assign1: childhood memory

The Weary Night by: karynkonynenbelt

Four hours. The moon had long before awoken the night. Crickets and quarreling tom cats fought to be heard over the roar of the carrier trucks passing by on the freeway. Somewhere a floor board snapped back into place as they often do in the hours after the sun sinks into the land. Cherlote lay; eyes wide open, listening to the second-hand tick-tock its way around the face of the clock. Everyone in her family lay tucked away in the comfort of their beds asleep while she waited, her heart beating twice as often as the second-hand's pulse. The sounds of the ordinary night had often lulled her to sleep; however, this was no ordinary night.

One hour. "If you’re not awake when I’m ready to leave, I won’t be bringing you along. Do you understand?" Cherlote had drifted into a light sleep; the voice of her father still lay heavily on her mind, her anticipation growing ever stronger.

Tring-tring-tring

The weight of sleep lay deep inside her body until in a slow, prolonged stretch she managed to break free from its tranquil embrace. Excitement quickly replaced her weariness as the familiar sounds of her father's footsteps traveled up the staircase. Cherlote bolted out of bed, her wrinkled clothes wearing the stench of sleep. Her father nodded towards the door where her tennis shoes sat ready to go. He slumped down to tie his own tattered shoes, thick with grim from months of hard labor in flour and sweat.

Cherlote stepped anxiously into the brisk air followed by her father. She climbed into the family’s old rusty van. The rumble of its engine and the 14.50 WHTC chime of the radio station simultaneously broke the natural song of the night.

Six minutes.

The hinges whined as the heavy back door was pushed open. Her father switched on the lights and proceeded to the closet. Cherlote followed hastily behind him. Tying his apron across his waist, he signaled to her to do the same. “Wouldn’t want to bring you back to Mom lookin’ like I baked you into a cake now, would we?”

He walked swiftly about the place, flicking switches and pulling large, metal bins out from under the work table. Cherlote climbed up top a metal bin and sat, watching intensely as her father weighed the dry ingredients and tossed them in the tub-like mixing bowl. She had dozens of questions.

“What are you going to make with that?” and “Why do you weigh the sugar? and “How do you make the muffins?” and “When do you bake the bread?” and,

“Can I help?” Cherlote asked.

“You can make the donut holes,” her father responded, somewhat perturbed by all of her inquiries. He hadn’t had the time to play his role as father. Not here. Not at work.

Cherlote’s eyes beamed with pride as she watched her father’s calloused hands manipulate the leavened dough. He rolled out a few sheets of dough and tossed cinnamon spice over them. From those, he formed braids and pretzels and placed them on several screens to rise. He rolled out a couple more sheets of dough.

“When do I get to help?” Cherlote interrupted.

“In a minute.”

He rolled dough and spread fillings and operated machines and tossed flour and rolled more dough. The arm of the dough mixer thud loudly as a drum whilst the rotating oven shelves whistled as a flute. Together all of the sounds merged into a melodious lullaby, beckoning Cherlote to sleep. At this point she had moved from the metal bin to the mountain of flour sacks.

Four hours.

“Cherlote… Cherlote…?”

Forcing herself out of the trance, Cherlote lifted herself off of the flour sacks.

“It’s time to go, hun.”

“But Dad, I didn’t get to help!” Cherlote cried.

“You’d fallen asleep and I couldn’t wake you,” he explained. “Tell you what, we’ll go to Mc Donald’s for breakfast to make up for it.”

“But I don’t want to make up for it. I want to help!”

“Next time. This time it’s too late. Do you want to change your mind about Mc Donalds?"