I have no recollection of setting that alarm, but I have theories. It could have been for that time Paul and I caught a flight to Topeka. I was not in a particularly great mood that day, and the flight attendant responded accordingly. There is a certain skill in matching the color of one's phlegm with orange juice.
The drive to Pasadena also crosses my mind. I must have entered Emmett’s Prius at least before the mockingbirds started their songs. We chased the eclipse past totality to the suicide bridge. We could have easily been disappointed that the clouds obscured most of our view, but the humor all three of us found in Sebastian’s attempts to use my malfunctioning telescope would not allow that. I love those men and the peace they bring me.
By dawn we had made it to an empty Santa Monica pier. The moon drizzled its reflection on the sand as seagulls surrounded the three of us. I wonder if birds lose sleep too. Sebastian pointed out that there was a slice in the moon and we entered into a debate over whether it was blocked out by cloud or umbra. A cut we could agree on was the slice the line cook put in the both sides buttered toast we would order from Denny’s in the succeeding half hour. On second thought there was no way we vaulted from Encino to Pasadena to Santa Monica in less than an hour and a half.
There’s other alarms on this phone that I can’t claim to understand. 2:23 is as lucid as 3:49 is as cogent as 1:11 is perspicuous. Actually, I am fairly certain 2:23 was for a strict regimen of pills I was taking a couple of months ago. I begged the doctor to down me with antiemetics to combat the heaving. Heaving in response to the antibiotics he had prescribed the week before. Maybe we both should have listened to the clear signs of war crimes being administered onto my microbiome. Did the T-Cells coordinate a hauge of their own, and if so why did they decide on such a nauseating punishment?