Challenge The Proud

Lazy Mornings

"Consider adopting more than one gerbil so they can keep each other company when you're not home" - Challenge No.11 

LAZY MORNINGS were his usual mornings. He just laid in bed and avoided opening his eyes, denying that he was actually awake and very much aware of his surroundings. Luke spent that time listening to the fifty gerbils that were scattered about in cages, in his one-room apartment.

They played, pranced, ran, burrowed, nibbled and built their tiny comfy beds. For Luke the noise was always in the background. He only noticed it in the morning and it made him smile and get out of bed.

Luke took good care of the gerbils - picking them up one by one and inspecting them for injuries, cleaning up their cages, and feeding them. It was almost like a ritual that he performed daily.

The rest of the time Luke was programming on his computer, working, or he was smoking the hours away on the balcony.

How had he ended up living with fifty gerbils?

His girlfriend had left him a couple of years ago. Sure, there had been women sleeping over, a few times, but really he had been alone ever since, living in silence, unwilling to get out of bed for most days.

Luke saw a gerbil and thought it might make for a good distraction - a reason for him to move his ass away from his desk once in a while. But then he read about the gerbils' need to socialize, so he bought another gerbil - another boy, he had been told. As it turned out, the boy was a girl and they started to breed. Before Luke could get things under control he was the proud owner of thirty gerbil split up in seven cages. 

After installing a few sturdy shelves on the walls of his room, Luke decorated the place with the cages. Sure, it was unconventional and smelly, but Luke had never really been a conventional guy and the smell was something he barely noticed nowadays.

That was the last cigarette for the day, Luke decided. He was looking over the city landscape which bathed in the eerie sunset light. While having his smokes on the balcony, Luke sat on a stool which was crooked and unstable. With every shift of his weight he felt as if he were about to fall off it. So Luke was oddly still and tense whenever he was sitting there, not really enjoying his cigarette, but not really ready to give up on the old stool and replace it just yet.

Luke stared at the boxes of concrete that people spent their days in, and snickered as he thought humans were no different from gerbils when it came to a lot of things. He turned his head and glanced inside with a smirk. Yep, there was a city of gerbils right there and it didn't look much different from the one outside.

He put out the cigarette and entered the room closing the balcony door behind him.

That morning he was awake, but still kept his eyes stubbornly closed, only listening. There were no gerbils' little feet scurrying, no scratching noises and no hay rustling. But there was one sound, regular and sweet - the breath of another human being. Luke opened his eyes and smiled widely despite his confusion. In the darkness of the early hours, he could see her profile - she was sleeping facing the ceiling - so peaceful and inviting while her chest raised with every breath she took. Luke felt happy. He leaned to kiss the tip of her small button nose.

Abruptly the bed fell from underneath them, and her form unraveled becoming nothing more than a sheet.

Luke sat up with his heart racing, still haunted by the falling sensation that had rattled his sleep. It had been a dream.

Besides his heaving breath, Luke could hear the gerbils' lively endeavors cloaked by the veil of darkness. He recognized the sounds and scoffed.

He needed a cigarette, but Luke wasn't inclined to leave the bed. Rubbing his forehead, he stared at the floor, sat on the edge of the bed with elbows resting against his thighs and face hiding in his hands.

Luke couldn't forget the dream. Her breathing. Her presence, right beside him. Luke couldn't forget her - the woman in his dream.

Waking up each morning, the sounds made by the lively gerbils no longer made him smile. Instead, Luke was yearning to listen to that soft breath...

Luke lifted the gerbil with a gentle hold around its stomach.

"This one's a boy..." he said and showed the small creature to the eleven year old kid standing by the cage.

"It's so cool," were the kid's words.

Luke smirked and nodded then looked at the father.

"Consider adopting more than one gerbil so they can keep each other company when you're not home," was Luke's advice and the boy tugged at his father's sleeve.

"Can we get two more, daddy? Can we?"

"Um, sure. I guess," the man said uncertain, then glanced up at Luke from his very important phone, as he went on, "How much for three?"

"Nothing. I'm giving them away. All of them actually, so if you have any friends..."

"Right, right," the kid's father nodded with his nose buried in his telephone.

Luke slowly placed the gerbil back in its cage where two more like it scurried about. He pointed at the gerbils and said squatting at the kid's level.

"These three have been together for a long time. You ready to take care of them?"

The kid nodded with excitement.

Lazy mornings were still part of Luke's routine. But he no longer listened to the gerbils - there were none left. For now, he only listened to the silence of the empty one-room apartment and that didn't bother him so much anymore.

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