Quinnie's Days part 1

Quinnie woke up in her childhood bedroom, though the room had none of the things it used to when she lived here fifteen years ago; well except for the old and worn mattress that she hadn’t bothered to replace. She sat up, the sun was shining through the blinds, it was six a.m. she sighed, unhappy that she had woken up so early when she didn’t have to be awake for two more hours. Knowing that going back to sleep would make her drowsy all day she stood up and stumbled sleepily into the kitchen. The floor was cold on her bare feet, “I really should get carpet”, she thought, as the cold made her feet ache. The house was quiet, she lived alone here with only the ghosts of the past memories in this home.

She reached into the cupboard and pulled out the jar of coffee grounds, of course the lid wasn’t on all the way and she dropped it. With a load crash half the coffee spread onto the tile in the kitchen. This day wasn’t starting off the way she had hoped it would, thankfully the jar didn’t break. She bent down frustrated and picked up the half-full jar and set it on the counter. Then she walked over to the pantry to get the broom and she swept up the unfortunate mess she had made. There were still a few pieces of coffee grounds that she couldn’t get swept up, they stuck uncomfortably to the bottoms of her bare feet. She tried to ignore the unpleasant feeling at least until she made her cup of coffee. She watched the coffee trickle down slowly into her coffee mug she had gotten from her ex-boyfriend, it had little pineapples dotted all around the mug. Even though she really hated her ex at this point, the mug was still her favorite. Once the coffee was done she picked it up and smelled the bitter and warm drink as she wandered into the living room. She wiped her feet off on the small fern colored rug to get the coffee grounds off their bottoms. Then she plopped down onto the reclining chair. She reached over to find the remote to the television only for it to not be in it’s usual spot. She took a glance across the room and saw it on the table next to the snake plant she has had for three years. She set her coffee on the side table and then, with lots of effort, pulled herself up out of the chair and walked across the room to grab the remote. She sat back down, and finally she turned on the news.

The newscast opened with the weather, rain, so much rain. Quinne liked the rain but her poor garden was going to drown. It was supposed to rain all day and night for three days. She thought that it would make time for her to catch up on her reading at least, and she always slept better when it rained. Then the news moved on to the latest robberies and shootings, all fun things to wake up to. Then, the phone started to ring, Quinnie still had a home phone which she thought to be uncommon these days. She set her coffee down and walked to the table with the phone. It was her sister Mia, sounding panicked, she asked Quinnie if she was watching the news. She told her she was. Just then, Quinne looked a the screen and saw her mother's face, not a mug shot, an angelic photo taken on a vacation to Germany last year. The man's words on screen began to muffle as Quinnie's heart began to beat faster and faster. Her mother was dead.