LIT1 Nikkie Yeh: Milk, Button, Trumpet

I sit in the kitchen, lips still feeling the buzz as I rest my trumpet on my knee. I feel quiet, but not quite calm. My eyes find the glass of cold milk on the table beside me. As I drink it down, I can see the old clock on the wall through the bottom, veils of whiteness revealing the hour.

You're not home yet, the trumpet's echoes sound from the white painted walls. I expected you an hour ago.

Will you come home to me?

I wipe my mouth on the folded red cloth napkin. I can hear the clock through the fading echoes of the "Saint James Infirmary" blues. The counterpoint of swingtime versus clocktime burrows into my reverie and I raise my eyes to the kitchen window, intermittently bursting with blown snowflakes and views of the front walk and the mailbox. You aren't on the path.

I let my eyes drop. Snowy footprints lead from the door to my chair; they stop between my feet. The prints are your size, I realize, as a button is pressed and my soul drops low.

I feel the frosty mittens on my wrists and fall.