Ten Steps

She lies back on the couch without a care in the world. Her feet slightly propped up by the arm of the couch, and she’s facing the television as if she’s watching it. Her arm is slightly bent towards her face as support to hold up her phone to her ear. She speaks very dramatically as if what she’s saying has any substance at all. She bends her torso and leans forward towards the coffee table two feet in front of her, retrieves the television remote, and lies back to her original position. She flips through each channel pausing for several seconds and continues to change the station. She continues this routine for a while before she decides to turn off the television. She leans forward again, places the remote back onto the coffee table, and leans fully back onto the couch stretching her entire body out. A low growl from somewhere in the depths of her body, surfaces and she stretches, throw her legs over the side of the couch to the floor stands up and walks several rooms over to the kitchen. She walks in slowly as she is still talking on the phone. She seems to take a step after pronouncing a word, she finally reaches her refrigerator. She opens the door steps to the side, bends over inward and scans the contents held within its cold metal walls. There is a slight flickering sound behind her, and as she turns to see where it’s coming from she notices the bulb in the ceiling fan of the kitchens seems to slowly dim in and out. Dismissing the light she turns back towards the refrigerator, she extends her free arm slightly inside to retrieve the jelly. As she wraps her fingers around the bottle there is another flickering sound and as she starts to slightly turn all the lights seem to turn off simultaneously. She pulls her body out of the refrigerator slams the door and curses loudly. She murmurs something into the phone and hangs up, and places the phone down on the kitchen counter. She stomps her way towards the switch that operates the lights in the kitchens and flicks it to see if they would come back on, with no avail, she stomped into the living room. She test the lights in every main room of the house the same, stomps over, flicks switch, and when she gets no success curses and moves on. As she finally tests the last room, she comes to terms with the fact that this might be a power outage and stomps her way back into the kitchen. When she reaches the kitchen she leans over quickly towards the counter, snatches her phone and dials a number. “Hello?” says a faint voice from the phone. “Mom, the power in the house went out again and I don’t know what to do”, she says. There is the slight sound of shuffling coming from the phone and then another voice speaks, “What’s going sweetheart?” “Dad the power went out again, what do I do?” “You’re going to have to flip the switch in the power box in the basement.” Her eyes widen, and she responds, “The basement?” “Yes, baby the basement.” “Dad, you know what happened the last time I was down there”, she says with a slight whimper. “I know but there is no way we can come back to the house right now, you can do it.” “Ok, Dad I think I can do it.” “I’ll be with you the entire time baby.” “So what do I do first?” she asks. “Go to the basement door and open it”, he replies. She finds her way to the basement door and does as he says and opens it. A strong musky smell hit her like a ton of bricks. She coughs a little and then replies to her father by saying, “Ok did it.” He then says, “There are ten stairs you have to walk down to get to the bottom, ok baby.” “Ok, will you count with me?” “Yes, I will baby”, he replied. She takes a deep breath and says “Ready.” “Ok”, he says “One” She takes a small step down the stairs, and you hear a small creak. She takes a deep breath and then continues saying “two”, as taking another step. “Three”, they say in unison as she steps further down. “Four” says her dad. “Five” she says. “Six.” “Seven.” “Eight.” “Nine.” “Ok you’re almost there. One more step to go”, her dad says. She takes a deep breath and takes the last step while saying “Ten.” “Ok you’ve made it down, now-“he suddenly stops talking as he hears her continuing walking. She continues to count, “Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen….