rackers co

I woke up today and you were there. Didn’t feel any different, it wasn’t wrong, it was as it should be. You’ve been here for the past five years.

I walked out and you were sitting on the couch, slowly eating your weetbix.

“Morning Kel,” as you laugh at my dishevelled hair and odd pyjama outfit.

“Morning ma,” I say, walking straight towards the kettle. “Want one?”

“Yes please.”

Two teas, white with two. I make it in our current favourite mugs of the time; they always change with the season.

“Would you judge me if I ate chocolate for breakfast?”

“Nah, chuck me one too,” you reply, and I throw you a Picnic.

“Got uni today?”

“Yeah, but I think I’ll skip it.”

“Lazy ass.”

I laugh, busying myself making the teas.

“Just feel like having a mum day.”

“I won’t complain, kiddo.”

Mundane things, like helping you hang out the washing and updating you on my life. It had felt like I hadn’t talked to you in years, but I swear I’d seen you yesterday. We drank multitudes of tea and took turns going to the toilet, laughing at our weak bladders. I made you crepes for lunch. We talked, and just talked. I told you how I’d been feeling and you held my face in your hands and you said it’s all normal, kid. It’s okay to feel this down, as long as you’re working on it every day.

We watched our favourite movies and laughed and cried in the exact same spots. We napped at the same time of day, and I woke before you. I sat a moment, watching you sleep. The crevices of your face and the beautiful lines that showed a lifetime of hardship. A wonderful life. It was a melancholic moment, as if it was telling me something; your sleeping face, looking young, and peaceful.

You woke and I made yet another cup of tea.

“I’m having this weird sense in my tummy that something’s a bit off,” I say to her.

“Bit sad?”

“Nah. Different kind. Almost like this life isn’t mine.”

I looked over at her and a tear trickled down her face and childlike confusion ran through my mind. I held her hands in mine and I told her I loved her and she told me she loved me, too, and I had a sense of déjà vu.

Worlds colliding and in line with one another, an alternate reality. One I don’t get to live in. A dream world.