In the Beginning

"In the Beginning" is the first chapter of Exodus.

Robin
Robin Green, Detroit.

The room was illuminated by a laptop screen showing a document that had been empty for far too long. The cursor continued to blink like some indicator to tell Robin that it was finally time to start typing. Robin sat at her small desk staring blankly at the screen, wondering how she's ever supposed to concentrate on her homework with the noise of her fighting neighbours flooding in through the paper-thin walls and sirens screaming so regularly she might as well set it as alarm on her phone.

She jumped at the bang of the front door being slammed shut. Brother's home, she thought to herself. His heavy footsteps passed her room and her worries were fulfilled when music began blasting from his room at full volume.

“Will you turn that down?” she yelled, barely able to hear herself. “Hey,” she continued. Although she had tried to yell louder, she found herself unable to tell if she had made any difference.

Robin slammed her laptop closed and stormed to her brother's room. He was sat on the bed eating snacks and smoking like any other night. The thing that bothered Robin the most was that he showed some kind of pride in his lifestyle, like a fourteen year old behaving this way was cool and not just a wasteful act of throwing away any chance at a decent life.

“Hey,” she said. “Turn the music off, I'm trying to work.”

“Get out,” her brother screamed.

He jumped from the bed and forced her out of the room before slamming the door shut in her face. Her only option left was to turn to her mother, not that she expected much from that, and she was right to as she found her mother once again passed out on her bed, surrounded by empty bottles and various drug paraphernalia.

Robin sighed to herself as she turned her mother onto her side and pulled a blanket over her. She gave her a kiss on the forehead and returned to her room where she lay on her bed, put in her earphones and played her own music loud enough to drown out the surrounding sound.

Knowing that she wasn't going to get some sleep any time soon, Robin thought about her life. About how a seventeen year old is left to care for her mother and brother; how her mother would rather put all the blame on her life on racism than accept her responsibilities and do a better job; about the concern that she'll one day have to be told her brother has died, and how none of them seem to even want to change. She has dreams of escaping this life, of working hard and doing something worth telling people about. Then she thought again about her family using drugs and drinking until they're no longer able to think, perhaps they're looking to escape just as much as she is.