Good Morning Once Again

Yey, keep reading?

I awaken once more, to the sounds of birds chirping. I open my eyes and I stare up at the ceiling for a long time. I begin to recognize the ceiling. I want to think about something, but I can't remember what. As I continue to stare and try to remember, a fuzzy head with ears appears from the side of my bed.

“Good morning, Leo,” I say yawning and scratch under his chin, feeling the vibration of his purr. Leo stretches in a refreshing way, digging his claws into the blanket and mews softly, rubbing up against my cheek.

“You hungry?” I ask. Leo’s reply is a solemn meow and pads around on the bedsheets, then quietly jumps off the bed. I get out of bed and look at the clock on the end-table next to my bed.

9:41. I chuckled to myself. Almost the same time I always get up every morning. I look down at the floor and see Leo laying in the patch of sunlight that came coming through the window, waiting for me with large open blue eyes. I felt a warm fresh scent coming from the open window. I walk up to it shakily, and before pulling the window closed, peer through it. Seeing the summer sky being so blue reminds me of my innocent childhood.

Oh those happy days, I think to myself and felt myself smiling. Hey watch it, you're not old yet, I jokingly remarked, causing an eyebrow to raise. I walk across to the other side of my room in what felt like many steps and look for my favorite set of clothes. I rummage through the drawers and closet.

Where is it? I stumble back to my bed and search on it, perhaps leaving them on my bed the evening before. I stumble again across out of my room, stepping over Leo quietly and carefully, and continue into the hall and turn to my right on the first door.

Is it in the laundered basket? I think and search through the clothes. Searching for many minutes, I was ready to give up when I finally discovered them; a pair of blue shorts and a plain red tank top. I walk back to my room and dress. After sloppily making my bed, I shove my pajamas under my bed’s pillow, concluding today’s cleaning of my room.

I'm pretty neat for a teenage girl, I remark to myself once more sarcastically, raising yet the same eyebrow again. I walk towards the door to my room and close it to see the mirror on the back. Looking at myself, I see that I have a horrible, disheveled bedhead. The light-brown hair is a mess, and the slightly sunburned golden tips are embedded tightly in the enigma of my hair along with the brown roots, looking quite like a tie-dye. Sighing, I walk into the hall, and go through the first door on my left, and almost flip on the bathroom light out of habit.

Where was my hairbrush again? Passively thinking, I face the counter to my right and open the top-right drawer, and pull out my hairbrush. I brush my hair, lazily brushing the ends which mid-back, and pull it over my shoulder to brush in front. The clumps soon untangle with much struggling and painful effort, and softly I close the drawer after laying my hairbrush back into the drawer. I tie my hair in a high ponytail, and swipe the comb off the counter to fix my bangs, which happen to stick up like a peacock’s tail, trying to arrange itself in beautiful colors. I myself can say, it doesn’t look pretty. The bangs decide not to work with me, and after dampening the roots to more easily fix the mess, it finally decides to take the shape that I want it to; side-swept bangs to my left.

God, that took forever. Placing my comb back on the counter where it was earlier, I set on to brush my pearly whites. I take my toothbrush, sitting on the countertop in a toothbrush stand. I reach for the toothpaste and take the cap off, then gently squish the tube and it came out onto my toothbrush. I twist back on the toothpaste cap, and begin to sleepily and half-heartedly brush my teeth. Staring into the mirror, I inspect myself for decency.

My hair is brushed through, and my clothes are clean. My teeth are being brushed, and... Not finishing my own sentence quite yet, I spit out toothpaste, open the faucet and clean my toothbrush. Then, I rinse my mouth with water. Now all that is left to do is to wash my face. I self-approvingly nodded.

I put my toothbrush away into the stand, and cup my hands under the faucet, filling them with lukewarm water. I bring my hands close to my face, and submerge my face into the water, carefully as not to splash. Dragging my hands down my face all the way to my chin, I spill water into the sink bowl. I turn off the faucet and turn around, then take my towel and wipe my hands and face into it. Spotting the sun by accident through the bathroom window, I squint and look away, blinking the black spot away out of my eyes. I recover quickly and head out into the hallway, and walk all the way to the end to enter the kitchen.

As I enter, I look at the calendar hanging on the wall to my right. Every day before the 14th was crossed off, and the letters up top of the page spell “June”. Right, there's no school today. I can do whatever I want. I turn right past the calendar and make my next destination the fridge. Upon opening the fridge, I quickly learned my favorite sparkling water is gone. Feeling irritated, I sigh purposefully loud, and close the fridge with a loud thud. Guess I'll have cereal today.

Leo had followed me down the hall, and begins hanging around my feet, meowing for food. I continue further into the kitchen and crouch down to open the cupboard where his cat food is, and Leo pats me on the shoulder with his paw as I crouch and mews.

