english,
Literary (Submission): Routine
I am built upon the things that I do every day. From big things to small things like, “How well did I do last quiz?” to “Am I breathing funnily?”. To me, stuff like this is a matter of life or death, that’s why I recall whatever happens to me every day, just to ensure I keep to protocol.
Monday:
I wake up, clean myself, make breakfast for two, eat, brush my teeth, get ready for school, tell mom that breakfast is ready and say goodbye, then I head off to school. Instead of having a school bus I opt for commuting, saves me a lot of money, though not a lot of time.
I have a schedule of what to do when I get to school as well. First order of the day is to get to class without having to bump into anything unnecessary. Last time, a student in their junior year bumped into me and unluckily enough, got their food all over me. I got delayed for about 20 minutes since they were apologizing too much and I had to try cleaning out the food that was on me. Overall not a good day. In fact, I’m pretty sure I got sent home because I was having a major tantrum about it. Anyways, where was I?
Ah yes.
I go into my classroom and take my notebooks out. I organize my notes and try to reread them to prepare myself for the quiz mentioned last week. After doing so, I sharpen my pencils and get my eraser ready. I check the time, 7:35 AM, good I’m right on schedule. With the 25 minutes to spare I go to the bathroom, freshen up a little bit and then look at the time again, 7:50 AM, time to head back to class. When I get there I usually rest my eyes for a bit, and when I hear the door open and the teacher enters, I wake up and check my watch, 8:02 AM, a little bit late but I’ll allow it. The classes I have after are all the same, I organize, sharpen, get erasers, rest eyes if there’s time. Now comes the most problematic period of them all, lunch.
It’s not that I don’t like eating, in fact, the food in the canteen, though not that healthy, is honestly pretty good tasting. It’s also not because I spend my lunchtime alone, as a matter of fact, I have quite a lot of friends (A total number of 6 if I can be proud to say) whenever I eat lunch. So why you might be asking, well it’s simply because of how erratic lunch can be. Like sure I enjoy my time with my friends and such but I only enjoy it if it’s 30 minutes or below, anything beyond that and I find it unacceptable. I mean, who’s gonna organize my notes and sharpen my pencils right? Not them that’s for sure. There seems to be no problem as of now since the line’s moving smoothly and my friends are already in their appointed seats. Glad to know that they understand where I’m supposed to be seated at nowadays. You could not believe the number of times I had fought with them just because they shifted to my spot for some reason. No seriously, I fought with them every day for that spot and for some reason, we eventually just sort of all became friends. I sat down with them, talked about what happened with Mrs. Applegate during algebra, and had a good time. Overall lunch was great this time around and it went off without a hitch.
The subjects after lunch are usually pretty easy too. Art is easy because I’ve always been interested in it, and after that is French, which is easy because my mother came from France. In the end, nothing’s really worth mentioning in the afternoon classes.
4:35 PM. A little off schedule but I can make do.
I speed walk myself out of school to go home but before I do, I go to the pharmacy two blocks away from our house to pick up medication. I was greeted enthusiastically by the cashier and the manager asking if I was going to pick up some Isoniazid and told them I was. I’d say I was surprised but I come here every day. The only time I ever was when during that one time they kept asking who I was and pretending they didn’t know, I thought I was insane until I found out what day it was. Call me April cause I was a damn fool if you ever saw one.
After picking up the medicine I went home and got to work. I changed clothes, cooked dinner for two, brought mom her share, ate mine then cleaned the plates and brushed my teeth. After that, I went to my room and checked to see if I had homework. Luckily there was none, so I continued on. Usually, this is when people sleep or check their phones to check what’s up, but what I usually do is go to mom and tell her about my day. She seems to enjoy listening to what I have to say.
I told her that we talk about “this thing” or “that event” during lunch and in turn, she would say what she was doing during the time. I would tell her what my grades were like and how they’ll probably end up as, and she would say she was proud of me. I say my goodnights and-
“Good night, my child.”
Then I proceed to my room, lie on my bed, and have a good night’s rest.
Tuesday:
I wake up, clean myself, make breakfast for two, eat, brush my teeth, get ready for school, tell mom that breakfast is ready and say goodbye, then I head off to school. I go to class, organize my notes, reread them, sharpen my pencils, then go to the bathroom, I go back to class, rest my eyes, and then class starts. A good start to my day.
Lunch comes around and I see the line progressing at the normal pace. That’s good, great even. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this nice about a day before, maybe it was just God’s will for it to be good today. I got the usual, A ham sandwich, mashed potatoes, and – well there weren’t any gelatin but that wasn’t gonna ruin my day! I disregarded the fact and said my thanks to the lunch lady. I sat down with my usual friends on my usual spot during the usual time, and I started listening in on what they were talking about. It’s “yo mama” jokes. Not to my taste but ok. Now usually they don’t really include me on their banter and such especially since they know I don’t really like jokes.
