Kamau Nosakhere

The Book of Answers

I open my eyes to my cold, gray existence and stare at the alarm clock. 5:59am. I wait for it to do its job before turning it off. I sigh. I don’t remember when the world became so gray, only that it is now a shadow of what it once was. I blink. I open my eyes to find myself at the kitchen table. My cereal is mush. I grunt as I shovel it into my mouth. I blink to open my eyes and find myself in class. Math? English? Who cares? I don’t. I do a lot of blinking to get through classes. I find myself at my locker. I open it. I realize I have nothing to put in or take out. I shut it. Janine walks by and just for a second the world looks a bit warmer, almost yellow. But then it’s gone. I blink to find myself at the dinner table. I eat, I blink… and I’m doing homework. I turn off the lamp. In mid blink I roll over to the cool side of my bed. I look at the ceiling before doing one more really long blink. This cycle continues day after day, week after week. The blinking makes it easier, I hit my checkpoints throughout the day without bothering with the in betweens. Simple. Calm. Predictable. Until one day at dinner I hear something. It’s out of place but familiar.