Status: Finished
Routine
Routine
The walk home was boring. However, this time, she did pass an attractive man on a bike, but she only caught a quick glimpse of the man before he was gone forever. School was boring too. Same as it was yesterday, same as it had been for the past 11 years, just slightly more difficult. She had a greater workload but not enough to keep her occupied long enough until her mother got home at seven. She slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a key unlocking the door to her house, well her mother’s house but it felt like just hers, after all, her mother was hardly there. The door slammed quietly behind her as she walked up the stairs to her bedroom lifting up her mattress and pulling out a packet of cigarettes, she’d be killed if her mother found out, and lit one up as she got her laptop set up. Once finished she stubbed it out on her wooden desk and threw the stub out of her window, drenching the room with perfume to rid the small room of the smell. The chair creaked as she sat down, making a noise that made her cringe, just like it did every day. The girl slipped her shoes off one at a time, the left shoe then the right, just like every day, once she straightened up the pens on her desk, she sighed happily and began working. Her eyes didn’t leave the screen until five when she became hungry and her work once again became boring. Like it quite often did. She left the room and made herself packet rice with bottled sweet chilli sauce over the top, plain, simple, easy, not much thinking involved, and that’s why she liked the simple dish so much. The TV hadn’t been turned off since she left for school so she picked up her show where she’d left it earlier this morning, curled into her own body and eating rice and sauce. Just like every night, and every night there was to come.
I watched her from the second she reached the door until she sat down on the couch eating her bowl of rice, her routine never changed. At first I watched on, thinking maybe her routine would change after a day, a week, a month, surely it’d have to change after a year. But it stayed the same. The only change that had been made in the years that I’d been here was when she started working, and on Fridays she’d come home for an hour before leaving again to work and return again at 9, then she’d go to sleep. A never ending routine and from a surface level, she looked like she loved it, adoring the simple routine, enjoying the easy way of life. However, after watching someone for so long, you begin to notice little changes in their routines, like how she slowly started her smoking habit. Or even smaller, she’d started eating at 5 as oppose to 5:15, or how her routine became slower. She’d spend a little more time walking home from school, take a little longer to finish her cigarette, take a longer pause between taking her shoes off. Her routine was starting to slow and change, but to her it was so unnoticeable, she took it as nothing. The clicks on her keyboard had slowly become faster, she’d gotten better at typing, whether that came in practice or age or her want to finish work sooner, I’d never know. I did notice how bored of the routine she’d gotten, maybe she smoking to rid herself of the stress of school starting again, or, more likely she wanted to spice up her routine, change it and make it more interesting. In the end, her change became another part of the never ending cycle.
She finished eating and set her bowl aside, having exactly twenty-two and a half minutes of her TV show, just like she’d planned, that’d give her enough time to relax slightly before beginning her school work once again. Once her show finished she shut off the TV for the first time since 7 that morning, took her bowl into the kitchen and washed it up, and once again headed back to her room. She had a history task that needed completing, and that would be her focus of the night. That sounded different to her routine, but it wasn’t, history tasks were so huge she always had something to do on one of them. The task took her until she’d exhausted herself, or she became too bored to work anymore, one of the pair. She checked the clock, 6:59 it read, her mother would be home any second now. Not that they’d talk, her mother may come up and say hello if she was lucky then she’d go to sleep to wake up at five the next morning, to be on time for work the next morning. Her mother’s routine was just as endless as her own, it was true that she was her mother’s daughter.
I watched on as she worked on her history task, choosing her words quickly and carefully, soon after stopping due to boredom. If this was two years ago she’d work until her mother came home and said hello. Now she finishes just before her mother pulls up in the driveway, gives herself a few seconds to relax before her mother pulls in. Another small change in her routine that happened so slowly and so gradually that no one had noticed, not even her, but I had, I noticed everything. Sometimes I think maybe she's tired of the same and never ending routine and now was so stuck in her ways she couldn’t find a way to rid herself of it.
Tonight her mother didn’t come up and say hello but rather went straight to sleep, she’d eaten at work anyway, and she’d spoken to her co-workers all day, which was the same as talking to her daughter. At least in her mind. She opened up Facebook on her computer, her friends posting photos of the parties they were at, smiling, drinking, a drunk state of happiness but happy none the less. She’d been invited tonight but she declined, wanting to keep up her routine, she wouldn’t dare break it. Tonight was different, those photos did something they’d never done before and she was thinking it over. She’d done this once or twice before, look at the photos and consider it, but she’d always shake her head and work again. But she’d never been so bored of her routine and her mother hadn’t come up to see her tonight, she’d be sleeping now. She changed into a short shirt and jeans, putting on her makeup.