Then it happened.
Because everyone was having such a grand time, one of my friends came up to me and told me something about, you guessed it, my mom. I guess they were expecting me to laugh as well, and honestly, I thought I would too. But my body betrayed me and did something that nobody was expecting.
I slacked him right in the jaw.
At first, my mind didn’t register what I just did, the fact only settled in when a teacher had suddenly come up and started telling us off. She told us that both of us are coming to the principal’s office, so we went. We were asked what happened, and we properly explained. The principal understood the situation and I was lucky enough to have gotten away with just being sent back home... Of course, after the fact I kept apologizing to my friend about what had happened and that I didn’t really mean it. He, being the amazing person that he was, was nice enough to accept it and admit that he did cross a line. He went with me all the way back to my locker to get my stuff and we bid each other farewell.
I went to the pharmacy again and got what I needed, went back home and did my routine. I changed clothes, cooked dinner for two, brought mom her share, ate mine then cleaned the plates and brushed my teeth. I went to check in on mom for the time being and asked her if she needed anything, she asked if she could have some water so I went and fetch some for her. When I got back I gave it to her and tried to quickly leave the room. I don’t know if it was shown on my face or if it was just maternal instincts but she quickly asked me what’s wrong. Damn it, I thought I was scot-free, so I tried telling her what went on during the morning. I went to school, got to my classroom, got my notes reorganized them, sharpened my pencils, and I-
“Yes, but I was asking what’s wrong?”
-can’t keep up this game of charade that I’ve been playing. It took me a few seconds to answer but honestly, I’m not sure how long it was before I did. Might have been a few seconds but sure felt like hours to me. I told her what events had happened during lunch and that I was genuinely sorry. She first asked me if my friend and I had amended already. I told her yes and how we did so. After that, she asked me why I did it. I couldn’t tell her that it was because someone insulted her. She might just feel guilty or worry about me more, so I opted for her to drop it. She insisted that I say. I stayed silent for a moment, thinking about what I was supposed to do so that she doesn’t know what actually happened. After all, she doesn’t need more stress in her life. I don’t want to be more stress in her life.
So I told her that it was because my friend insulted me, a half-truth. At first, I thought that I was home free since she went silent for a few seconds but… 5 seconds turned to 30, then to 60. Two minutes, three… It was gut-wrenching. Though she had an expressionless face I knew what she was showing.
Sadness and disappointment.
My little lie told her that I didn’t trust her enough to tell her what actually happened. I quickly told her “good night” and “love you” to quickly get out of the suffocating situation I was in and quickly went into my room.
To get things off of my mind I opted to chat with my friends about what happened earlier. At least explaining to them went as smoothly as I hoped for. They were skeptical at first but before I can dig myself deeper, my good friend stepped in and helped defend me as to my situation, after that things seemed to calm down. In fact, after I asked them what I missed out on earlier, they immediately started to delve into their own stories, even the ones that I wasn’t classmates with. After a bit of storytelling I asked if I could receive a picture of the assignments for tomorrow, they gladly gave me it. It took me an hour or so to finish it and after doing so, I checked the time.
9:47 pm
Right on time, in fact, I’m 8 minutes early. I lay down in bed and instead of counting sheep, mother taught me to always just count my blessings. So I started to count…
One.
And then I fell asleep.
Wednesday:
I wake up, clean myself, make breakfast for two, eat, brush my teeth, get ready for school, tell mom that breakfast is ready and say goodbye, then I head off to school. I go to class, organize my notes, reread them, sharpen my pencils, then go to the bathroom, I go back to class, rest my eyes, and then class starts.
Now usually I would say that this was a good start and it was, but my gut had told me that something was definitely gonna happen that was surely gonna ruin my day. Maybe I’ll trip and hurt my arm later or something, or maybe some fake rumor was gonna start about me because of what happened yesterday. Apparently, it was the latter.
Well, sort of.
If no rumors are circulating about me now there’s gonna be some now. Why you may ask? Well my dear, I simply got called to the Principal’s office again. So I go there and surprise-surprise, who do I find? My friend’s mom waiting for the supposed child that left a nasty bruise on her son. Now to me, this just felt like retributive justice. I even felt more guilty because my friend mouthed “sorry” to me even though I was the one who socked him.
I explain to her what had happened and to her “surprise”, it was the same story their child had told them. Now my friend suddenly started saying that I already apologized and we forgave each other nonetheless but his mom seems to have something in mind for me regardless. No escape from this then I guess. Now I was just a sitting duck there waiting to be shot and was silently waiting to be killed quickly, preferably in the head…
“I want your parents to come here and apologize as well.”
