On Monday, October 12th at 6.000am in Ontario Canada, Elena’s alarm went off for the morning.
She hit the snooze button for ten minutes as was her custom every day. She did this three times in a row before finally getting out of bed. One time her roommate had asked why she didn’t set the alarm thirty minutes later. And even though she had given it a little thought, she had shrugged it off and thought, What’s the fun in that!
Elena had always felt like she needed a gentle awakening to get up into her ordinary and lonely day. And true to her predictions, her day was sometimes ordinary. And lonely.
You see, she had always been a lone ranger, and she enjoyed her own company. Being by herself always made it possible for her to enjoy ecstasy. Her kind of ecstasy led to an all-time high that only those who experienced it would understand. A kind of high where she transferred to the stars and the moon was her lunchroom. Being alone was her escape route, an escape she needed to survive in this miserable world.
Elena could not remember if she had always been this way. But she did know that having grown in a womb for nine months with two other sisters, and sharing almost everything with them while growing up, she couldn't wait to get out of the house. And on her eighteenth birthday, she said her goodbyes and hopped on a train to her wonderland. Well, that was what she thought.
It didn’t feel like a wonderland at that moment. Something felt different on that day as she stepped out of bed. She knew what it was as her feet touched the cold wooden floor… ah, October. She had turned down the heater sometime during her many bathroom breaks at night. Since she was getting too warm. That is what she liked to believe anyway. But somewhere at the back of her mind, she knew that the cost of running her heater high also had something to do with it. Her energy bill for last month had almost sent her running back to her mother's place so she had learned to make do.
In her ultimate wisdom, she had loaded her bed with the thickest duvet she had found on sale and woke up in bids of sweat.
In the minutes following, Elena had stood to stare at her image in the mirror. Her pajamas were worn out, the stripes fading away. She had unbuttoned the shirt and took a look at her body to appreciate it as she always did. she loved her body. It was her most prized possession. As she buttoned back her shirt, she tried to remember where she had gotten this pajama from. And she did; It was a Christmas gift from one of the twins two years ago. It had been delivered to her doorstep…. she stared at her sore nipple for a while then backed off a second.
THE TWINS!!!
And in that moment reality hit her.
It was October 12th! The triplets’ twenty-first birthday and the Canadian Thanksgiving Day.
And she was hosting! Well, semi-hosting since she wasn't responsible for the preparations. She didn’t care for these things. She would rather spend the day alone in her thoughts or at a park where she could transport herself into any space she wanted to be. But this particular day was her twenty-first birthday. And her mother had insisted they all celebrate it together as a family. They hadn’t had a birthday together ever since Elena left home at eighteen. And Elena didn’t see why they should anyway, they were adults.
She had kicked against it. But was knocked out by everyone. They wanted to spend thanksgiving and their twenty-first birthday at her newly rented place. A small condo she had gotten alongside her roommate a little over a year. She did not know if her sisters wanted to spend the day at her place or if their mother had made them but it didn't matter. At least not to her.
So, on that Monday, they were going to have a birthday/thanksgiving dinner at her place.
The twins, as she liked to refer to her sisters, were Alexis and Cassandra; even though they were triplets. They hadn't been to her place before. They both had their permanent residences in the united states. They had not seen their little sister in over a year, she had not seen either of them in that time as well. But their mother was always over. She stayed approximately ten kilometers away from Elena.
Their mother was not retired yet. She had taken on a part-time role at a branch of her company which was in Elena’s city when she clocked fifty-eight years earlier that year. Her hip wasn't what it used to be. She had a fall a couple of years ago. So she had sold their house and moved, taken a part-time role, and had some extra time on her hands.
She moved closer to her youngest daughter.
Elena didn’t like it. It seemed like a huge deal, having her mother move from Edmonton to Ontario, but she never mentioned it.
Their father had died a while ago.
Even though Elena was providing the venue, her family had insisted they make all the arrangements and cooking.
As Elena kept looking into the mirror, she couldn’t help but imagine how dreadful the day was going to be. She didn't look forward to so much company. She had one friend who doubled as her roommate. Cheryl. And Cheryl could pass an absentee roommate because she was constantly away at her boyfriend’s place.
Elena walked out of her bedroom and towards the kitchen area as she thought to herself “she needed to escape and her hot chocolate”.
By 9.00 am on the same morning, she was prepped and ready to receive her family in her home. Her two-bedroom condo was clean and tidy as always and her kitchen empty…. Typical! Hot chocolate in hand, she walked to the living area and sat on the only couch in the living area. Her gaze wandered a bit as she recalled the events of three nights before. On Friday the 9th of October. For the first time since Elena realized her ability to haul herself into others,
something she termed as ‘escape’,
she had sat on her couch and escaped into the life of a guest actor in her favorite television series. And she had enjoyed every bit of time there.
looking back at the events of the night, she said to herself, “crazy night”.