I’d watched her for so long, but never had I seen her break her routine so much, without at least making a note and she looked happy. Not drunk happy like her friends but a genuine happiness, something she’d not felt for a long time, since that boy she liked, liked her photo on Facebook, or when she met her first friend. I thought tonight would be the night I revealed myself to her, rid her of the boring routine she stuck to. Now I’ve learned that she never needed me, she’d find a way to break the routine herself, and find happiness.
She left the house, not locking the house, catching a cab and directing the driver to the address of the party.
I didn’t follow her that night, I let her body take control for once.
I watched her from the second she reached the door until she sat down on the couch eating her bowl of rice, her routine never changed. At first I watched on, thinking maybe her routine would change after a day, a week, a month, surely it’d have to change after a year. But it stayed the same. The only change that had been made in the years that I’d been here was when she started working, and on Fridays she’d come home for an hour before leaving again to work and return again at 9, then she’d go to sleep. A never ending routine and from a surface level, she looked like she loved it, adoring the simple routine, enjoying the easy way of life. However, after watching someone for so long, you begin to notice little changes in their routines, like how she slowly started her smoking habit. Or even smaller, she’d started eating at 5 as oppose to 5:15, or how her routine became slower. She’d spend a little more time walking home from school, take a little longer to finish her cigarette, take a longer pause between taking her shoes off. Her routine was starting to slow and change, but to her it was so unnoticeable, she took it as nothing. The clicks on her keyboard had slowly become faster, she’d gotten better at typing, whether that came in practice or age or her want to finish work sooner, I’d never know. I did notice how bored of the routine she’d gotten, maybe she smoking to rid herself of the stress of school starting again, or, more likely she wanted to spice up her routine, change it and make it more interesting. In the end, her change became another part of the never ending cycle.
She finished eating and set her bowl aside, having exactly twenty-two and a half minutes of her TV show, just like she’d planned, that’d give her enough time to relax slightly before beginning her school work once again. Once her show finished she shut off the TV for the first time since 7 that morning, took her bowl into the kitchen and washed it up, and once again headed back to her room. She had a history task that needed completing, and that would be her focus of the night. That sounded different to her routine, but it wasn’t, history tasks were so huge she always had something to do on one of them. The task took her until she’d exhausted herself, or she became too bored to work anymore, one of the pair. She checked the clock, 6:59 it read, her mother would be home any second now. Not that they’d talk, her mother may come up and say hello if she was lucky then she’d go to sleep to wake up at five the next morning, to be on time for work the next morning. Her mother’s routine was just as endless as her own, it was true that she was her mother’s daughter.
I watched on as she worked on her history task, choosing her words quickly and carefully, soon after stopping due to boredom. If this was two years ago she’d work until her mother came home and said hello. Now she finishes just before her mother pulls up in the driveway, gives herself a few seconds to relax before her mother pulls in. Another small change in her routine that happened so slowly and so gradually that no one had noticed, not even her, but I had, I noticed everything. Sometimes I think maybe she's tired of the same and never ending routine and now was so stuck in her ways she couldn’t find a way to rid herself of it.
Tonight her mother didn’t come up and say hello but rather went straight to sleep, she’d eaten at work anyway, and she’d spoken to her co-workers all day, which was the same as talking to her daughter. At least in her mind. She opened up Facebook on her computer, her friends posting photos of the parties they were at, smiling, drinking, a drunk state of happiness but happy none the less. She’d been invited tonight but she declined, wanting to keep up her routine, she wouldn’t dare break it. Tonight was different, those photos did something they’d never done before and she was thinking it over. She’d done this once or twice before, look at the photos and consider it, but she’d always shake her head and work again. But she’d never been so bored of her routine and her mother hadn’t come up to see her tonight, she’d be sleeping now. She changed into a short shirt and jeans, putting on her makeup.
I’d watched her for so long, but never had I seen her break her routine so much, without at least making a note and she looked happy. Not drunk happy like her friends but a genuine happiness, something she’d not felt for a long time, since that boy she liked, liked her photo on Facebook, or when she met her first friend. I thought tonight would be the night I revealed myself to her, rid her of the boring routine she stuck to. Now I’ve learned that she never needed me, she’d find a way to break the routine herself, and find happiness.
She left the house, not locking the house, catching a cab and directing the driver to the address of the party.
I didn’t follow her that night, I let her body take control for once.