Maybe next year we’ll…

The misty cool fog of a Northwest American morning tends to filter in on these late spring days as smoothly and easily as the tea wrestling through it’s bag in the kettle behind me. The huge picture window that lets the morning sun in and my groggy morning line of sight out does little to mix the two upon passing, though they make quite certain to shake hands and smear and flicker through the fingerprints of the hands of an investigating 4-year old boy. The kettle begins to whistle as I finish adding milk to three bowls of cereal and head back to my room.

Sweethearts,” I whisper to the two lumps underneath the thin crocheted blanket — presumably a former heirloom tossed out, probably by some picky style-obsessed new wife — which I’d purchased upon my arrival in this city a year ago. One of the masses under the sheet began twitching a bit and I pulled back the cover to reveal a small boy, his hair matted and standing out in several directions (including up) from a long night of sweaty sleep. He rubbed his eyes and leaned up, and then let out a slow, measured whine.

“I’m tiiiiiiiiired,” he pushed his arm over his eyes even while kicking off the blanket.

“Hey man,” I said gently, “listen it’s time to get up. Do you want to eat some cereal or not?” The little guy sprung straight out of sleep and onto his knees with his arms upstretched.

“Pick me up!” he demanded and I gently reminded him that asking politely would get him further in life than making rude demands before the sun had even set over some parts of the world.

“Please will you pick me up?” I complied. One down, one to go.

The final lump lay motionless under the covers. This one was slightly larger and with the shapely figure of a woman, I could make out the fine distinctions of large childbearing hips and thighs capable of traversing city blocks back and forth without hitting a single stoplight. To wake this creature was a different measure than merely tempting a small boy with the prospects of food. Delicacy and aptitude would need be applied, it took a certain degree of finesse and cunning to arouse such a sleeping beauty. So I cocked back my hand and smacked the part of the hump that looked most like a woman’s backside, and stepped back quickly as the sheets flung completely off of the bed and the girl underneath pounced up into the waking world like a sleeping planet suddenly realizing it’s star had gone supernova.

“Well, since we’re all awake,” the kettle whistling in the background, “let’s have some breakfast and tea together, eh?”

I turned around and carried the boy and myself out to the lounge where our cereals and juices and teas were all setup at the table and waiting for us. It took a moment for the third member of our happy little home to join me but a quick “Hayyyylo, soggy cereal is on the way!” caused a noise to stir up in the back room.

The sun reflected off of the distorted images of all of our faces as we shone in the bends and curves of the spoons we were eating from. Soon it would be time to rush off and do this or that and begin preparing for a lifetime of days ahead of us, but for right now I was content to just let the cool air squeeze in through the cracks in the walls and the milk slurp through our lips from the corners of our bowls.