The World Beyond

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown"- H.P. Lovecraft

Awakened, he heard only silence. Beautiful, heavenly silence. Clear morning sunlight tinged with floating particles of dust filtered into Adam's bedroom through the window opposite his bed, warming his face and setting his troubled mind at ease in the darkened alcove of his room where he had just woken up. He had another bad dream last night, couldn't remember what it was though, which was unusual for him. It was early spring, the season of the year Adam loved most. That blessed time when all of the cold, lifeless earth awakened and renewed itself was finally drawing near.

He greatly looked forward to the time when he could finally venture out onto the carefully tended grounds of his grand old house in the woods and run barefoot through the grass, immersing himself in all of nature's majestic bounty. He especially loved the sweet melodies of the birds recently returned from their migration to sunnier climes down south before the first snows of winter, Adam's least favorite season of the year. As a much younger child, before he fully understood the ways of the world and his own place in it, he had been often found himself stricken with grief and even depression at the reality of his inability to understand what the birds were singing or how to communicate with any living creature aside from the members of his own family. He had a seemingly endless array of questions he wished to ask the birds, bees, crickets, frogs, and squirrels that lived and died amongst the trees, gardens, ponds, and furrows surrounding the only home he had ever known, or ever would know.

He wanted to know why birds flew in formation, why bees loved flowers and stung if you got too close, how tadpoles become frogs and caterpillars become butterflies. But most of all he wished to know all about the strange, unknown places the birds visited during their winter migrations and whether there were any other people, especially kids like him, who lived there and how they lived their lives. All of these questions and many others his inquisitive had formulated throughout the years and not one was ever answered. He had tried asking his mother on many occasions but the answers she gave, when she could be bothered to provide one at all, were unsatisfactory and often left him feeling more confused than he had been beforehand. As a direct result of this, as the years had passed and he had grown older, he gradually asked fewer questions until at his current age of sixteen he had stopped asking them altogether. There were some things, it seemed, that he would never truly know, and perhaps it was better that way. Perhaps some things were better left unknown.

But now, shifting his attention to matters more close at hand, Adam knew that there was a very strong chance that his mother was already up and preparing breakfast, carefully and practical as always, over their trusty wood-burning stovetop. In fact, heading down the hallway towards the stairs leading into the kitchen, he could already smell the musty, but pleasant aroma of firewood smoking and bacon and eggs frying. 

Standing at the top of the staircase and looking downward Adam was contemplating whether he wanted to slide down the balustrade or walk down the staircase, which was far less fun, but much safer, when there was a loud crash coming from the direction of the kitchen. It seemed that someone else had made the decision for him and Adam quickly rushed down the stairs to see what had happened and if his mother was hurt. Arriving in the kitchen, he saw his mother down on her knees, mop in hand, hair done up in her favorite bandana and vigorously mopping up what appeared to be milk off the cold wooden floor. Numerous shards of glass from the shattered remains of a glass pitcher surrounded her on all sides. Despite her distressed state, Adam still felt she looked quite lovely, especially in regards to how her comely figure was bathed in the steady stream of light emanating from the kitchen windows above the sink. On the other side of the kitchen, the wood-burning stove was in full swing with visible smoke starting to rise upwards from the frying pan as the sausages and bacon mother was frying for breakfast that morning started to burn.

“Mother! What happened?” he asked while heading over to the sink to grab a cleaning rag.

“What does it look like Adam, I dropped the glass pitcher of milk!” she replied angrily.

"Is everything alright with you, you hardly ever drop stuff, especially when it's glass?!" Adam replied.

“Yes, I'm not exactly a young woman anymore, and what you must know is the older you get the more often things like this are bound to happen, body parts ache for no reason, you forget things more easily, you become more prone to accidents. Your grandma was far worse, so you should count yourself lucky you're my son instead of hers!"

"Do you need any help"? he asked.

"No, thank you, if anything else at least my cleaning prowess has yet to fade, I can clean up spills much quicker on my own."

“Are the twins or Amy up yet?”

The look of melancholy on his mother’s face instantly vanished almost instantly, quickly replaced by one of bemusement.

