Failure to communicate

It was about 10:00 pm in New York City. I was five years old, and tucked into the bed on the bottom bunk, in my bedroom in a sixth floor apartment on Morningside Drive. There was a plaster patch on the wall from where I had tried to tunnel through the earth’s core and a machine I was building from scraps of trash I found on the sidewalk haunting this room. Having just finished my evening snack of raw garlic, it was time to disturb my sleeping parents in order to procure water. I untangled myself from my bed sheets and wandered into their bedroom without knocking. There is no need to knock before entering your parents’ bedroom at night.

“Mommy?”

“…”

“MOM?”

“…”

“DAD?”

I went to shake one of them awake, but there was no one in the bed. No wonder they had not responded. Using deductive reasoning I determined that they had gone to the basement in the middle of the night to do laundry, and promptly left the apartment to seek after them. I would have my water if I had to go to the ends of the earth to get it.

Continued