The hollowness in the basement screamed of the irony of the family up above. The house creaked as if it was crying its woes of the secrets it held in its splinters. Mother, father, sister, brother, they all slept upon daydream clouds in which they lived. The world was a precarious shell they lived in, shadows crept pass the windowsills, children played on the blood- stained streets, and yet the world still  spun. The American dream; Manifest Destiny was now exploited. Mother's winning rose garden was a vanity of the pure thoughts she once had and now was swept under the rug. At Christmas time they sang carols of the stereotypical merriness they wished they had, but father's insomnia kept him up at night and he slept in the glow of the kitchen stove. Time passed and the sweet aroma of summer whispered through the air, brother and sister played in the pool as if they were drowning their sorrows in the chlorine they swam in.

Although the church bells rang, the family did not come, for they had  accidentally stumbled upon the rug they had swept their bittersweet reality under.