Falling Stars and Cigarettes

One of Those Days

 Sibley turned the metal key in the rusty lock, using her body to shove the door open and stumble into her flat. The smell of smoke lingered in the air, clinging to the sofa and invading her lungs. She coughed slightly, slamming the door behind her and locking it back. Her mother was sitting in the ratty green arm chair, a cigarette poised between her middle and forefinger, a beer in her right hand. For a moment, Sibley just watched the condensation roll down the bottle and down the woman's bony fingers. She looked older than she actually was. Her eyes sunk into her skull, her hair had begun to grey, and wrinkles sat onto her cheek bones. Years of drug and alcohol abuse made her look more like she was sixty than thirty eight.

"One of those days, huh?" she asked cautiously.

"It's always one of those days," the older lady slurred. That was all Sibley needed to hear, that voice, that slur, to nod and rush into her tiny room. She sighed, slinging her bag onto the floor. The once light brown carpet was dirty, dark brown splotches in random spots around the room. Dirt caked the sides of the one tiny window she had and a crack ran through the middle of it. One day she would escape those four, chipped, dirty, walls, but not that day. She fell onto her mattress that sat pushed up into corner of the room. That same moment her mother called her.

"Sibley! When are you gonna make dinner?!" she shouted. The teenager groaned, squeezing her eyes shut before opening them again and walking out of the room.

"What do you want?" she asked, moving into the kitchen. She watched her mother spin the bottle of beer in her hand before looking up.

"I think we should go out. We could get fish and chips! Just you and me!" she exclaimed, grinning like a maniac.

"We can't afford that right now, Mum," she sighed.

"Hmph, you ruin all the fun," her mother huffed. Sibley just shook her head and opened the pantry. There wasn't much. A few cans of soup, a box of rice, half a loaf of bread. She moved to the fridge. Cheese, half a stick of margin, left over spaghetti, and an apple.

"I need to go grocery shopping," she muttered, pulling out the cheese and margin.

"Grilled cheese tonight," she said, grabbing a pot and some bread.

"We had grilled cheese last night," her mother complained.

"Well I'll go shopping tonight, but for now, this is what we have." She was growing irritated. While her mother sat on her arse all day drinking and smoking and occasionally screwing some stranger, Sibley worked. She dropped out of school the year before because they were practically starving. She was tired of this. She actually enjoyed school. She had hoped to go to college and become a detective. It was her dream. But because of her mother, she had to become a high school drop out, goodbye Cambridge or Oxford, hello shop worker for the rest of her life.

   Once her mother was fed, she headed out the door, hailing a cab on her first try, and climbing in. She ran a hand through her curly black hair and allowed herself to sink into the seat. She was done with everything. Taking care of her mother was exhausting and it's not like the woman deserved it. Like she was sick or something. She was just selfish and lazy. Dealing with her was like dealing with a child.

~~~

   Her card hadn't gotten her very far. She was able to get a new loaf of bread and some lunch meat, though, and hopefully that would last them for two weeks before she got paid. When she arrived back at the house her mother was passed out drunk on the couch. Loud snores echoed in the room, proving the older woman wouldn't be up until afternoon the next day. Sibley shook her head and began to clean the place.

   Their flat was disgusting and always smelt like smoke and alcohol. That was thanks to her mother smoking and spilling stuff all over the place. Leave it to that woman to completly trash the place in just the eight hours Sibley was at work. Glass bottles littered the floor along with random candy wrappers and old cigarettes. Any man the woman met was instantly wrapped around her little finger and brought her anything she wanted, that's where she got all of the crap from. Sibley wasn't sure why, maybe they saw the ghost of who she once was.

   Once upon a time, Bre Lawrence was beautiful. Before the drugs and the alcohol. Before she lost her head. Before she began acting more like Sibley's child than her mother. She had silky blonde hair and green eyes that shimmered in the sunlight. Her smile was warm and bright and contagious. She was a genius, studied law when she was at Uni. Then she met a man who turned her world upside down, and gave her a baby. He was gone before she had a chance to tell him.

   For the first six years of Sibley's life, she was fine. Stressed from raising a child on her own, but she stayed positive, happy, kind. Then she met a new man. This one was controlling and eventually abusive. Eventually he was arrested, Sibley herself made the call, but Bre was never the same again. She dove into all sorts of addictions, slowly but surely deteriorating into the woman she was now. Just a hollow, dead, tree that can crumble with the slightest touch.

   Sibley sighed as she finished sweeping the kitchen. The flat was clean, despite the smell, but it still made her stomach churn. It still wasn't home. Wasn't comfortable. It was cold and empty and lonely. It was the beginning of December and the heater was broken, so that didn't help matters. At this thought she walked into her mother's room, deciding to pull some blankets from the closet. She stood on the tips of her toes as she reached on the top shelf. Sadly, it didn't work out for her, and everything came tumbling out with the blanket she had grabbed.

   She huffed, exasperated, and began to clean up the mess. The only thing up here besides blankets had been a box Sibley didn't recognize. It opened in the fall and the contents spilt out over the already dirty carpet. She frowned, her eyebrows furrowing as she picked up the closest thing to her. It was a photograph, her mother, clearly in her early twenties, her head on the shoulder a man who had an arm wrapped around her. Sibley ran her thumb over his face. His smile showed that clearly he hadn't wanted to take the picture, but he had affection for the woman next to him. A mop of curly dark hair sat on his head and his blue eyes looked straight at the camera and sent shivers down her spine. In the lower right corner there was a date printed in red. 5/12/2001. Nine months before her birthday. She flipped it over to see if she could find anymore information. One name.

Sherlock Holmes