SNOWPOCALYPSE: Part More

Chapter [last chapter+1]

I awoke at the crack of the 4th snooze cycle on my trusty sidekick alarm clock, Clocky.

"Gdmornin, Clocky," I grumbled.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP, said Clocky.

"What! What's that, Clocky? Timmy is trapped in a well?"

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP, Clocky replied, and we both laughed. Or beeped more, depending on which one of us you are talking about. It is our favorite joke.

After patting Clocky lovingly but firmly on the head, I rolled out of bed and noisily stumbled into the bathroom. It seemed like just another ordinary day. OR DID IT? That foreshadowing seemed sort of out of place. OR DID IT? That meta-foreshadowing seemed sort of--

I shaved, showered, and dressed, but some of the half-remembered dialog betwixt Clocky and I still lingered. Is it just me, or was there some subtle inflection and overly-specific word choices on snooze cycle two? What does Clocky know? This thought haunted me as I grabbed my lunch and sweatshirt and left the warm gentle arms of my home to seek my fortune in the hard world.

I opened the door of my building and was immediately blinded by a sudden flash of sparkling white light. I must have just died! Clocky had been trying to tell me to stay in bed! Oh, what a sore trial it must have been that pitted sacred alarm clock duty against Clocky's foreknowledge of its beloved human master's death. I vowed then and there that when my turn comes to haunt common household appliances to annoy and frighten the living, that I would choose Clocky as my home, so that we may be together forever. As my full and extremely interesting life flashed before my eyes, I remembered when Clocky and I first met. It was many years ago, when I took refuge from the pouring rain in a run-down dusty electronic repair shop. The shopkeeper was a stubby grizzled man with a glass eye and an ill temperament. I felt uncomfortable under his penetrating and sneering gaze, so I picked up a dusty alarm clock and inquired about its price. I needed an alarm clock because my excuse about not having an alarm clock was starting to wear thin with my employers. The shopkeeper gave a queer grin, and his glass eye sort of pulsated a little bit. "No charge," he said in a cracked voice. "This clock has chosen you. But I warn you," he added urgently, and lowered his voice to a haunting whisper. "This clock has strange powers. It can tell you strange things about the future, such as what time you will wake up, and strange things about the present, such as what time it is right now. Also, it is haunted." I thanked the creepy pulsating glass-eyed shopkeeper and went on my way, never truly heeding his last words. Funny that only now in death they come back to me. I wonder what other soul has been watching over me in intermittent silence all these years. I steel myself against the cold eternity before me and think, "there will be plenty of time to find out."

Oh wait, that blinding white light is just because it snowed. Again.

*Yawn*

SPECIAL TWIST ENDING:

The day after I met Clocky I returned to where the electronics repair shop had been the day before, but found only a bustling kebab stand instead. I asked Captain Kebab what had happened, but he told me there hadn't been a repair shop on that street for ten years, ever since one had mysteriously burned down, leaving no trace except for a soot-covered glass eye.

Also, who am I kidding-- Snowmaggedon is awesome!