Sights Set

In the kitchen, two set of footsteps were running around, with loud voices talking about dinner choices and soon afterwards came the clanging of pots being retrieved from drawers, and the tinny sound of water filling the pot.

“What’s for dinner?” I yelled, pushing my chair back from the desk and looking in the direction of the kitchen.

“You’ll find out!” My sister yelled back, walking closer to my room and shutting the door on me.

“What’s that for?” I asked, put out by the sudden drop in sound levels.

“To hinder your intricately honed sense of smell.” She replied, her voice muffled and her footsteps heavy as she walked back towards the kitchen, where she and my mother continued to talk. A ticking sound started up, and the scrape of metal on metal as the pot was placed on the burner. I ignored the sounds of preparation and started on my assignment. I idly flicked through the pages of the text, my finger becoming numb to the indents after a while. I switched to my next finger, talking as I did so, the computer parroting back my words. More clanking was emitted from the kitchen, and I heard my father come home, the door being opened with force and a bit of difficultly.

“Hi honey.” My mother greeted my father with a kiss on the cheek, before hitting what I assumed to be a spoon on the pot of bubbling water. He greeted her in return, and my sister before going to his and mum’s shared room.

“Where’s Jordan?” He asked as he did so. I yelled out that I was in my room, and he came in a few minutes later. He smelled fresh, and I assumed he had changed out of his work uniform. He worked in law, and was a police officer. To be more exact, a sergeant.

“How was your day? Mum said you went to Highpoint with Matt.” He asked. His voice was at a moderate register, and hinted at a childhood spent in the country. He had grown up near Swan Hill, and had a more pronounced Australian accent because of it. He had come down to Melbourne to study at the Melbourne University of Law. He and my mum had met on the train, travelling on the Sunbury line. My mum got off at Footscray, and he at Sunshine, where he was boarding. They took the same one each day, and became used to seeing each other around. My mum had finally plucked up the courage to ask him if they would like to start seeing each other somewhere other than the train, and he had agreed. This had been after nearly two months of sitting next to each other for the twenty minute train ride. “Did you get milkshakes?”

I nodded, replying with, “Hence the milkshake shirt. We didn’t do much. Matt bought socks for school.”

“Speaking of school,” my dad interrupted my retelling of my day, “how’s the homework going?”

“Fine,” I lied, hoping he wouldn’t notice the laptop open to my English assignment. “How was your day? Isn’t this the time of year when all the new recruits finish school?”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself. It’s in another few months yet.” Dad laughed, before continuing with his sentence. “My day was quite boring, as always. Just doing all the paperwork and drawing up rosters. Nothing too exciting.”

“If something exciting happened you would probably fall over.” I deadpanned, spinning around on my chair, just for the hell of it.

“That’s not a far stretch from the truth. What are you up to now?”

“Spinning,” I replied, stopping myself by skidding the toe of my shoe along the floor. It made a high pitched squeaking sound, and I winced.

“Before you were spinning.” Dad corrected himself, shifting in his stance. I blinked quickly, knowing there was no way out of it.

“Homework,” I mumbled, spinning the opposite way in my chair. I came to a jerking stop, and my dad’s voice was closer.

“You better get it done after dinner, okay, mate?” He said.

“Sure thing.” I muttered, my eyes flicking towards where I knew my homework was. At that moment, Amy shouted out that dinner was ready, and my dad guided me to the door. I shrugged him off, saying, “I know where everything is here.”

“Just making sure,” Dad said, adding with a chuckle, “you know what happened last time.”

“Whatever.” I muttered. Yesterday I had misjudged where my door was in a moment of brief memory fade, and had smacked into the door, leaving a red mark down the left side of my face for the rest of the night.

I took my seat at the table and ran my hands over the wood to locate my knife and fork. They weren’t quite cold; Amy had set them out recently. The scent of dinner cooking, pasta, reached my nose and I inhaled deeply.

“Smells good,” I said appreciatively.

