An Elapsed Minute

Waking up to the warm feel of a late spring day in your sun-dappled room, pulling your blanket up over your eyes in an unsuccessful attempt to eschew going to school as your mother comes in and confiscates it, sternly announcing that you are to “get up right this instant.” You omit that command and peacefully roll over onto your stomach and slide your head underneath your pillow, resting your sore eyelids and anew escape into a deep slumber.

Once you wake again, the pleasant, gentle tepidity is gone, and so is the familiar ambient noise of bird song and the clanking of utensils in the kitchen; the silence is uncanny. The former space of radiance is replaced by boundless darkness. The void surrounding you feels oddly similar to the one you feel in your stomach, arising from the anxiety of nescience regarding your situation. Is this a dream? Surely. In the desperate attempt to force your eyes open, you fail to consider the alternative possibility; they already are, and this is your new reality.

Your solitude terrifies you. Where is my room? Where is my Family? Where is my life?

In that instance of “momentary” ignorance and indolence, your time has passed. Time has long passed and vanished, and now even your memories of your childhood have slipped through your fingers.

So now you must adapt and tread new paths on your own; mistakes and misdeeds are unavoidable, as there is no-one to build the route nor guide you through the troughs and crests of life anymore, as your parents once have done. Unfortunate as it is, this process does, in a way, play a pivotal role in maturity and self-discovery. However, in some cases, this happens egregiously early, forcing children to discover independence before they have the physical capabilities to actually effectuate it, forcing them to flee their childhood houses to establish their own homes.

-Adriana Khlusova