Morning all. I hope you are feeling fabulous on this last workday of May. Happy Friday. Shall we see what the last propt of the week brings? Fabulous. Timers set for fifteen and off we go.
That is not what I was expecting to happen. I’m going to have to think about this one.
Friday, May 29th: Go inside.
“Go inside.” The command was clear. He stared at the scene, the faces drawn tight with anger and barely contained rage. He turned and went inside. He left them outside to deal with things, realizing that this was not his fight. He was no longer involved.
He was an outsider.
It hadn’t occurred to him before, not really. He closed the door behind him already hearing voices raised outside. He could hear the tension and frustration etching the words even though the thick wood.
‘Not my fight,’ he thought. He heard someone call out to him. It was Martha from the kitchen. He couldn’t see her and she couldn’t see him, yet she knew he was inside nonetheless.
‘Everyone knew I was an outsider before me.’
He wasn’t certain what to do with that. He didn’t stop but climbed the stairs going to the his room. He closed the door and looked around. It was called his and there were a few extra things in one of the drawers. The spare pajamas he left, the extra set of clean underwear, the travel sized toiletries kit.
The room itself held nothing of his even though it was still called his room. He remembered when it had the posters in various space themes decorating the walls and the model of the planets hanging from the ceiling. It was decorated for his five year old self. Then he turned six and was sent off to boarding school. Holidays he was picked up, sometimes, but it was always for a trip of some kind. He met the family at an airport and joined them for the last leg of the journey. At the end of the holiday he split off from them at the airport, continuing on alone while they went home.
Summers he was always enrolled in some sort of program somewhere. It was never attached to the school as though his family didn’t want the school to realize he never came home. He first returned after graduation from school. It was a brief stop over post graduation and pre university. The planets still hung from the ceiling and Martha said they ought to redecorate since he wasn’t a child.
He was there three days before heading off to an internship program. Holidays were spent on his own or meeting the family for travel. After he finished at university he visited and the room had been turned into a guest room, even though it was still called his. He was home for two nights and then went off to a job. He stopped vacationing with the family and instead received postcards.
Occasionally he visited. The last time he left the toiletries and pajamas. This time he was asked to come for a visit. When he walked to his room, he looked into the other rooms. The twins had not been sent to boarding school. They lived at home. Their rooms showed the evolution of their growth. Even though they were grown and graduated with jobs and lives of their own, he knew the boys still vacationed with the family.
He was the stranger, the odd one out. He knew why, but knowing why didn’t make it any easier.
Voices drifted up through the open window, bringing sounds of the arguments. He still didn’t know why he was asked to come here. He was hoping they would tell him soon so he could leave again. This time he decided he would take the pajamas and toiletries with him. There was no point in returning, not really.
Ten til Midnight 