With a heavy sigh I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. My hands dragged across my face as the defeat screen stared at me judgementally. In a fit of frustration, I closed out the program and slumped forward, deciding to browse for another video essay about some random topic I've never heard of when the time caught my eye, “2 am huh.” The moment those words left my mouth, my mind jumped back to an early morning as hazy as my memory. The buzzing of the old yellow light of the boiler room, the faint ticking of the clock over the door, the sound of steam hissing through the pipes. All sounds that were silenced by the commotion of the day, now at the forefront as I packed my bag to leave. It made me wonder, what else had I ignored due to the hustle and bustle of my life? What else had I ignored back then?
Realization swarms my body as if I'm being lifted up by a swarm of bees; the feeling in my chest is as if time is frozen. My mom is standing at the gate next to the ominous basement door. As I walk past her enthusiastic figure and open the front door, a line of cars is cruising down the block. A stentorian wail of police sirens, a fantasy of familiar faces holding blurry posters; the entire Lodi police department is strolling past my house. Music notes visibly vacate the loudspeakers, harmonizing the Happy Birthday Song. But the words on the posters are illegible; my eyes turn straight to read the letters, yet I'm constricted. I just can't…
I'm falling.