“I know Leo, I'm getting you your food, don't worry,” I speak with a drone, and pull out the cat food bag. I cross the kitchen floor to arrive at his bowl, nearby the fridge, and pour some dry cat food into it. Leo comes running up from behind me at the sound of the cat food, weaves around my feet, and crouches down to eat, and I hear him crunching the the cat food pebbles in his mouth. I set back the bag, and resume my mission of getting myself some cereal.

Sighing yet once more, I reach up to attain a bowl, then I look for the cereal box. I grab the strawberry cereal O's, the ones that have some cereal pieces covered in yogurt and some dry strawberry chunks among the other O's. I pour myself some of the cereal into the bowl, and then reach for the milk in the fridge. I always make my cereal like this: one-third cereal, two-thirds milk. Reason is, when I make my cereal, I always eat it slowly, because I like to enjoy the taste of cereal. If I put too much cereal in, there will be some cereal floating at the top and some hiding under, and I eat the ones on top as a habit. The cereal at the bottom will become soggy, and from that point I don't want to eat the cereal anymore. The milk I pour two-thirds because I really like milk. But a small problem occurs. Since the cereal is soggy, the milk becomes saturated with cereal bits, and that's plain disgusting for me. So, instead of pouring half cereal and half milk, I make one-third cereal, two-thirds milk. Simple, and today I make my cereal no differently.

After pouring the milk, I place the milk jug back into the fridge, and search for a spoon from the dishwasher. The dishwasher makes loud clangs as I open the door and pull out the rack to reach the utensils at the bottom, and rings loud and clear throughout the silent house. That makes me feel really uncomfortable. Is anybody home? I wonder, and continue on, going from the Loud Dishwasher to the Cereal Bowl and carrying it to the High Plains, also known as the bar table. I sat down on a bar stool, took up my arms, and began decimating the great Cereal Bowl.

As I continued wrecking war against the defenseless Cereal Bowl, I cast my eyes around the room to look for the clock. I finally locate it behind me and see the small hand on the ten, and the large hand between the one and the two. It's about 10:08, I suppose, I state to myself, and turn back around to find my furry friend in front of me.

“Leo! What the heck are you doing?!” I ask with a start, and he tenses.

“Miau!” he exclaims and scampers off the bar table, making a small patter sound as he jumps down and runs into the hallway. Examining my cereal, I discover Leo had eaten some of my cereal O's and drank some of my milk.

So, do I still want to eat this? I stare at my bowl, thinking about how bad it would be if I still finish my cereal, even after Leo ate some. Better not risk it. Picking up my bowl and spoon from the table, I stand but then stop myself. What do I do with the leftover cereal? Pour it down the drain? No, that’s wasteful. Answering my own question, I scan the room for options. Spotting Leo's bowl, I notice that it is empty. Well, since he ate some he might as well finish it. I approach his bowl and pour the rest of my cereal into it. Thankfully, Leo's bowl was large enough to hold the leftover cereal, and I place my bowl and spoon into the sink. Now that I think about it, I didn't know that cats like cereal. I should take note of it so next time when Mom forgets to buy cat food, I have food that I can feed Leo with as a substitute. Or maybe the O's as a treat.

Leaving my bowl and spoon in the sink and walking back to my room, I feel the cool shaded hardwood floor turn warm when I enter my room. I stop in front of my bed, and belly flop onto it, and I hear the entire house echo with my bed’s painful cry. It made me truly realize that I am alone in the house, and that nobody is home at the moment. I sigh yet one last time and flip onto my back to look at my ceiling. It reminded me of what I wanted to think about when I first woke up this morning.

That weird dream.

Author's Note

weird grammar mistakes? Please do tell me.

Reviews

[Evil Duncan]

Overall I think you write well. I like your attention to detail, describing the details of a morning routine and there are some nice touches, like bangs sticking up "like a peacock's tail" and the summer sky reminding the narrator of innocent childhood.

You asked for weird grammar mistakes and I would say watch out for the tense you are writing in. You seem to switch between present tense and past tense. As an example: "I look down at the floor and see Leo laying in a patch of sunlight..." is present tense while the next sentence: "I felt a warm fresh scent coming from an open window." is past tense. It's a minor thing, but I found it a little difficult as a reader.

I would also say that your narrative moves quite slowly. The level of detail you describe is great, but not much really happens in this chapter, it really serves to illustrate that the narrator has forgotten about her dream and then remembers it again. I would suggest you concentrate your rich description on the things that really matter to your story, i.e. the things which are out of the ordinary and spending time and effort describing a morning routine is perhaps not the best way to engage your reader.

That said, I am left wanting to know what happens next so it's definitely a good set-up if you have more story to tell...

[Alice]

Thank you! I will proofread it through a few more times and change the grammar mistakes, thanks for spotting them.

I've been told that the narrative does move slowly, but it will be useful later in my story, I have plans. ;) and yes, I will be including more to tell. I will put more up soon!