Rubber Duckies (standard:other, 1252 words)
Author: Sexy Forks	Added: Dec 10 2000	Views/Reads: 5366/2452	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A descriptive story about an individuals feelings and memories about things he sees as he wakes up.

I opened my eyes, one at a time.  My left eye first, with my right
struggling to break away from the chains of sleep.   The beeping of my 
alarm was digging into my ears, draining my dreams into the air.  I 
stared at the dark stained trim on the floor of the opposite side of my 
room, thinking about the effort it is going to take to switch to my 
left side to turn the alarm off.  I rolled, my face mushing into my 
pillow as I breathed in the cotton smell of my solid blue sheets 
through my nose.  My alarm, now seemingly blaring at me, mocking me to 
wake up, was a digital alarm, that only goes off by the heat of your 
touch.  I thrust my hand at it desperately searching for the one 
sensitive spot to end the torture.  As I freed myself from the killer 
audio, I twisted on to my back, looking at the plastic glow-in-the-dark 
stars I had scotch-taped to the ceilling.  I sighed as I squeezed my 
arms around my thick comforter, subconsciously hoping it would one day 
be a woman I would wake up to hug, day after day. 

I sat up, and the heat escaped from under the covers as cool air rushed
in, sending chills through my body.  I put all of my energy into 
standing up, and I felt my the unique texture of the carpet on my feet. 
 I stood there for a moment, waivering a bit, my head feeling light.  I 
stretched my arms back, my bare chest forward, and flexed my legs.  The 
feeling of my abs and pecs being pulled and squeezing my back, letting 
fresh moving blood into the veins, felt good.  I looked at my floor, 
cluttered with my favorite pair of dark denim jeans with the worn 
pockets on the outside, my shoes, with tattered soles and laces 
fraying, the pair of white ankle socks I carelessly tossed to the side 
as I was preparing for bed the night before.   I picked up my blue and 
grey flannel pants that were folded so carefully and neatly on the back 
of my desk chair, and slid them over my naked legs.  I then grasped the 
jungle green sweatshirt from the seat, cautiously folded to perfection, 
and pulled it over my head. 

I walked down my stairs, methodically counting as I went, my case of 13
stairs.  As I landed on the floor, the 14th step, my feet awoke because 
the sudden rush of cold from the white ceramic squares that plagued the 
front entryway.  I marched down those tiles to the gracious light wood 
floor of the loving kitchen.  I found my rubber boots by the back door, 
and brought them over to my chair at my kitchen table.  I sat down on 
that old rickety chair.  It was a throne really, a throne my 
grandfather made for me, along with the rest of the table and chairs.  
Something he made him self, with his own bare hands.  His rugged hands 
that have lived a lifetime and a half, with each crease and fold having 
numerous untold stories of love, life and creation.  I loved to look at 
those hands, hoping one day I would live to have those stories of my 
own. 

I looked down at the tan and black rubber boots, “Rubber Duckies” as my
dad used to call them.  My dad would wear them anytime there was snow 
on the ground when I was young.  His would become stained over time 
with the harsh salts used to melt the snow on the roads, covering the 
colors on the outside, making them blend infinitly together till they 
turned into an angry grey.  The boots wouldn’t look rubber, but stone. 
No longer smooth, flexible, and inviting, but hardened, rough, and 
mean.  Then, after a few days of wearing them while hiding behind the 
salt, my dad would take a toothbrush and scrub the salt away at the 
kitchen sink.  The Rubber Duckies would slowly melt back into the fun, 
rubbery, and elegant boots I remembered.  The ones my invincible dad 
wore.  I never saw him wear them the year he left, nor any year after 
that. 

I squeezed my foot into my Rubber Duckies, and grabbed my heavy,
knee-length coat off of my old and terribly constructed coat rack that 
waivers whenever touched, threatening to break off at the base.  I 
walked to the front door, across the sea of ceramic horrors, not afraid 
now, for I was wearing my rubber duckies.  I reached out for the door 
handle and watched my reflection in the shiny bronze.  I watched as, 
from my badly distorted body reflection, a hand grew from with in me 
till it was consuming the image.  I grasped that sight, and twisted it 
untill the door opened.  I took a step outside and closed the door 
behind me with the doorknocker giving its ever-familiar clank.  I 
squinted in the bright sun light that was reflecting off the vast, 
seemingly endless, white from the calmly rolling droves of newly fallen 
snow.  I stopped and looked around at the stillness, the quiteness.  It 
reminded me of when I would build igloos out of the snow drifts when I 
was a child.  I would dig out a hole for hours, hoping to create 


Click here to read the rest of this story (31 more lines)