The Story of the Morning by Annika Lee

It was a morning same as other days except it was raining so heavily. Jane was woken by the bell of alarm clock at seven. After she drank a cup of water in the kitchen, she went to Jake’s room to wake him up and it was her usual daily routine. Jake was quite a good son but he had trouble with waking up at the morning so every morning she had to shake him out of his sleep. She knocked on the door of his room but there was no answer. She thought he’s in the deep sleep so she opened the door roughly. When she entered his room, she found that Jake was still in his bed covering him from head to toe with blanket. She directly headed to his bed and pulled off the blanket. As soon as she saw what’s inside of the blanket, she was startled and fell down.

What she saw was not his lovely son but a giant vermin which she supposed that it might be a centipede because it had so many legs that it couldn’t be counted. It was as big as 10 years old boy which was big enough to frighten Jane. She ran out of the room and tried to calm herself down. She tried to find out what happened to her and her son. Did that monstrous insect harm his son? Or was THAT actually her son? She went back to Jake’s room to look it closely. It was now standing, or lying, on the floor now and seemed like staring at her. Even just looking him straight was so hard for her because of its scary feature, but she instinctively knew that it is her son.

“Oh my dear, what happened to you?” she cried.

Jane called her husband Bob and daughter Emma and they went to Jake’s room. She opened the door and the rest of family saw the giant centipede. Jake’s sister screamed in horror and his father stood frozen to the spot when he saw it.

“What on earth is it?” Bob asked to Jane.

“He is our son, don’t you know? I can feel it. I can feel it is Jake.” Jane answered.

Bob entered the room and went to Jake to look him closely. Jake backed off as his father got close and finally he hid himself under the bed.

“Son, there’s nothing to afraid of. I will not hurt you or hate you. Just come closer to me, dear.”

Jake seemed to hesitate but at last he came out of the bed. He was more horrible than everybody thought he would be.

“Should we call the doctor?” Emma asked.

But Jane and Bob thought doctor would be helpless and they should take care of his son for themselves. They decided to give him food. They had no idea what he would like so Emma searched on the Internet and found out what centipede likes. Bob went out for a while and came with a bunch of small spiders. He gave it to Jake and watched him eating.

“I think he likes it,” he said to Jane.

Bob and Emma had to go to work and to school so they said good bye to Jake and left home. There was only Jane and Jake in the house then. Jane wanted to take a rest and think for a while alone so she sat on the couch in the living room. Why did this happen to his son? He had been a good son to family. He’d never made a trouble or disappointed family. When he was a student, he always studied hard until night and got an A on the exams. After he graduated he entered a large company and dedicated himself to his work. It seemed that he worked seven days a week. Other people might think him as a workaholic but his family knew that he was trying hard to support the household. She found out that he had never been to a family picnic for 30 years. How pitiful her son was!

She went to Jake’s room and stared at him. There was no chance to see him closely before because he was always busy and she was indifferent to him. She didn’t know what to do with him and what he wanted because he couldn’t talk. But she thought he could understand her saying.

“Jake, my lovely son, I don’t know why it has happened to you but still I love you,” she said to Jake.

Jake seemed to listen to her and to be sad. Looking him, she felt all the more sad, so she embraced him and cried. She kept crying for several hours hugging him and after all she fell into a sleep.

When she woke up and opened her eyes, it was afternoon and the sun was streaming into the room. And there was Jake, not the centipede but real Jake. He was sleeping in her arms. Her tears started to flow down her face again, but it was tears of relief and delight. She hugged him tightly until she was sure that he’s really became human not in her dream.

  

by Annika.       (Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka)