Harold woke with a start exactly 15 minutes before is alarm had to go off.
"Well, I am still here," he said to himself. Just three years ago, Harold would sleep until 9:14 a.m. every morning, no matter how late he stayed up. This was the perfect time. It allowed him to stay up to at least 1 a.m., or even later, while still waking up for what he considered morning. Morning now consisted of 6:30 a.m. at the latest.
Harold wasn't sure how he felt about this, but its what he did.
"Ok, lets get up," he though, reaching over to make sure Susan was still there, happily asleep. Harold rolled over onto her and started kissing her cheeks and forehead, lovingly, but looking for a reaction.
Susan stirred, kicked a leg, and rolled over with an astute "hmpph," followed by a long sigh.
"Are you sleeping?" Harold asked.
Susan said nothing.
Harold rose from his bed and walked to his bathroom. Though still theoretically in the run for director at his library, Harold had stopped dressing the part. Until the board decided that they in fact were going make him director, and not keep him forever in the interim, Harold decided that he could still keep with his adolescent notions of both hygiene and dress. Though his outfit was decidedly business casual: khakis, a rumbled polo shirt. Harold pulled his shirt on and squinted in under his bright fluorescent light bulb in his bathroom. There were small white stains near the bottom of his shirt, one the size of a french pea, the other resembled a tiny silhouette of Massachusetts.
Harold turned on the faucet and grabbed a piece of toilet paper. Running the paper under the water, Harold then attempted to gingerly dab at the little stains. His fingers instantly went through the thin paper, spreading tiny fragments of the wet paper onto his black shirt.
"Shit," Harold harked.
Removing his shirt, Harold backed out of the bathroom and into the bed with Susan.
"Move it dear," he said, sliding into the bed next to her.
Susan grunted again and reached out with her warm leg, searching for any spare appendage Harold may have brought with him into the cool bed.
Their legs intertwined, Harold reached over to his telephone.
"Southland Library"
"Dot? Its Harold, hey, tell Penny I am sick, im not going to be in today."
"Ok," Dorothy said, and hung up.


Harold rolled over, and was enveloped in light. He was in school, running hard towards the back of the old playground where he used to play T.V. Freeze Tag. As his arm was almost caught from behind, Harold leaped up, hooking his feet into the frozen air of his youth, climbing higher and higher into the clouds. Explosions bloomed into the cool air, and he was finally free.