“Adam, when was the last time you can remember any of them waking up by themselves this early, especially Amy!?”

Adam smiled, “I know, but to be completely honest I just wanted to change the subject, you looked as though you were getting upset.”

"Not upset," she replied, "just a little flustered is all, nothing a big hearty breakfast and fresh air can't shake off."

“And now that you mention it, do you think you could go and wake up your siblings, breakfast is almost ready."

“Sure,” Adam said.

He quickly headed up the stairs, first towards Arthur and Amanda's room. They had insisted on sharing a room ever since they could talk, it was mostly because they both had a terrible fear of the dark, which oddly enough, was one of the few things Amy wasn't scared of. Their room was two doors down from Adam's reading room. It had originally been only one door down, but Adam had practically forced mother to move it to two doors down because they were making too much noise and he couldn't concentrate while reading. Before even reaching their bedroom door, he could already hear noise and commotion coming from inside. They were already awake, and Adam guessed they probably had been for some time. They usually did get up earlier in the spring and summer when the weather was nice. He banged on the door three times consistently, so that they would know it was him, in the house everyone had developed their own unique methods for alerting the other family members who they were when not in sight, whether it be by the sound of their footsteps or simply the way they knocked on doors, in this case.

"Hey you two", he raised his voice a notch, "it's time for breakfast, are you dressed yet?"

There was only a space of a second or two before Arthur answered. "Yeah, we're both dressed, but we're playing checkers right now, can you wait like ten minutes until I win?"

"Alright," he said, "but make sure it's no longer than ten minutes okay!"

"Okay!" Arthur shouted. Adam wondered why Amanda was silent, usually she was just as lively as her twin.

Now it was Amy's turn, and he knew she would be more difficult. Unlike the twins, there was a very low chance that she was already awake, and Adam fully expected this and was prepared for it. Amy had just turned eight two weeks ago and when he went over and knocked on her front door, he noticed a solitary birthday balloon resting on the hallway ground just a few feet from her front door. He figured she had been playing with it last night right before going to bed as it was the only one that miraculously had not popped yet, setting a new record for her this year. After three minutes of constant knocking, a weary, sleep-heavy, and slightly annoyed voice finally answered.

“Leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep!”

"Amy, it's almost ten o'clock in the morning, breakfast is almost ready and mom said we all have to be at the table by the time it's finished. So, don't get angry at me when mom yells at you for being late! Besides you sleep too much anyway,!" 

There was no reply for several moments, but then there was a light groan followed by the sound of shuffling footsteps heading towards the locked door.

 Amy opened the front door, revealing to Adam her small, pale, and wiry frame standing at barely half his height despite being half his age she still looked much younger than her eight years. Her curly red locks were matted and stringy sticking out wildly in every direction like a mad professor laughing gleefully at his latest creation in his secret laboratory. Her face was beset by dozens of freckles which seemed to increase little by little every year with two deep blue sapphires rounding everything else off and giving her a very ethereal, almost elfen appearance in stark contrast to the rest of her face, her eyes had always been gorgeous to gaze into, like staring deep into a watery abyss.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be,” Amy replied.

“It’s just you seem to be sleeping more than usual, and you haven’t been eating as much either, are you having those fever dreams again?”

“No, I haven’t gotten those in years, I just can’t wait for winter to be over, I don’t like it anymore, I wish it was Spring and Summer all year round.”

“Oh, so you hope that if you sleep more, spring will come sooner, is that it?”

“I don’t know, maybe”.

“Well I wouldn’t make that a habit, it’s not healthy and Mom says if you don’t build up your energy now when Spring comes you won’t be able to enjoy the warm weather as much as the rest of us.”

“I know, it’s just hard to stay awake sometimes, there’s nothing to do but stay inside all day.”

“Look just meet the rest of the fam downstairs alright, you can talk with Mom about it then if you want.”

“But I don’t want to talk to her about it, I just want to keep it to myself.”

“Then why did you tell me”? Adam asked.

“Because you never stop asking me about it.”

Adam frowned slightly and then without saying another word headed back down the hallway towards the staircase where he proceeded to head back down into the kitchen with the warm, decadent aromas of hot bacon and eggs subtly guiding his way.

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