"Turn up the house lights!" the teacher on the stage yelled.
"I'm on my way up, Heather! Unlock the door for me so I can get in the
booth!" Jen yelled from behind the teacher's back.
"Okay!" Heather yelled back from the booth.
Heather located the house lighting board and pushed the Master control
switch up to 10. Simultaneously, the house lights shone brighter over the
auditorium seats. Then she opened the door to the booth and let in Jen.
She was holding a pile of paper about a centimetre thick. He dropped half
of the stack in front of her. She ignored the papers and
sat back in the
hard orange chair and waited for yet another command to be thrown up to
her. The night performance of the Brookfield High School musical was going
as bad as it had for each of the performances all week. Her temper had
flared in the usual places of where the teacher had made alterations to
the technical commands without telling her. When controlling the lights,
all cues have to be written down. The cues that are frequently changed
never were penned out for her.
"Here's your new script, Heather," Jen said, pointing to the pile of paper
he brought upstairs for her to read. He sat down at the sound board and
played some Enya for the audience to listen to as they left the auditorium
during intermission.
"As if it matters if I get a copy of this, they are going to change it
within a matter of seconds any ways," complained Heather as she flipped
though the new copy of the long script with tech cues written in italics
all over it.
"They are doing a lot of changes tonight, eh? Oh well, the show must go
on, whether they’re dumb or not," Jen said knowledgeably.
"Whatever," Heather replied, tossing the script aside.
"What's your problem tonight?" Jen laughed.
"Yet another hideous assignment brought to me by Mr. Marland," Heather
scowled.
"What is it this time?" asked Jen.
"Position myself as the protagonist in a short story, written in third
person central and have a supernatural event occur," Heather said as she
rubbed her temples.
"No time machines, eh?" laughed Jen as Heather adjusted the X-ray lights
for the upcoming scene.
"No time machines, no time warping and no fun!" Heather stated.
"Sigh, so, when are you headed home tonight?" Jen enquired.
"Dad's going over to one of his woodworking buddies' houses and will be
picking me up..." she looked at her blue watch, "in about twenty minutes.
That will give me about enough time to finish the silly assignment and
get some sleep."
"If you're here and your Dad is out, what are your cats doing?" asked Jen
grinning.
"Sleeping," Heather said.
"But...," Jen started, ready to pounce on Heather's comments.
"I didn't say I was getting a whole lot of sleep!" Heather laughed as she
pictured her two cats, Bjorn and Abby, asleep on her bed. They had a tendency
to wake her in the middle of the night when they are allowed to sleep all
day and tonight would be no exception. Heather contributed her technical
talents to the musical for 15 more minutes and then made herself scarce.
Her father was waiting outside. She opened the car door for her and Heather
yawned as she got into the Chrysler Dynasty.
"Thanks," Heather said as she scooted down into the seat and put her head
on the head rest.
"Not a real problem to pick you up, considering I was in the neighbourhood
already," her father said.
"Bring home any new toys?" asked Heather.
"Yes, they are in the trunk," he said.
"Sigh," Heather groaned, "are you sure you really need these tools?"
"Who said they were tools?" he asked.
"They're always tools when you go to Doug's house," Heather pointed out.
Her father stuck his tongue out at her and focussed on the paved road ahead.
He turned into their driveway and parked the car in front of the garage.
Parking it in the garage is an impossible feat. There is so much stuff
in there that only about a quarter of the car will fit in at a time.
"Unlock the front door and I'll get the box of stuff I got today out of
the trunk," her Dad said as she opened her door and positioned her bag
over her shoulder. Heather leaned in the car and popped the truck open
by hitting the small yellow button in the glove compartment. Her bag was
heavy. So heavy, she took twice the time walking up the hill to
her front door
as she usually does.
"Could this day get any worse?" Heather moaned as she finished climbing
up the hill to her house. The laptop in her black bag was holding her down
and she knew her keys were creamed down into farthest corner of her bag's
front pouch. She placed her bag on the porch and sat on the steps, locating
her keys beneath a package of arrowroot cookies. Unlocking the door proved
to be a harder feat than she had imagined. The cookie crumbs got over her
keys and she would rather have had someone open the door for her. Unfortunately,
her Dad was walking up the hill with an armload of tools and therefore
could not assist her.
"Hurry up Heather! I need that door open soon!" her Dad cried as he balanced
the box of tools.
Once she got herself inside the house she said to her father, "I have to
work on an assignment. It is real dumb. I think I will station myself on
the couch with my computer on my lap for the rest of the evening."
"Have fun," her father said sarcastically.
Heather sat down with her laptop on her thighs in front of the television.
The television was on, but, she was ignoring it. She still had this repulsive
English assignment to do and she had a nagging suspicion that her teacher
would lose yet another assignment of hers.
"Abby, are you trying to fall asleep?" she asked her Abyssinian cat.
Abby rolled her eyes towards Heather and continued to drift off to sleep.
Her son laid across the floor at the base of the chair watching Heather
type. The hum of her 386 megahertz laptop was keeping her mind focussed
on typing rather than on watching some dumb television program. She leaned
forward and turned off the television with the remote control.
"Bjorn," Heather said to Abby's timid baby boy, "You are not trying to
fall asleep before bedtime now are you? You know how much I hate when my
itty-bitty-kitty-witty-pie wakes me up at 4:20 in the morning. You should
know better by now. Come on, wake up you two, tonight we are all going
to get a good night's sleep so we can wake up and not be cranky. What?
