The bright orange flames burned on as night fell. Having personally returned the mind-sucking vampire mummies to their home dimension in a fiery explosion, I finally turned my attention toward the only other person now alive on planet Fuquay-Varina.
“Miss Ward,” I said, coolly.
“You can call me Sela,” she replied in a quiet, assured voice. Acrid smoke curled across the barren landscape. Light from the fires dimly reflected off her shiny black leather ensemble. Clichéd cinematic music swelled as she confidently strode in my direction. I held her close in my arms as she whispered breathily into my ear what I’d been most longing to hear:
"Bee-bee-bee-BEEP… bee-bee-bee-BEEP… bee-bee-bee-BEEP… "
Brain, left hemisphere: Aw, crap.
It’s 7:20 a.m. I hit the snooze bar as usual. I also press the alarm’s ‘off’ button, conveniently located right next to ‘snooze.’
Brain, right hemisphere: You know, we should probably reset the alarm now, because we’ll never be able to…
left: Aw, screw it, We’ll just keep a close eye on the time and get up when… sk-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz… zzzzzzzzzzzzz…
*Time passes.
8:00 a.m. My eyes open again.*
right: Eight… o’clock. Hm… That’s awfully late, isn’t it? In fact, that might even be ridiculously late. Now, let’s see. What time is it that I have to leave the apartment to catch the bus?
left: It’s something like 8:10 or 8:20, I think.
right: Aw, come on, we’ve been taking the same damn bus for a year and a half. Which is it, 8:10 or 8:20?!
left: Um… iiits’… 8:10.
right: OK, and again what time is it now?
left: 8:00.
right: Right. and so that leaves how much time for me to get out of bed and ready for work?
left: Um… err…
right: OK, let’s go over this one step at a time. If it’s 8:00 now… and you have to leave at 8:10… that means you have how much time?
left: Oh, okay… I think that’s, um… ten minutes, right?
right: YES, DAMMIT YOU’VE GOT TEN FREAKIN’ MINUTES YOU IDIOT! NOW GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!
left: SIR! YES, SIR!
*What you’ve just read is a fairly accurate representation of what went through my mind this morning. (Well, maybe except for the dream sequence. My real dreams are far too boring.)
I’d continue the narrative, but it’s really just an incredibly compressed and sped up version of what I do every morning, so that wouldn’t be too interesting. Suffice it to say that I did in fact shower, dress, get my stuff together for work, feed the cat, grab a couple things out of the fridge to eat, and leave the apartment in nine minutes flat with plenty of time to walk to the bus stop. I think this is a new record for me.*