Fiction

I Shouldn’t Have Stayed in Bed!

By Orion Waters

 

You are awoken by the sound of the alarm on your phone. Still half asleep, you hit nap on the phone and close your eyes, only to be awoken again from the second alarm you set the day before with a message on it,” Don’t hit the nap button this time!” You wake up after cursing the past you for knowing exactly what you would do after the first alarm, so you get up. Still groggy and annoyed, you now sit up and get yourself get out of bed, only to immediately bump your foot on the clothes bin knocking it over.

“Fuuuh… of course.”

You go to the bathroom, leaving the pile of clothes you just knocked over where they are. You can deal with that later. You walk to the bathroom, close the door, and relieve yourself. Once that’s done you step in front of the mirror. As you’re washing your hands you glance up to see the same blue eyes you always had stare back at you. Then you brush your teeth. You don’t want Dragon’s breath. Once you’re done you glance at your phone and realize you have 15 minutes to get dressed and run to your bus before it takes off without you.

“Oh … shit.”

You run back into your room grab the nearest clean clothes you can find, and bolt for the front door.

“Running, Running, Running!”

The dog barks at the human disturbing his morning walk with his master. The master pulls the dog’s collar, forcing him to stop barking. The dog is confused. It’s clearly the stupid human’s fault for disturbing the dog’s walk and causing such a disruption why is the other human the one being punished? The dog will now spend the rest of the day passive aggressively ignoring his human masters, except when food is involved.

The cat sitting near the window is not impressed with the scene. A human walking a stupid dog. Another human running down the street. Stupid dog barks at running human. The human running almost trips and the human holding the dog’s leash pulls back making the tiny dog go “yeep!” Besides the dog’s pain it’s just another stupid morning. The cat will now spend the rest of the day trying to figure out how to get the damn bird out of its cage. Hopefully the food provider will be gone long enough to successfully eat the bird.

The bird  just hopes to live and see another day.

You finally make it to the bus stop. Congratulations! The bus is still there, however, you’re coughing and wheezing from the all running. As you catch your breath you say with all of your strength,

” God damn …” sigh… “ankle biter’s”! You see the bus light flashing the number 10, showing that your bus is ready to take off. You get on, pay the fee, and you sit down far back where there is no one to bother you. You put on some relaxing music to calm yourself (Friend like me from Aladdin) and pretend like the bus isn’t filled with strange people. A man is asleep on the middle left side of the bus who you think may be homeless, or at least hasn’t taken a shower in a while.

The man who is asleep’s name is Oliver. Oliver isn’t actually homeless, he’s just been on a very long camping trip and finally made it into town. Oliver passed out on the bus about five minutes before your arrived. Oliver is currently dreaming about falling asleep on his bed. Inception.

After a few more stops the rest of the bus is filled with high school student… yay. They’re talking about dumb high school things like:

“You did not!?”

“Oh, you know I did.”

“Shut up, no you didn’t!”

Shortly after that you turn up the volume to your music. There’s no way in hell you’re going to sit through the rest of the bus ride listening to whatever the hell they’re talking about. It’s not important, right? The two high school students having the conversation was actually them rehearsing for a school play. Spoiler alert, it didn’t go over so well. They got a C- and gave up acting entirely, 15 years later the pair are running a Shawarma van in Austin, Texas. Five stars on yelp.

You get off the bus, say thank you to the bus driver, and you’re off to work now. However, the bus driver is actually one of your online guild friends XxBo0DyHunTerxX. The driver’s real name is Sharon. Sharon’s favorite past time is  getting online and destroying all the annoying male (some female) gamers. Sharon’s battle cry is;

“Time to get that Booty!” Or “dead or alive that booty is coming with me.” (It’s a Robo Cop reference…).

Sharon runs up, kills the annoying gamer, and then proceeds to teabags the corpse.

You finally get into work, you clock in your own time, and for the most part nothing goes wrong. You do your eight hours, punch out, and you head home. Get on the first bus, play some David Bowie on the way back, try not to think about the fact that Bowie is dead now. You get off the bus to walk back home. You see the cat in the window playing with some feather toy you can’t really make out, but whatever. You’re tired. You make it to the front door, unlock it, step inside, take off your shoes, lock the top part of the door, walk to your room, and pass out on your bed.

You wake up at 4 o’clock. You’re annoyed your alarm hasn’t gone off. What is wrong with you? You close your eyes and force himself to go back to sleep. You wake up, it’s 5:05.

“Damn it!” you roll back over. Wake up again 5:09.

“Hmmmmmm!”

You try again. You wake up and this time it’s 6 o’clock, a full 20 minutes before your alarm is set to go off.

“Fine whatever.”

You’re not really rested but you’re not really tired either. You get up and carefully walk to the bathroom. You look down to still see that the clothes are there from yesterday. You forgot to pick them up.

“Of course.”

You roll your eyes and walk to the bathroom. You relieve yourself and you go to wash your hands. You stare up to look at the same tired green eyes. Whatever. You rub your eyes and then you get your clothes. But wait you didn’t do laundry, and all your clean clothes left over from yesterday are being used as a bed for your dog. Then you finally get dressed and leave the house. Everything that could go wrong for you did go wrong. You missed your bus so you have to wait a full 30 minutes before the next one shows up. You’re late by 15 minutes at work so now you have to make up for lost time. Great, you’re 15 minutes behind everything now. Then the cord to your headset gets cut, that just sucks. You burned yourself on the grill. And you try to punch out but the machine is not working so now you have to do it the next time you’re at work.

“Great! Life is just great right now what else can anyone ask for!?”

Why did you tempt fate?

You miss your bus again, now it’s an hour wait before the next one comes. The food you packed from work broke out of its container so now it’s spilling all over your stuff.

“Wonderful!”

You finally get on your bus, you get home, unlock the door, and lock the top part like you’re supposed to. Then you collapse upon your bed. You don’t even bother to clean up your backpack or the clothes on the floor. You don’t have school or work tomorrow, so you can deal with it then. You wake up to the alarm on your phone and of course you say,

“Oh shit.”

You forgot you’re covering someone’s shift at work today. You scramble to get your things together. You roll your eyes, remembering that your backpack is still a mess from all the spilled food inside. Or is it? Turns out while you slept your dog decided to eat all the food that fell out inside your backpack, cleaning everything. Though, your backpack smells like your dog’s mouth now. Hey, your roommate Tim is up. Turns out, Tim saw what a rough day you’re having the other day. So he walked your dog for you because you forgot to. (Bad owner!) Since your roommate is up, you only lock the bottom lock as you leave the house. You actually make it to your bus stop without needing to run. Yay! As you go to turn on your music you find another source of musical entertainment. There’s a 60-year-old couple singing to their heart’s content to “Opposites Attract” by Paula Abdul. You’re enjoying yourself so much you almost miss your bus stop. But luckily, Sharon asks you if this was your stop.

“Oh yeah, thanks!”

“No problem, have a good day.”

“You too.”

The 60-year-old couple are Nelson and Ruth. They’re celebrating their 37th wedding anniversary. They were just so happy with each other, they decided to share their happiness with the world. They pick the first couple they found on an app. They were a little nervous singing on the bus at first, but after seeing people start to smile and some even singing along with them, it just made them sing louder and prouder.

One Comment

  • Asma Akal

    This is a great and entertaining story. There are a lot of details that the audience can relate to in their daily lives. Details that can help us create a picture in our minds. I like the idea that laziness affects people’s lives in a positive and negative way. Also, the idea that even when there are problems around people, there is always a brighter side.

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