Flash Fiction 2008

Winner - "New Beginnings Flash Fiction Contest"

Tom Adams

Home

   I was thirteen.  My sisters were staying over at friends' houses,  just as I was.  I guess it was the teen thing to do on New Year's Eve.  I knew my mom was home alone, my dad out who knows where, just as Dad was always out and Mom was always home alone with us kids, or just alone.  This night I knew she was just alone.
   At around 3AM I decided that she shouldn't be.  My friend Neil and all of his family were sleeping, but I just couldn't.  I was thinking about my mom, and about how wrong it felt that I was here and she was home.  I desired to be home, too, not just to comfort her, but for my own comfort as well.
    The den Neil and I were to sleep in was dimly lit, and Neil was stretched out on one of the sofas.  I called his name a couple of times, but he was out, and I decided to let him sleep.  I quietly put on my shoes and my pea coat and walked to the rear basement door.  I had to go through a dark laundry room, but the Kazragises' finished basement was just like ours.  In fact, the floor plans of our houses were identical, so I was able to navigate in the dark fairly well.  Soon I was outside, and I felt free.
   The Kazragises lived precisely one block over from us.  We had the same street address, only with theirs on Kolin while we lived on Kostner, so, after crossing the street it was just a quick cut through the O'Grady's yard and I'd be in my own back yard.
   The scene I stepped out into in these wee hours took my breath away.  The night was clear with a full moon, the snow on the ground was fresh, and the moonlight reflecting off the new-fallen snow cast my neighborhood, which seemed now to belong only to me, in a beautiful silver glow.  I had never until then beheld such idyllic beauty.  Except for a few houses down the block that left their Christmas lights on, the moon provided the only light, and the stillness was palpable. 
    After standing for a few moments in Neil's family's driveway, more out of respect and wonder at the scene before me than in reconsideration of my decision to go AWOL like this, I skidded my shoes across the snowpacked street and did a somersault on the O'Grady's blanketed lawn.  My breath came out in thick bursts of steam, but I didn't feel the least bit cold.  The joy in my solitary appreciation of all of this beauty warmed the very blood that coursed through my veins.
   I did another skid or two down the O'Grady's driveway, reaching the back gate that led to my back yard.  I knew I had done something that wasn't quite right, that my disappearance would certainly alarm Neil and his parents, but all I could do now was finish what I had set out to do--go home and sleep in my bed, and add whatever my presence could add to right the wrongness of my mom sleeping in an empty house on New Year's Eve night.  So, although my unannounced escape from the Kazragises was going to cause some worry, I knew I had done the right thing.  I knew it the moment I stepped out into the moonlight, and I knew it now as I turned the knob, entered my home, and went upstairs to bed.