He woke with a start to the squeal of the alarm—no, not the alarm, something that was not squealing any more. He looked to his right and saw that the alarm clock was blank dead. It seemed to be daylight outside but was dark in his room—too dark. The computer was off. He never turned the computer off. Luther was too tired to even think to himself, groggy he was.
He dosed back off for a second—no, he was so sore, had overslept, must rise…
He was awakened again by the squeal. Then he saw it in the ceiling, the smoke alarm light blinking. The battery was dead. The CD player was dead—no light numbering the last song.
Oh Lord, I’m sore!
He stood and groaned to the creak of his bones. The years of work as a concrete finisher before he got his degree and began teaching and writing, were taking their toll this—is it morning?
He went over to the bedroom window and rolled up the blind. The sunlight blinded him momentarily and his hands went to his face to cover his eyes, and struck something wooly, a beard!
Lord, I don’t have a beard—shaved yesterday!
Luther crashed through the door, hearing the knob slam into the dry wall that he had not thought to protect with a spring stop, and staggered downstairs to the bathroom. When he got to the sink and looked into the mirror he saw a month growth of beard on his face, flecked with white it was.
“Oh, hell no!”
He sprayed that mess down with his shaving cream, grabbed the entire pack of razors, and began hacking away until he was clean shaven once again and presentable for class. Luther was on a roll, had no working timepiece and a dead cell phone—the computer was out. The power was out altogether, he discovered as he scampered around his riverside cottage in his underwear.
Damn it, I just need to get dressed and go.
Luther went to his dresser and found it empty, his closet too. Thinking he might have lost his mind, he ran down to the washroom, and, lo and behold it was just filled with all of his clothes, as if worn by some fool and just tossed in the washroom with no thought to washing them.
Oh just put something on, Luth!
And so he got to dressing in a hurry, wondering how late he was for class.
He had not become a teacher until age 50. A lifetime doing useless grunt work had driven him back to school at 40: ten long years it had taken him. He must not be late. His lesson plans were always done a week ahead.
My lesson plans!
Luther ran back upstairs to his office. His office was for schoolwork. His desk in his room was for his science; his investigation into astronomy, a science which he had inexplicably become obsessed with over the past few years.
The door was ajar. He opened the door—sensing somehow that something was wrong—slowly, causing the mundane portal to creak a little. For some reason many pair of ruined sneakers—a kind of shoe he had never worn as a working man—were scattered about.
Am I losing my mind?
Has Luther Watts become a sneaker-wearing Jacobin of the streets?
Never mind your mind, Luth. Get the lesson plan and let’s go.
The window to the study was partway open, admitting a ray of sunlight that shined on his briefcase. He grabbed his briefcase, which contained his lesson plans. When he did so he noticed it was caked with dust.
Oh I just have to get the hell out of here!
Luther ran downstairs in a panic and jerked open the door to the vestibule. There on the floor, before the mail slot, was such a pile of envelopes—he noticed from the bank, the gas and electric, School—and became frantic, kicking them aside, and unlocking the door, slamming it shut behind him—not even locking it, and heading to his El Camino.
Determined to explain himself to his dean, colleagues and students and then get himself to a good brain doctor and maybe have a sleep study to determine what this Rip Van Winkle nonsense was, Luther lay admiring eyes on his trusted friend, the vehicle that had seen him through thick and thin, and would see him through this trifling narcolepsy mess.
Narcolepsy! That is it. The asteroid that those fools at NASA have not yet acted upon—or even admitted that it is tumbling dumbly toward our home world—is causing the narcolepsy! That has got to be it! I’m certain of it.
“Oh, Baby, a sweet ride you may be, but a might tired you look.”
