The heater hums. It is warm. A soft glow interrupts the darkness, bleeding its way through sun kissed curtains. A labyrinth of jagged ice crystals frost the window, painting fields of mazes. Minds wander and dance upwards through the ice palace, as bodies lay bolted to the bed, stilly sleeping their way past the racing tick, tock. The legs of the clock courageously trotting forwards and looping their way round to the next hour. The house creaks from its years, as not a footstep is yet heard. It groans in its awakening by the rise of the billowing sun, golden rays shooting into the side of the house, illuminating any sign of weakness. A faint whistle makes its way through the vent, drearily flowing from one room to the next. It paints the pale green walls and leaps over titled picture frames, the ones rattled from last nights laughter. Soon teacups will replace the wine glasses in the sink, and the house will be washed in lemon.
The heater stops. The white noise disappears. You wake from the loud silence. There you lay, velvet blankets up to your nose, feet tucked in, your arm growing tingly below the weight of your own head. You stretch and turn, the world in bokeh, as you wait for your eyes to adjust. Foreign faint objects, blurring together as one, slowly separate. Your old, wooden wardrobe stands greatly before you, proud, like a King. A petal falls from the vase on your nightstand, wilting reds from roses falling flat. The blankets form mountains upon your bed, shifting as the earth might when your legs begin to stir. You are not ready, no, to face the familiar unknown, what it may feel like to press your toes against the cool floor, slats of deep mahogany vulnerably laying themselves from one wall to the other, cracks showing years of memorable dust. Each speck of white tells of tales: the dinner parties and the laughter, feet jiving together across the floor, a sock tearing against splintered wood, the music vibrating off spinning records that belt lively melodies. The memories play in tiny atoms of dust, floating around like reflective bubbles, round TV screens broadcasting your own life. They fall to the ground as delicately as the snow outside does, kissing the floor and making their graves amongst the cracks. Not yet, you say to yourself, and you bury your head beneath heavy blankets and wait for your next awakening.