The sun breached my curtains at an ungodly hour, the earthy, full scent of coffee wafting into my room. It greeted the sunshine, mingling in an early morning walz, drifting gracefully around my room, the sun drawing lines and shadows across my cream walls. I took a full breath, craning my back in a graceless morning stretch, one that feels like you’ll never be able to stop, stuck in this moment for eternity, not minding because it feels so good. I dragged my legs out from under the warm peach covers, detesting the act as it happened, and placed them on the cold wood that comprised my floors, not able to stand quite yet, reveling in this sunny spring morning that could bring nothing but good times and budding flowers. With one last breath I stood, slowly walking the short distance to my door, bracing for the chilly wood every time I took a step. I wrapped my hand around the door handle and yanked rather roughly and unceremoniously, trying to counteract the stick of the door in its frame, caused by one too many layers of paint. It flung towards me after a few tugs, and I stepped into the hallway, the scent of coffee less of a suggestion now, but a full frontal assault of the senses. We have always liked our coffee strong and black.
   

I walked into the kitchen, greeted with a “Hey sweetie,” and a kiss on the cheek, the light blue cabinets repeating the sweet words my mother had welcomed me with. I poured myself a cup of coffee into a large mug with a dinosaur on it and took my place at the table, picking up my book as opposed to my father’s choice of the morning newspaper. He glanced at me over the top of the sports section, keeping up on the basketball championship in passing, and greeted me in the same manner that my mother had. I believe that we are the last house in the cul de sac to still receive our news in paper form, technology catching up with the rest of the neighborhood, but my father remaining a purist. My mother rushed over and placed plates filled with pancakes and bacon on them in front of my father and I, and it was around this time that my dog wandered over, placing her soft golden head on my lap under the table where I could inconspicuously feed her bits of pancake. Her scarfing noises tended to give her away however, and she and I both received chastisement from my parents, me receiving “Don’t feed the dog at the table!” from my father, and my mother sending the pup into the backyard, her sad eyes watching us and our breakfast from her perch on a retaining wall, just high enough to see into the house. We continued with our breakfast in peace, and the dog got her own pancake after everything had been cleaned up. Everyone was happy and full, ready to face the day ahead with vigor.
   

The problem with print news, however, is that it always tends to run a day behind. So when we had retired to the living room, full and in good spirits from a delightful breakfast, I did not expect to see such terrible news plastered across the screen of my phone. Fifty people were dead, with fifty-three injured in Orlando, and we had just joked and smiled over old news and good food. I didn’t understand how the sun had allowed itself to dance across my walls this morning when those fifty people would never see its beauty again. Even the coldness of my floors seemed unfair when those poor people, targeted for something they cannot control, will never be able to experience the skin chilling feeling of feet on cold floors again. The smell of brewing coffee, full of earth and rich body, the taste of homemade pancakes, made with a mother’s love, the feeling of soft fur against cold and tired hands, warming your body and soul almost instantly, gone in a bang and a flash, bullet replacing brain, heart, and tissue with nothing but black. How unfair life can be.
   

Plastered everywhere were hopes and prayers, loving words and hateful words. I couldn’t understand how hopes and prayers were supposed to fix bullet holes. I thought of the families of the victims, and how many words of comfort they were receiving, but had I lost a brother, father, uncle, or son that day, I would have wished for words of action. Words of change, words that promised that I would have been the last to feel as if I had been shot as well, that I would be the last to feel as if my heart had been ripped from my body by a man with a gun who had never been near me. I couldn’t fathom the hurt that these people were enduring, the hurt that the entire LGBTQ+ community was feeling in the wake of this attack, and I wished for change and progress to ease their pain, not prayers and kind words, as I was sure they already had enough of those to last for a while.