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Lunchtime.
It was an everyday thing for the kids of the orphanage to eat at a large table in the main dining room, allowing the volunteers to keep track of all of the younger, squirmier kids while the older ones finished their meals and helped clean. Mahrie hadn't been feeling well that day, so after a little bit of bugging, she stayed home from school and joined the rest of the kids at the table.
An old, twelve-inch CRT television sat not far away from the large wooden dining table, in view for all of the children to watch cartoons while they ate. Today though, it had been turned to the Channel 5 News. The weather was supposed to be nice this weekend, so the volunteers were planning a trip to the park, but first they needed to make sure the weather would be nice enough.
"We interrupt the weather report to bring you Breaking News."
Many of the younger kids were too busy chatting and playing with their food to notice the television, but many of the older kids and volunteers looked over at the scene change. Mahrie watched the television closely, one hand marking her stopping point in her book and the other holding a spoonful of Campbells Chicken & Stars soup. She put the spoon in her mouth, her eyes glued on the television as the commentator explained details of a deadly shooting in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town. Mahrie recognized the house, the kids usually passed by it during Halloween, or stopped in the neighborhood during Christmas to sing carols.
It didn't take long for one of the volunteers to walk over to the television and turn it off, shaking her head as she walked back to the kitchen.
"People these days. What is the world coming to?" one of the volunteers asked, placing a paper towel and a piece of toast down in front of Mahrie.
"Everything the news has to show is all violence and killing. It's sad."
Mahrie sat silently for a few moments, her finger slipping from her book, as her mind wandered. She thought about the people who had lived in that home, she remembered their faces. She imagined them both gone, nonexistent from the world. What had happened? Were they both dead?
The girl was caught up in a self-made trance, a little wistful at the thought of not seeing those people anymore.
But before her thoughts got too far, a voice snapped her back into reality.
"Mahrie, dear, eat your soup, before it gets cold."
Mahrie blinked a couple times, looking down at the silver spoon that was resting in her bowl, barely gripped by her fingers.
"Oh, sorry. I- I forgot."
"It's alright dear. Just let me know if you want more, but if you're still not feeling well, you don't have to finish it."
The young girl nodded as she glanced back down at her book, searching for her stopping point while taking another spoonful of Chicken & Stars.
