The following is a bit of alternative fiction based on certain characters from the Xenaverse. It is not meant to infringe on anyone else's rights.
I woke up to the twanky rhythm of country western rhytm and blues. I sat up abruptly, looking first at the doorway, which was empty and then down on the floor where the offensive noise was coming from. It *was* my clock radio, set for bright and shiny early in the morning, but on a station I normally tried to avoid like the plague. Normally.
Funny thing was, I couldn't remember setting the clock at all, but I knew I must have, because here it was...blaring at me. Must have. Must have. Must have.. right?
Whatever the case, I most certainly was awake. I'd keep that in mind for hte next time. I tended to sleep right through rock and roll....My hand hit the snooze, but it was too late. I had Garth Brooks singing that never-ending song in my head, over and over and over.
"I'll acky breaky grumble grumble," I mumbled crossly, but with oncoming alertness, as I stumbled to the bathroom. I found myself singing the song in the shower, soaping myself down with jaunty little hip thrusts and dance movements. I even giggled.
By the time I was done, I wasn't crotchety anymore...just wary.
My morning ablutions were finished in record time, though dressing took a few minutes longer. But that was only because I engaged in a pointless debate with myself on whether to wear my 'Recruit suit' or not. There was part of me hankering to just go down there in jeans and a tee, tennis shoes and whatnot. I wanted to be radical, different. But I realized I wanted the money more, and who could beat the divergeance of the insanity that wove itself through my life? At least the recruit suit fit me properly, accentuating my curves in a positive way, instead of making me feel like a lead bottom boat.
Besides, it couldn't hurt to stroke the corporate ego a little, could it? So I went as planned, all the bits and pieces I'd laid out so neatly the night before now moved to cover my body in its splendor. I was corporate now. By quarter-past seven I was ready, appearance-wise, to face the world.
I had a challenge to face now; My frontroom. The rest of me would just have to tag along for the duration.
I stepped gingerly into the damaged area, expecting it to be much worse than it really was. My TV and VCR were both goners. The coffee table had gotten off lightest, suffering only a broken leg which could easily be repaired. The pair of chairs I'd picked up at garage sale somewhere, genuine imitation Andrew Lloyd Wright designs, wereb now so much kindling for the bonfire. The idiotic cuckoo clock I'd picked out at the same sale had met a fate that no bird should have to go through. The housing lay dismally upon the floor while the cuckoo boinged loosely over the carpet. I salvaged the bird, and placed it on a cabinet, but the little clock house was beyond repair. The small and badly over-burdened bookshelf with entirely too many textbooks and flimsy files containing proofs of my few papers and still fewer articles, lay overturned. The papers and textbooks were piled in all their torn and mangled glory to the side of it. And there were my framed pictures of Professor Strong and my baby sister, Jolene, prone and broken upon the floor.
It was the last two which I really regretted. Henry and Jolene were the two people that'd kept me sane throughout my college years. Fortunately, all I'd done was knock them from their perch. Their glass crunched under my heels, but I paid that little mind. The photos were intact and that was all that mattered. I picked them out of the rubble and put them in my purse. They were sure to be safer at the office than here with me.
That brought to mind my unfortunate bottle of meds. I figured I might as well salvage what I could of them, if only so I could get it refilled when I saw Dr. Gabrielle in a day or two. That is, provided I could remember to make the appointment during lunch. I'd also have to remember to stop by Sears or somewhere and pick out a new phone, and TV, and VCR, and clock, and...well, the list could go on and on.
Focus, Bernie, focus. Find the pills, then go to work.
Unfortunately, there weren't any pills to find. Anywhere. I remembered *exactly* where I'd tossed the bottle. I could visualize my folly very well, and remembered every blazing moment of vision and destruction. But the pills were gone, and the absence started a weird feeling in the pit of my stomache. It wasn't unpleasant, just different.
I looked for a few more minutes, but found nothing of worth. I paced the length of the floor from door to the exact place I'd tried to undo the cap. I could feel the bottle in my hand, the way it released. I could see, as if in memory, (which it was) the way the pills spilled out.
They weren't there.
Which meant, I must have been imagining things.
Yet, Joni had said they were in the car. And I had found them exactly there.
So?... So...
I really didn't have time or interest to ponder this little mystery. I simply assumed my memories were playing tricks on me again, just as my senses had last night, and left it at that.
It was time to go to work.
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This page was last updated: July 13, 1998
ŠJuly 1998
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