Muddy Foot-Prints

The treacherous forces of the impending storm were on its despairing way, its humorous name had been unbearably present on every news channel possible. I curled into myself on my battered, ancient sofa as the news reporters droned on and on about how Storm Vera was going rip our fences from their positions in our gardens. How its winds of great strength were going to topple over the trees that filled our forests, the oblivious street-lamps were also endangered by the strongest storm to ever grace our country.

I remember the inevitable chills that filled my body as I met the grave gaze of the white-haired man, his blue eyes pierced through my TV screen as he stated his last words firmly.

“To the people living in these regions,” he pushed his thin glasses further up his nose with a long-gnarled finger. “Stay home.”

I switched off the television, its glow vanished leaving my living room in a soft darkness. I remember a light off to the right, it was coming from one of the rooms in my fortunately large apartment that I never entered.

What I don’t remember is Storm Vera ripping my plants from the balcony of my apartment, I don’t recall reports of any trees falling off their balance to their death upon the forests floor. Mrs. Murphy’s fences that encapsulated her impressive patch of flowers were still intact. I don’t recall a drop of rain leaving from the dark clouds that hung low in the sky, my windows were raindrop free, touched alone by the soft breeze that flittered through my city on the foreboding day I had feared. Not a single bin that littered the street was blown out of place, by the apparent forthcoming soul-shaking winds.

I was sitting on the island of my counter when I arrived at the conclusion that I had spent a perfectly ordinary day indoors, I shook my head in disbelief as I pondered what I would scavenge and reheat for my dinner now that the electricity was back. My absent gaze caught the unavoidable shoe shaped imprint of mud on the beige carpet, my eyes narrowed to slits as I surveyed its imposing presence.

“How did that get there,” I thought aloud as I fished through my school bag.

My teachers had decided the Storm’s predestined fatalities wouldn’t prevent me from carrying out a five-page essay, therefore my unnecessary second day off after the storm was preoccupied with me reporting on my thoughts on the captivating book ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt.

“How did they escape conviction for so long?” I wondered aloud as I tapped the end of my blue ball point pen against my chin repeatedly.

“How did those mud footprints get there?” My mind asked instead.

I glanced over to the brown clumpy marks on the ground, I realised before that the couch had cast a dark shadow over the outstanding marks, in my previous position. Therefore, distorting my view of the actual muddy paw prints, I laughed aloud as I peered down at the painfully clear imprints of paws. My beloved dog Claudia, I was silently glad that she was asleep as I shuffled back to the island to complete my homework.

She had been quiet for a bit, too long. But I needed to finish my essay, my eyes scanned the question once again before I began to write: “How did the cunning group of misfits manage to deceive those around them for so long?”

The power of words and-.

My stomach growled loudly, its abrupt prolonged noise vibrated through the empty apartment for my ears alone to witness. I grumbled to myself as I stumbled to the glass tray of lasagna sitting at the front door of my apartment, that was the reason why it was still there. 

“Why were you put in glass,” I asked the lasagna incredulously before I sunk to the floor, into a cross-legged position.

I picked up the abnormally large spoon, which bowl and neck had been soiled with the hardened cheese of the unappealing lasagna. I couldn’t suppress the disgust I felt as I spooned a mouthful of lasagna from the glass tray and shoved it past my lips. After I let the spoon clatter back into the glass tray, I wiped my oil slicked lips with the back of my hand and stumbled back to my essay.

I was too young to even read this book- is what I wanted to scrawl onto the page before me that held a total of five words. I wanted to hand a blank page back to my eccentric English teacher, I wanted to change the question to anything, anything else that actually held my attention.

How about we ask why-.

My erratic, wild eyes caught the muddy footprints on the light grey carpet. I tore off my- jacket and launched it over the island onto the boring beige carpet. I let out a satisfying sigh as my jacket covered the footprints, and most of the ugly plain carpet. The sun’s light streamed through the windows was coating the colour of my carpet in different shades as clouds momentarily blocked its rays.

