Post by un1uckyst4r on Sept 23, 2010 22:01:02 GMT -5
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?~Plato
Alison burst out the door at exactly 8:26 that morning in a flurry of untied shoelaces, disheveled hair, and papers that hadn't been properly secured in binders streaming out from behind her like oversized confetti.
For all intents and purposes, it was business as usual today.
She made for the crosswalk at full-tilt, knowing that the light would go green in three seconds. It did. She also knew that there was a fire hydrant coming up on the other side of the street, and she gave it roughly five seconds before it inexplicably blew its top and soaked everything in a neat twenty-foot radius, including herself. And it did.
A part of her absently wondered whether this would have changed given the events of the past twenty-four hours. Not that it would have mattered, necessarily.
Wet tennis shoes squeaked their way into the Fine Arts building. Alison made for the elevator, pressed the up button, and barely concealed a grimace when the elevator cable snapped and sent the car plummeting several stories to a rather loud and messy end in the basement. She knew that was going to happen, of course, and sprinted for the stairs instead, taking them two at a time despite wet shoes and precarious shoelaces.
The same small part of her absently wondered whether the events of the past twenty-four hours had anything to do with the fact that she never slipped or tripped on those precarious shoelaces. But again, maybe it wouldn't have mattered.
By this time the building was in absolute bedlam - lights flickered erratically, the fire alarm couldn't decide whether it was going to stay on or off, the sprinkler system decided it was going to stay on (not that she didn't already look like a drowned rat), and to top it all off, the metallic creaking behind her informed her that the suit of armor in Professor Anderson's office had sprung to life and was now chasing her down the corridor. Which was okay. She knew it wasn't going to catch her. She also knew it was going to get really damn close.
She barely had time to duck under the swinging axe blade behind her as lecture hall 404 came into view. Not wanting to let her idle thoughts shape any potential insanity that may occur in the next five minutes, she reached out and took hold of the classroom door...
...and woke up clutching her hand and screaming bloody murder.
"Another coffee for you, sugar?"
Alison's eyes flickered up to the waitress. "Sure."
The waitress - Delle, according to the name tag pinned to her cheery pink gingham blouse - smiled warmly at her as she left the table. The smile was tinged with worry when she returned to pour piping hot liquid gold into Alison's mug. "Don't mean to sound like your momma, sugar, but that's your fifth cup in the past hour," she noted.
Alison returned the older woman's smile with a wan imitation of it. "Thanks for noticing, Ma," she quipped.
"I'm just sayin', I hope you're takin' care of yourself," the waitress admonished good-naturedly, turning to make her rounds once more. Alison picked up the steaming mug in two gloved hands - thank God she hadn't tossed those old fingerless gloves - and kept her eyes to the door as she took a deep sip.
He was late.
That shouldn't have bothered her anywhere near as much as it did, but all the same, he was late and she was annoyed. Not that she could pinpoint why she was annoyed, which annoyed her even more. And then she was annoyed about being annoyed at all. The salt shaker on her table began to rattle against the old lacquered wood, then launched skyward and embedded itself in the stack of waffles belonging to the couple sitting to her right.
Alison groaned and closed her eyes. I swear to God, if I can figure out how to do it, I'm setting his hair on fire when he shows up.