“Get up and set out the bowls.” Amy responded, tapping the counter to let me know where they were. I groaned, standing up and grabbing them, sliding them into the respective spots. Dad grabbed his, and brought it in front of him; leaving Mum’s to make its own precarious journey by my hand. I retrieved my own bowl as Amy took hers, and sat down again, inhaling the spicy scent. Amy liked to experiment with spices, especially on pasta, and I was a bit wary of anything she cooked up lately.

“What have you put in it this time?” I asked, prodding my food with a fork and wishing desperately I could see the ever-present chilli flakes. I instead stirred my meal as she answered.

“There’s only chilli in it tonight. Mum was getting fed up of all the spices I was adding.” She didn’t sound disappointed, rather like she missed the spice, but would live without it.

“An abundance of spicy food isn’t good for you, either.” Mum added, taking a bite of her food and falling silent. Amy had no retort for this, and we all continued to eat, the only sounds being the scraping of forks against bowls. I managed to avoid most of the chilli, but got up to pour myself a glass of milk anyway. I don’t handle spicy foods that well, and the burning sensation in my mouth makes my hair stand on end.

As I returned with my milk, my dad asked my sister the same questions he had posed to me a few minutes ago. I tuned her grating voice out and instead concentrated on the sounds of the fork against my bowl as I stabbed around trying to find the rest of my meal. Tipping my bowl, I skimmed the sides of the bowl, and began spearing the pasta as gravity overtook it. Finishing my meal, I put the bowl down and listened to Amy’s answer of how her day was. It was stock standard; her talking animatedly about all her friends she had messaged, and a bit about the music she had listened to, and what had happened on her favourite TV show. I sipped my milk, and my mother rebuked me for not offering a drink to anyone else.

“Would you like a drink?” I asked her, but somehow my sister took this as an indication to request a drink and replied with,

“Yes please, and do you mind if it’s juice?”

“I do, actually.”

“Jordan.” My mother cut in sternly. I got up and almost broke a glass while hunting in the cupboard for one, and poured her drink. “While you’re at it, I’d like a juice too.”

Yet another hunt through the cupboard and I delivered two drinks to the table. Dad had stayed quiet while this exchange had gone on. “Is everyone finished?” I asked, sweeping the table.

“Yes. You can do the dishes and then return to your homework.” Dad said, standing up and retiring to the lounge room. Amy stacked the dishes by the sink and filled it up for me while I rinsed out the worst of the remaining food. My mother had followed Dad, and they were both laughing over the show that was on.

I put the dishes in the warm water with soapy bubbles, listening to Amy’s footsteps retreat. I located the dish cloth, and began wiping the bowls, running my fingers over the inside of the bowl as I searched for any pieces of food I had missed. Finding none, I placed it on the rack and continued on to the next. The soapy water felt nice against my skin, and I lifted a hand heaped with bubbles to my face, blowing gently and imagining them floating on the air, the apparently iridescent spheres swirling around each other in a dance to imaginary music. The shimmering bubbles would then drift down and kiss the surface of the water, or the counter, teasing it with its sleek embrace and burst into a million tiny particles, where it would no more dance. I frowned, changing the ending, knowing that it would not be possible for the bubbles to continue to dance, but wanting them to anyway.

My homework called my name as I placed the last piece of cutlery in the drainer and called for Amy to dry and put them away. Wiping my hands on a tea towel, I ambled to my room, closing my curtains and facing the pile of homework I had to get though. Steeling myself, I prepared myself for a long night ahead of me. Why hadn’t I done my homework sometime over the three week break?

“Jordan, time to get some sleep. You’ll be up early tomorrow.” Mum said, standing at the doorway. It was nearing eleven, and Amy was already sound asleep, tired by today’s tiring activities. My eyes felt stretched, and I blinked, closing my eyes for longer than necessary and turning my face towards Mum, saying,

“Sure thing. Just one more sentence.”

“One.” She said sternly before walking off. I completed my somewhat hard-worked on English assignment and saved it, backing it up to my USB and switching my laptop off and putting it and charger into my schoolbag. I changed into my pyjama shorts and aimed my clothes at the basket, throwing them when I determined I was facing the right way. I heard them sink into the basket, the basket protesting at more clothes being stuffed into it. It was already full to the brim, I had forgotten to take it out earlier, and my mum had no care to heap more washing on herself – she just wouldn’t take any of my complaining about having no clean clothes when it came around to it.

