I know I’m not the greatest writer in the world, but I’m debating carrying on with this. Sort of. In a way.
—-
Outside the stars glint appealingly, calling her to come out again. She’s done it before many times, and she slips quietly from under the covers. Her family are well used to her nocturnal nature but even years on don’t know what she does when they’ve gone to sleep. She dresses quietly, picking her clothing in the half light of the moon, it doesn’t matter anyhow, at this hour there’ll be no one there. No one but her; exploring alone.
She knew what clothes she was going to wear anyway. Stuffed down at the back, behind everything else, she selects her favourites. Carefully stepping over the crease in the carpet marking the fractured floorboard that hits some pipe or other waking the house, she descends the stairs. Counting each one quietly, stepping with care, and listening for the breathing of her parents. Any change and she pauses. Waiting for it to settle again before placing her foot gently on the next stair.
She’s been here so many times, she skips the steps that creak and stands, quietly, in the darkness of the hall. Her next challenge is one of the harder ones. Extracting her bunch of keys, the ones that will allow her to reenter this world, from the pile of keys on the shelf. Her family aren’t the neatest, and her keys occupy the lowest space in a pile of discarded metalwork. Fingers carefully working she moves each bunch; her Mum’s car keys, her Dad’s office keys, her Mum’s locker key. Finally the light catches the edge of the lettering on her door key, she slips them into her hand, listens once again, before stealing for the kitchen door.
She wonders who thought that sliding doors were a good idea, and she attempts to hold the door mid point between the scraping bottom guide and the squealing top casters; moving it slowly and carefully she is able to peer through the kitchen window. The street is jaundiced by the glow of sodium vapour, but no houses glow anaemically from the opposite side of the street. She slips out, her key holding the lock open until the door is quietly shut, and as she finally releases the key she feels the release of the outside world.
The girl steps out onto the street, still carefully checking, but at this time no-one arrives, and she is free to slip through the world unnoticed. She wanders suburbia, quietly taking in all that surrounds her. Her runners crunch across the gravel, the silence briefly broken but returning and washing over her. This, she thinks is freedom. But it is, as always, short lived. After an hour or two the cold of the night eats through her clothing and she slips back home.
A repeat performance takes her quietly up the dark stairs, praying internally that no-one will awake – there would be too much to explain. Eventually she wraps herself in her duvet, the warmth seeping through her and drifts to sleep.
