to my movement.

I had completely forgotten to tell my grandmother that I had left. She didn't even know where I was the entire time yesterday. I bet she didn't even know I was back home, basking in the warmth of my bed while she was worried sick. My heart twisted at the thought of the poor old women going through another loss, or thinking she had lost another person in her family. I knew how much her thoughts ran wild-I guess that's where I got it from.

I didn't want to worry her any longer, so I quickly mustered all of the courage I could scrape up to face a deserved round of grandma-zilla and began down the stairs.

The house was quiet. Too quiet for an anxiety-stricken seventy six year old.

I made an effort to let my feet stomp down the carpeted steps, hitting the hard wood floor with a loud thump just for emphasis. The first thing that hit me at the bottom of the stairs was not my grandmothers flaring anger though, it was the smell of maple syrup.

I arched my eyebrows as I rounded the corner and into the kitchen. There sat my grandmother at the kitchen table with her back turned to me, across from her sat a plate of blueberry pancakes, my two morning pills on a folded napkin and a glass of sparkling water. It had then hit me that I had forgotten to take my two pills last night before bed. That explained the head ache and racing thoughts.