Charlie sits at the dining room table staring down at the open diary in front of her, the words Dear Diary, are written at the top left of the page, above them, today's date written in long-form: 21st February 2019 (Monday).
She taps her pen continually on the page not knowing what to write. Questions flit around in her mind, asking her the most mundane things, like what she wants to write and to whom. She provides nothing more than a mundane answer in return, not really helping her cause.
Maybe she'll look back at it in 20 years and see how far she's come, or perhaps she'll burn it as soon as the pages are filled. No-one truly knows what to do with material thoughts. The act of making your most intangible secrets so tangible and available to the world is an act of exposure. Indecent almost, so much that it must be kept hidden save for the one whose thoughts they are.
But it's up to the thinker to write down their thoughts and so she continues to stare and one diary turns into two as pain blooms behind her crossed eyes, blurring the lines and reflecting the fuzziness clouding her brain.
The table shakes beneath her and she with it as an "argh fuck!" is yelled out. The sound of someone large stomping down to balance themselves follows and Charlie knows immediately who's entered the room.
She watches the dark liquid in her mug slosh around. It teases the lip of the mug and her breath catches, but she makes no move to save stop any damage, just continuing to watch with tired eyed as gravity pulls the coffee back in.
She lets herself breath normally again.
"Hello to you too, Daniel," she calls out, annoyed, still willing words from her mind to magically appear on the black lines before her.
Nothing happens.
Daniel rubs his hip and ignores her.
That was expected though. So is the noise he is currently making in the galley kitchen behind her. He moves around this space in a slow and clumsy manner, still tired despite having had almost ten hours of sleep the night before.
He bangs the cupboards closed and as glasses clink together loudly and violently, he winces, trying to move slower, with more care and purpose but everything is just still so harsh.
Charlie grits her teeth at the sounds. She rolls her eyes and try not to think about the damage being done to their already destroyed dishware. The noises soon slow down and she hopes - as she does every morning - that Daniel is waking up and becoming more aware of what he is doing, despite his actions remaining more violent than the regular person.
The toaster is set and a rare second of silence falls upon the apartment as Daniel leans against the counter, breathing deeply to centre himself before continuing. Charlie lets out her own deep breath, mimicking her brother. It's those strange moments of silence when she realises that she finds calm in the familiarity of the noise he makes. She won't admit it, but she worries deeply for him
Charlie takes up tapping again. Her pen drumming an uneven rhythm on the paper, the table, and occasionally her glass. It might seem as if she is trying to match the beat of the crashes and bangs happening behind her. Maybe her subconscious mind is trying to latch onto something, remind her that nothing is ever truly original. Not even her own tapping beat.
She doesn't notice.
Daniel's shadow extends across the table and Charlie once again lowers herself over her diary.
She listens as he pulls a chair out, scraping the legs roughly against the hardwood floor and slamming a bowl down, the spoon clinking against the rim sending milk flying across the table, a couple drops landing on the diary and diary and the tabletop beside it, one such landing on Charlie's exposed temple.
Charlie's breathing is loud and irritated. Daniel pretends not to notice and tries to subtly rub his hand across the table, smudging the milk in an attempt to hide the evidence, most likely making it worse.
She takes deep breaths as her Mother had once taught her to do. In through the nose and holding for five seconds, then exhaling slowly from her mouth for seven. Her morning coffee-breath hits her as she exhales. The putrid stench becoming trapped between the spine of the diary and up her nose.
Charlie moves to escape the smell and notices Daniel sitting almost beside her. He sits tall in his seat, the perfect vantage point for viewing the television in the lounge room from their dining table. But he isn't watching the T.V., he's staring over at Charlie's diary trying to spy on his sister's secrets.
But jokes on him, she doesn't have anything to tell. Not yet at least.
"Tell your diary how much you love me," Daniel jokes, shoving her shoulder and reaching for the remote from across the table.
"Why would I lie?" Her voice is muffled by the paper but he gets it, laughing around a mouthful of cereal. A disgusted noise escapes her as she tries not to gag, putting in the effort to actually lift her head from her resigned place between the pages of her diary, contorting her face into a look of foul distaste aimed his way.
"Nhg," he responds, making eye contact and chewing purposefully with his mouth open. A view of half-chewed cereal sloshes around in discoloured milk assaults Charlie's eyes and she had to force her eyes away lest she gag for real.
Taking this as her cue to head out for the day, she makes an effort of leaving her chair and packing up her stuff into her tote bag.
"You're actually disgusting." She looks to Daniel again who in return sticks out his tongue, but doesn't look back. His eyes are glued to the T.V. now and thankfully he misses her eye-roll.
He swallows loudly and Charlie waits for a burb, her eyes set to roll again, but he mumbles a childish, "no, you," instead and she can't help but glare at him, her eyes narrowing, lips curling into a sneer.
She stands for a few seconds just staring at him. She doesn't know how she of all people was blessed with the displeasure of the worlds most disgusting brother but sometimes she wishes for her mother to magically reappear and give him the yelling at of a lifetime.
Although, even if their mother was here, she'd never do that. She'd probably have forgotten their presence the moment she woke up and immediately left for work taking the only car and mode of transport for either of them.
Another series of deep breaths disguised by the act of taking inventory of her tote bag, she nods to herself, satisfied to find her transport card, phone, wallet and some cash stashed at the bottom.
"I'll see you tonight." It's almost a question but she stops short of making it one. Charlie knows he'll be home. It's a Monday night and as far as she knows, Daniel has nowhere else to be on a Monday night, let alone any night.
"Sure. Pizza?" He asks automatically, speaking around another mouthful of cereal. She stares sadly at the apple she's pulled from the fruit bowl, put off by the memory of partly chewed cereal and discoloured milk.
"Yeh, whatever." He doesn't need to ask. It's a Monday night. No one cooks on a Monday night. "Although, one of us really needs to learn to cook." She mumbles, dropping the apple into her bag and shouldering it.
She didn't expect Daniel to hear her last comment and is caught off guard when he responds with a "you can," causing an unamused laugh to slip from her lips. Of course he won't.
"We both know you won't," She bites back. He laughs again, his mouth footless and the sound almost hollow. She doesn't remember when he became like this but Daniel wasn't always this gross, careless boy.
The news anchor is reporting on a murder. It's happened in a suburb not far from them and Charlie stops on her way to the door to listen.
She listens to the voices and stories of concerned neighbours, scared residents and apparent 'witnesses' of the incident. Their speculation and empty words not adding anything useful, just something to fill the time slot for the news program.
An intense desire to laugh at the disaster of it overwhelms her. Something so dangerous so close to home. Something for us to 'be aware of' and report on.
The reporter takes back the mic with all the false sympathy they they probably learn in acting classes, they warn us of a "murderer on the run". As if the bloke is out for more blood. More revenge.
Charlie shakes her head at the rest of the report, keenly aware of the Crime-Stoppers number being flashed up on the screen and calls out to Daniel for the final time that morning.
"See ya!"
She does it out of politeness.
"Stay safe," Daniel reminds her, catching her off-guard causing her to drop her keys and look back at him with a raised brow. He either doesn't see her or purposefully ignores her but she takes what she can get with him and smiles softly to herself.
She glances back at her brother once more. He's too busy with the second course of his breakfast and the channel guide on the t.v. to watch her leave. She doesn't mind though, sometimes it's nice to just watch people be people.