I walked out to the lounge room to say goodnight to my parents, who had switched over to a movie by now, and hung around them for a few minutes, my eyes glued to the brightly lit screen, and listening to what sounded like an action movie play out.

“Bed,” my mum reminded me, and I bid them goodnight again, before returning to my room. Crawling under the covers and pulling them up to my chin, I closed my eyes, succumbing to the ever-present darkness. I was able to sense some light, but not all. Sometimes it was a blessing, but at most points in time, I thought it was a curse. I would never experience actual colour, only what I was told was black and grey, at times white when circumstances permit.

I dreamed of colour that night. The one thing that evaded me, and I most longed to experience. I dreamed first of magpies, one of the only birds I knew of that bore both colours that I saw. It slowly morphed into a bluebird, the massive shape shrinking, the sharp beak becoming less intimidating. The grating caw that I heard weathered away, as did the merciless scratching of claws and was instead replaced by a soft pecking and dizzyingly sweet melody. The bluebird took off into flight, a few shades darker than the periwinkle sky, and I went with it, looking out over the green pasture it soared over, in some patches the grass worn through and dirt showing through. Then trees began to appear, the silver bark of a eucalypt showing off its twisting branches proudly, reaching towards the unattainable sky. As the number of them rose, I saw the red. The bird, controlled by me, recoiled and fluttered away, sending out a warning. The red consumed my vision, and I awoke with a start. I had no idea if the colours were pictured right, but the reality of it was too much for my unconscious self to bear. I closed my eyes yet again, content with the bottomless black that obscured my vision – for once.

My alarm clock for the next morning, at a reasonably later time, was Amy, stomping past to get to the bathroom where a shower awaited her. I ran a hand through the messy hair piled atop my head and rolled out of bed, the dark not affecting my movements as it would to some people. My phone told me that it was just past six thirty, and I went on to get dressed, stumbling over the clothes scattered around my room. Hanging over the back of the chair at my desk was my school jumper, freshly ironed, and my blazer was tucked neatly on a coat hanger. Slipping it on and finding my school pants in my drawers, I walked out to the kitchen with my bag slung over my shoulder.

“Good morning,” my mum greeted me from the kitchen.

“What’s so good about it?” I replied, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek and open the freezer door. “We have to go back to school.”

“That is what is so good about it. No more kids for me!” My mum worked at home with some business. She didn’t get any days off, but because she worked from home, she didn’t really need any. She made her own business hours, and contacted her boss if she wasn’t going to work. I put the frozen bread in the toaster, and wandered around in circles while I waited for it to pop. My mum, annoyed by my aimless walking, and taking up of the limited kitchen space, said,

“Why don’t you get out the jam or whatever you’re going to put on your toast? I’m trying to get everything ready here! Shoo!” I quickly skirted to the side, wanting to be free of my mother’s wrath.

“Is dad still here?” I asked while retrieving the jam.

“Yes, he’s starting work a bit later today. He was called out for something last night.” My toast popped, alerting me with a ‘ding’. I walked back over to that side of the kitchen and gingerly retrieved the hot toast, putting it on a plate and spreading the jam onto it. Pouring myself and my mum a glass of juice, I then sat down to eat my breakfast, and I listened to Amy walk past, already talking loudly about something that had happened in the ten minutes she had been awake. The sounds emitting from her mouth finally stopped as she too prepared her breakfast and began to eat it.

“Have you got your cane?” Mum asked me, concern lacing her voice. She always worried about the first day of any term, as if the past however many years of going to school had never happened and I needed to be told what to do and what to bring as if it was my first day of prep – not that I listened even then. It was excitement when I was five and six, but now it was just routine; integrated into my day like someone else would take a photo and preserve the memory forever. Of course, my mum did take photos, I just had no care for them either.

“Be safe,” my mum called as Amy and I finished getting ready and heading out for the bus stop. I smiled and brought her into a sideways hug, kissing the top of her head.

“We’ll be fine,” I said, “good bye.”