A Messy First Day
Cristabel Vilorio
The piercing raucousness of Cherry’s morning alarm
Had failed to wake her.
A normal occurrence that wouldn’t
Have usually bothered her,
If not for it having been a school day.
The first school day of the year, to be exact.
It didn’t help much either that neither
Of her parents nor her siblings
Had the common decency to at least
Made an attempt to wake her up.
With clothes mixed and matched,
And backpack barely holding onto
The sunburnt skin of her shoulders,
She had no other choice but to run to school.
Hastily locking the front door behind her,
As she clumsily made her way down
Slick streets.
Today was, of course, the day that the massive
Heat wave that had beenburning through
The town had decided to break,
Soaking the land in a heavy, torrential downpour.
Fantastic for the cropping season,
But unwelcomed in Cherry’s current situation.
Out of all the days for Mother Nature to flip me off,
Cherry thought to herself:
Why did it have to be today?