The Morning After

I wake up in the dark. I get up and stagger out of bed and downstairs to prepare my son’s breakfast bottle.  I stand waiting for it to heat. I ignore the television, the radio and the computer screen. I can hear him singing Old McDonald’s Farm in his cot. Anita is still asleep, having been unable to tear herself away from the flow of news.

I breath in the silence.

I bring him his bottle and then go for my shower. Running slightly late this morning. We might not make the Express Bus, I think to myself.

Standing in the bathroom, I turn on the water, but don’t get in. I pick up the smallest screen in the house- my phone- and click on the NY Times website. I try to focus through the bright light as the page loads.

‘Obama’, it simply says.

I laugh and cry through my shower.

When I get out, drying myself, the grey light of the window is turning orange.

Dawn. The start of a new day.