You tell me you're not moody in the morning? Meow this and meow that all
the time when you have already been fed? Yeah right, open those eyes and
smell the catnip, you're up. Now just do me a favour and stay that way,
okay?"
Bjorn looked up at his Mom and let out a cat sized sigh. It was not his
fault his system is currently nocturnal. It is only natural for a cat to
be that way. Before Heather had come into his life, he spent 10 days on
his own with just a daily visitor to keep him company. Other than those
little feeding sessions, he was on his own to do whatever, whenever he
chose. Abby was the same way, but, adapted quicker than Bjorn to life in
the light of day. When one's life involves chasing twist ties and Q-Tips
across the house, not much can be said for wanting to stay up all night
doing house chores. House chores to them is jumping up on the kitchen counter
and brushing its contents onto the floor. The Lord knows where the button
for the power switch for the computer case is. There is a very
good chance He
also knows why a cat must smell another cat's behind as a form of salutation
or why they sit still for 20 to 30 minutes at a time while their feline
companion bathes them.
"Licking and spitting on their paws and wiping their saliva all over themselves
is known as cleanliness," muttered Heather as she watched Abby continue
the bedtime bath she started over 15 minutes ago. Bjorn had left the living
room without caring if Heather wanted him to sit next to her on then couch
to keep her company. Life does not get any fairer than this for someone
who is not asleep when she wants to be. Her original idea for this afternoon
was to go pick up the recent issue of Majesty at TownGate News. After this
brief errand she figured she would head home to fall asleep while reading
about the lives of the Royal Families of Monaco and the Commonwealth. The
plan sounded good to her. Toobad the musical was on and this assignment
had to be done relatively soon.
Heather yawned and said to Abby, "Okay. I give up. You're yawning and now
so am I. It is contagious and I'm going to bed. Good night little duffer
and may all of those bird chasing dreams keep you asleep through the night."
Heather walked into her bedroom and kicked her book bag out of her way
to her bunk bed. She changed into a pair of blue pajamas and brushed her
brown hair with her pink hair brush. Bjorn was on her bed, comfortably
laying in front of her pillow. As Heather neared closer, Bjorn lowered
his grey body until his neck and tummy were flush with the mattress. He
had the look on his face that he always gives Heather when he would rather
not be disturbed.
"Hi Bjorn, do you have any intentions of moving your furry buns so I can
get some sleep?" asked Heather, eye level with her Russian Blue.
"Purr," Bjorn audited as he watched Heather lean over and scoop him up.
Heather placed Bjorn at the foot of her bed.
"It is time to get some sleep little one," Heather ordered as Bjorn let
out a yawn that was so big that his ears pointed backwards. "Oh yeah, yawn
that big and cute, I do not mind. You are still going to wake me up in
the middle of the night whether you yawn now or not. How I wish I was a
cat too. Playing all day and having 16 hours of sleep per day,
never having to
worry about anything. Sigh, wouldn't that be the life, eh? Oh look who
I'm asking you're already living that life."
Heather
leaned over and petted Bjorn before bed. She fixed her pillows and organized
her blankets for ultimate heat conservation. Afer taking off her purple
glasses, she curled up and gently placed her head on her pillow, falling
asleep in a matter of minutes.
The next morning, Heather woke up to the sound of a cat using their mutual
litter box in the bathroom.
“Thanks for listening last night, I sure appreciate it, guys!” Heather
said to the noisy cat who was stationed in its litter box.
“Meow,” Bjorn answered.
“Why does doing your business involve talking? Nuts, it’s bad enough that
you gave me weird dreams last night. Now you just felt the need to wake
me up before the crack of dawn,” Heather moaned as she rolled over and
sunk back into her bed.
A few hours later, the sun rose along with Heather. She wandered aimlessly
into the kitchen and cut a bagel in half.
“Bjorn woke me up, again last night,” Heather stated to her father as he
poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Abby woke me up last night as well,” her Dad said.
Heather ate her breakfast, made her lunch and went to school. During her
second period spare she sat across from Jen in the cafeteria. Her laptop
was setup in front of her with her English assignment open to the introductory
paragraph.
“How is it going?” Jen asked.
“Not well. I can’t think of a supernatural event that sounds remotely interesting,”
replied Heather as she deleted yet another introduction she did not like.
“I had the oddest dream last night too. That did not help my night’s sleep.”
“I bet your cat using their box didn’t help either!” laughed Jen as Heather’s
glare burned into his face.
“You’re a pain this morning,” Heather commented.
“Fine. I’ll stop teasing you. What was this dream about any ways?” enquired
Jen.
“I dreamt I was a cat. It was in the 1800's and I was walking through a
downtown core in the middle of the day. I met lots of interesting people
and saw places of the past. It was kind of odd,” Heather said.
“What made it odd?” Jen asked.
“I felt as if I had really been there. It was like the way I am with you
now. It was this real. I couldn’t tell the difference between that being
a dream or not,” Heather explained, hoping for some insight out of Jen.
“So, you had a premonition that you were a cat in the 1800's?” summarized
Jen.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Heather sighed, “Hey! That’s supernatural!”
“Yeah, so?” Jen asked dully.
“My short story has to be about a supernatural thing occurring to me and
it has! All I have to do now is type it out in third person central!” Heather
said overjoyed at the prospect of having a subject to write about.
She opened a new worksheet and began to type, “Turn up the house lights!...”
