Shirley’s Morning
Mykayla Gibson
In a small house
in the middle of the city, Shirley wakes to listen to the morning birds,
babbling away in the trees. She loves to listen to their early chatter, and
sometimes she wonders if any of them would ever talk to her. This is a silly
thought but she enjoys it none the less, being the silly woman she is. The sky
is still dark, and there is a blue hue to the slowly but surely brightening
atmosphere. There was a soft breeze that chilled Shirley and she grabbed her
shall close around her shoulders.
She often liked to
imagine that the cars in the noise of cars in the background were actually the
crashing waves of the ocean. She lived by an ocean once, when she lived in
Florida. It was never as cold there as it was here, but she enjoyed seeing snow
in the winter and the ever comforting warmth of summer with a morning chill.
The sky grew
lighter and she gazed upon the slowly moving clouds with a shine in her eyes.
Shirley, though she was old, longed to go sky diving, and plane adventuring,
even to travel around the world in a balloon like so many great men in their
feats. But she was withering, and her ambition, though large, was just a dream
in the end. Shirley looked up again, seeing now a small peek of sunlight and a
hint of pink. The sun was rising and soon it would paint the sky reds and
yellows enthusiastically, like a curious child that snuck into his mother’s pastels.
The birds, for an instant,
grew quiet. Shirley thought that the birds too must be enjoying the sunrise,
and today the moment was there’s together. It didn’t last long though, and the
birds began chatting again as the sky became the beautiful bright blue, with
hints of oranges and yellows, that she had waited for. She looked at the
scenery with awe, and after watching the clouds for quite some time, letting
out a content sigh, she gathered herself up and waddled back into the house to prepare
and wait for the next motivating routine. These were Shirley’s mornings.