Only to get shot in the foot, damn it! I politely told her my parents were too busy to come to school today, they didn’t quite accept that and demanded the school call them this instant. Luckily enough, the principal knows of my situation and had vouched for me, her son had also started arguing with her and telling her to drop it. It was a long discussion and the mom was very reluctant on letting this go, finally, the situation diffused when the dad came in and told her off as well. I thanked him and my friend.
By the time we finished, school was already way over. So much for my routine, I guess. I walked home frustrated and did what I had to do. I changed clothes, cooked dinner for two, brought mom her share, ate mine then cleaned the plates and brushed my teeth.
“This day was just the worst.”
Couldn’t help but vocalize it. I got a tray and set the food I cooked for mother and a glass of water on it. Brought it upstairs and knocked on her door. I entered her room and I find her in her bed sleeping already, what time is it anyway?
9:30 pm
Damn, it was this late already? No wonder mom’s asleep. I gently tapped her shoulder and asked her if she wanted to eat any of her food, she grumbled a “No” and casually went back to sleep. I sighed and took the tray to put it downstairs, I can only blame myself for not looking at the time and still cooking for two. I opened the door to let myself out and-
“Thank you, my child.”
-I went down and put the food in the refrigerator. I cleaned the plates that weren’t used and then I went straight to my room to sleep.
Maybe today wasn’t that bad after all.
Thursday:
I wake up, clean myself, make breakfast for two, eat, brush my teeth, get ready for school, tell mom that breakfast is ready and… huh. She doesn’t respond, must still be asleep. I knocked again and still no answer. I get the keys to check on her and see mother still sleeping on her bed, I put her food on her bedside table and whispered good bye and said-
“I love you.”
I closed the door softly and bolted for the door, didn’t want to be off schedule now, would we? I reached school and checked the time.
7:55. No time for freshening up in the bathroom.
I go to class, organize my notes, reread them, sharpen my pencils, then go to the bathroom, I go back to class, rest my eyes, and then class starts.
Nothing happened in my morning classes so it was off to a good start. Lunch came around and the usual, nice pace in the line, all of my food items were there, my friends greeted me as I sat down on my spot, and we had a grand time. I told myself this wasn’t gonna last with how things had been panning out the last few days but eh. Maybe God willed it so that I can have a break today. My afternoon classes were the same, absolutely nothing happened.
That makes me happy.
As I was getting ready to go home, I felt a slight tap on my back. I was slightly taken aback so I kind of jumped, I was expecting whoever did it to be on the floor laughing right now but to my surprise, they had a sad look on their face. Also to my surprise, it wasn’t a student at all! It took me quite a while to figure out who it was but then quickly realized it was my aunt and gave her a quick hug. She told me she had to talk to me about something at home so she came to pick me up, I of course enthusiastically accepted her offer. We just had to pick up some medicine before coming home. She told me it wasn’t necessary and before I could ask why, she had already started briskly walking back to her car.
I followed suit.
When we got home I told her I was gonna change for a bit and then cook dinner for all three of us before she told me what she needed to talk about but before I even got the chance to go upstairs she suddenly hugged me and shouted, “I’m sorry!”. I didn’t understand, she rode me back home so why was she apologizing? I tried asking her what she was sorry about only to have received a bunch of muffled and incomprehensible words. It took me a few minutes to get her to calm down well, at least calm enough so that I understood what she was saying. At this point, I could only chuckle to myself at this grown woman who was acting like a child that did something to upset their parents. And I would have continued to do so if not for what she had said after her episode.
Mother had died.
Apparently, she was rushed to the hospital earlier by the neighbors when they saw a woman next door on the porch vomiting blood. There were some details about her condition and what had led her to it but at this point, it didn’t matter anymore.
Nothing did.
I ran up to my room and locked myself in before my aunt could finish what she had to say and I heard her following me upstairs. I heard her knocking on my room screaming, “I’m sorry” and “She loved you” over and over again. I just sat with my back on the wall and started thinking “Why?” and “How?”. I started thinking about what mother did this week and how things could have led to this over and over again but nothing comes to mind. She was always fine when I came back home, in fact, I had been the one having a bad week. The only thing that happened this week was the incident when I punched my friend so I don’t really know how that could have affected-
Yesterday.
I forgot to buy mom her medicine yesterday. At this point, the only thing I could think of doing was to cry, but I couldn’t even do that. The only thing I was feeling was disbelief. Disbelief that I had messed up, that mom is gone now. And in that time of me blanking out, I heard my aunt say, “Please listen to me! Your mother had something to say to you!”. I asked her what it was and she slipped a piece of paper under my door. I opened it and surely enough it was my mother’s handwriting. Though crude and messy I knew immediately it was hers and it only read 4 words.
“I love you too.”
Friday:
I wake up, clean myself, make breakfast for two, eat, brush my teeth, get ready for school, tell my mom that breakfast is ready and I…
I…
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