I have one alarm set to sound on my phone every morning, and one on a separate clock located on the opposite side of my bedroom. The idea is that my phone will sound its little guitar-riff-noise three separate times to stir me from R.E.M., while the alarm across the room — set for five minutes later — is strategically placed so as to force me from my bed to turn it off.

On paper the system seems to be without fault, but because I’ve employed it for upwards of seven years now, it hardly ever works.  Usually I’ll either lay for an hour with alarm sounding [it becomes unnoticeable after 5 minutes of the pattern] or I’ll rise to turn it off and immediately return to beneath my mintgreen quilt.

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This morning after the my phone sounded its guitar jingle, I rolled over to the wall and split open my eyelids.  Some sunorange was breaking in through the gridscreen across my open window, and the air was markedlhy more gelid than it has been any other morning this Fall.  I could hear single leaves scratching rhythms across the ashpalt, performing some serious gymnastics before ultimately meeting their fate in the pile at my apartment’s backdoor.

Since moving to Vickery I’d not heard the wind fill the trees as loudly as it did this morning, though I suppose that’s because I’ve not lived here when the leaves have been so crisp. And though I know this quick weather change to not be the latest installment by that elusive phenomenon El Niño, the Chris Farley quote would not leave my mind.  I shifted my focus to breakfast, hoping a task would keep the line clear from my thoughts.

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Walking into the kitchen, I took to the task I always do first upon waking: Turn on the stove to ‘5′ beneath my treasured Bialetti™, and prepare a demitasse with a little steamed milk before adding the brewed beverage moments later.

The rate at which the espresso brews depends heavily on how frequently I deep-clean my Bialetti™.  I’ve had a few servings since I last gave it a vigorous scrub, so this morning it was taking especially long to bubble up and through the valve.

I pretend multitasking is a forté of mine, so as I waited for the brew I split open and dropped two eggs into a skillet on the neighboring burner.  The number of omelettes I’ve made in my lifetime is larger than the population of Arkansas, so the task of timing and concocting the dish seems something not too difficult.

Finishing the omelette, I flipped it, inserted some sautéed vegetables from a few mornings ago, folded it, and slid it onto a lime-green chinaplate I inherited from my uncle Mark.  Still a bit asleep but now very focused on consuming my breakfast, I tread the cold cedar floor into my living room, and decided to start up a small project promoting the sale of my iMac™.

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The window bordering the right side of my desk stays open the majority of the time I sit here [which is actually the majority of my Time], unless it is above 95º [one must have some boundaries].  As a result, I have an opportunity to catch most of the conversations of my neighbors – the self-proclaimed Mexican Mafia – who often sip Coronas in their backyard just north of my apartment.

Setting down the omelette on the desk in front of my computer, I felt the chilly breeze on my bare shoulders. I flipped on the space heater that remains in my desk-depths, available to heat my shins during the few days when it actually grows cold in Texas.  The current through the open window brought with it a smell of cigarette from outside, which I found peculiar since it was 7:15 am, and, well, none of my neighbors smoke.

Focused on my project and almost ready to place it before the public eye, I noticed the cigarette smell becoming stronger and more pungent, as if the unidentified morning tobaccoist was approaching my window.  A bit curious, I looked around down the side of the building and saw nothing.  Suddenly, I heard some screeching noise from my kitchen immediately thereafter, and then some ferocious banging and clanging.  Violent, violent sounds!

I rushed into the kitchen to find my Bialetti™ laying down on the open flame of my stove, espresso spewing everywhere, and some of it aflame below.   I rushed to turn off the stove before anything else, trying to install some prioritization or hierarchy to my thoughts in the midst of the madness.

Having neither a fire blanket handy nor a pair of oven mitts or, well, anything that would have been helpful in this situation, I instinctively I reached down for the rug below my refrigerator door and threw it on the fire, across the side-spun espresso maker and the coffee spewing from its spout.

When the flame finally died, I took the rug into the bathroom, left it strung out arcross the side of the bathtub and returned to the kitchen and filled the Bialetti with another batch of Peruvian single-origin, determined to have my demitasse full.

It’s been nearly twentyfourhours since I last
slept longer than five minutes, and I can’t quite
figure out why. Today, while playing a stringed
instrument, I’ll appear a revenant. A Caribbean zombie
has the right idea – rising out of a grave and all –
but misses the Mark. I need regeneration
[physicallyinsleep, but that ain't the All of it].