Two hours before dawn the temperature plummeted unfalteringly. 23 degree Celsius. His limbs scoured the queen-sized mattress for the remote controller. Once unearthed from beneath the quilt, he ran his finger up to depress the panic button. The ceiling fan slowed down to a halt.
He sauntered past the unlatched front gates into a flat. The place seemed all too familiar to him—it was as though he has traversed every square inch of it. He scrutinised the house for a locked room where his brother was confined in. There it is.
There was another door that was left slightly ajar. He slink through and wandered towards a woman fiddling with the contents of her large handbag in front of a cosmetic mirror. Someone was taking a shower in the bathroom. He could hear the waters crashing and slapping against the filthy, saggy back of a lump of lard. Steam rolled out of the bathroom and filled the place with disgusting humidity.
“Where is it, Mom? Quick, before he comes out.”
The woman handed the key to him. He ran out and slipped the key into the locked door. His brother emerged from the pitch-black enclosure with a towel and a change of clothes. His brother walked past him without even muttering as much as a word of appreciation. He trailed him into the kitchen.
His brother stalled in front of the common bathroom. And as though jolted in his senses, his brother abruptly turned around and threw both his arms over his shoulders. His brother wept.
In the faint light emanating from the phone, the scrawny silhouette scrambled out of bed to mute the alarm. His eyes moist and warm from the affection of his nightmare refocused as he gazed at the time—three minutes past six. He perched back down on the edge of his bed. Four minutes past six, five minutes past six…
He rotated the temperature dial to the warmest and yet the shower was still bone-chilling. He thought that the heater must be malfunctioning.
Dawn breaks.