I picked back up my pen and continued to write.

why do we trust a single thing that Richard Papen writes when he lies so much, he confuses himself. He reminds me of the numerous news reporters that claimed a certain Storm would collapse homes, flip over unsuspecting cars. Not a drop of rain fell from the sky just like none of the words that seep from Papen’s lips are true. It correlates, in its own way. I can’t find a piece of reliable information in this book like how I can’t in the news. I wasted a whole day, for no reason-.

I cackled loudly; the sound ran cold in the uncomfortable silence. After clambering through the short distance to my couch, I picked up the remote, I grinned maniacally as I awaited what lie the news reporter would spew next. Maybe he would fix his face into a shiver-inducing grave gaze again and announce that a three-million-foot tsunami would be hitting my ‘region.’

My grin grew as white hair, a pair of dull blue eyes covered by thin glasses; filled my television screen. I whipped my head back to my island.

“It’s him!” I exclaimed to my- essay.

The monotonous drone of his voice began to fill the living room; I perched myself onto the edge of my battered couch as I hung onto every word that left my television and filled my apartment.

“Storm Vera, was indeed catastrophic.”

I scoffed and I could have sworn his nose was getting longer.

“Reports of roofless houses are still continuing to multiply,” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Most wood’s walkways have been blocked by collapsed trees, and many neighbours have been left without dividers for their gardens.”

“Liar,” I hissed.

“There have been three devastating deaths reported,” my grin contorted into snarl.

Did the light breeze blow them to their death, I thought vehemently.

“A video of a young girl cradling her mother,” he has the sudden audacity to allow his pale eyes to fill with tears. “Before she is carried away is circling around the internet.”

“Ha,” I shifted even closer to the television, seated on a sliver of the battered cushion. “Show me, liar.”

The screen did indeed cut from his face to a blurry image; the blurred effect was not caused by the phone’s quality but by the relentless stream of rain that hammered upon the two figures. There was in fact a young girl, I let out a sudden choked sound when I realised she was wearing my favourite jacket and she was, wailing. Her wails creeped down my spine like an unwelcome sliver of ice, she was clutching a disfigured body like it would disappear from her clasp. I registered the car turned on its side, a few feet away from the girl. The orange flames that filled the car coated the girls face in a golden glow when she finally looked at the camera, I suddenly found that I was wailing too. I cried out to the stretch of unfamiliar emptiness within my apartment as I registered my shoes that were submerged in the river of mud that ran along the side of the vile road.

I watched my golden features contort in pain, blurred slightly by the consistent raindrops, falling onto the camera lense; before I threw my remote at my television.

Images tucked away like a box of emotional explosives flashed through my mind as I stumbled through the glass sliding door to reach my balcony. I leaned over its ledge as I witnessed the array of large puddles that coated the road in front of my apartment building. I took in the stomach-churning rubbish that had escaped from bins, the evident collapse of trees from the woods that just made my stretch of vision.

Mrs. Murphy’s flower patch was actually a pool of mud with no tiny picket fence surrounding it. Just squelchy, clumpy mud, mud, mud-.

“Claudia,” I caught sight of a pair of green worried eyes.

Her white hair was hidden under the thick yellow hood of her raincoat; she was clutching a tray encapsulated with tinfoil.

“I’m coming up honey,” I let out a sob and the lines between her furrowed brows deepened. “Just stay where you are.”

“Mrs. Murphy,” my voice shook as I wiped at my face frantically. “There are- there are muddy footprints on my carpet.”

My whole body shuddered as I let out a shaky breath that turned into a sudden sob. “And I don’t know how they got there.”

My tears were relentless, mirroring the rain that coated me on my balcony, the rain that coated me the day before-. No, no rain. No mud. No storm-.

“Look at your shoes Claudia,” I found contempt in the pity laced in her gaze.

“I need to complete my essay,” I announced to the clear sky, to Mrs. Murphy’s visible hair that fell onto the sleeves of her yellow summer dress.

I stomped back to my awaiting paper and pen, and wrote:

Richard Papen was a liar, but he found comfort in his lies. Which is not the best. But let me ask you this Ms Lewis, what is so awful about not everything being as it seems?