Connected

Chapter 2

My alarm blares in my ear at 6:30 in the morning. Looking out my window, I see the dark gray clouds and the lightning in the distance, and I know today will be a long day. After sitting for 10 minutes on the edge of the bed, I eventually get up and get ready for the day. Stumbling into my bathroom, I get in the shower, still half asleep. Fifteen minutes later, I shut off the shower, wrap myself in a towel, and walk over to my closet, digging to find my uniform for cleaning day consisting of old khakis and a dark blue polo. If you saw someone wearing a dark blue shirt within the zoo, it normally means that they are part of maintenance or a keeper, while everyone else wears sky blue.

On top of the other three keepers, the maintenance crew consists of triplets Dave, Josh, and Vince, and Alec, the newest addition. The triplets have been working at the zoo for the past 20 years, while Alec just started last month. Besides Alec, who is still learning the ropes, the triplets are great at their job, and they all show enthusiasm and passion about what they're doing. It's quite a refreshing sight to see people other than the on-site vet, nutritionist, and I enjoy our jobs, even if it has bad days. Dave works on the plumbing, Vince takes care of the habitats and contract work with Dave's help, and Josh maintains the landscape. Alec, poor, poor, Alec, gets to help all three of them, running around like a chicken with its head cut off. It is pretty funny to see him run from one side of the park to the other carrying a handful of pipes to Dave one minute, then covered in dirt from Josh the next.

The two that I work with are Jake and Tyler. Tyler is a junior this year, while Jake and I are seniors, set to graduate in three weeks, and we'll both start at University this next fall. Both Tyler and Jake are pretty nice but can be complete idiots at times. One time, Tyler was giving the Crowned Lemurs their supper and left the door open. Luckily, they were contained in the Employees Only area behind the enclosures, but it took all three of us and the triplets to get all five back into their enclosure, and two of them have a nasty biting habit. We are a pretty small zoo, with more open, park-like areas than animals, but it's still a nice change to have in a city filled with buildings and roads, and I enjoy it all the same. Glancing at my clock,7:10 glows back as I tug on my clothes, pull my tangled, wet brown hair into a ponytail and rush out the door.

I run to the zoo arriving just in time, not only for my shift but just as the rain starts to come down. Walking into the main building toward the break room, I wave to the triplets as they get their rain gear out of their lockers and clock in. Grabbing one of the extra umbrellas by the door, I head out into the storm toward the keeper area. On the walk over, I keep thinking back to the two guys in the park last night and how could I not; they took over my dream. Everything I told Skylar about my sixth sense was true, but it wasn't the whole story. I left out the dreams. If I had told him about those, I don't think he would have believed me as easily as he did.

Only my family and Mia know about this "gift" and I guess Skylar now too, but no one knows about the dreams. Mia and I have been best friends since we were 4. She helped and supported me immediately after finding out. She has seen every slap to the face in those bad situations and the bear hugs in the good situations. She is truly my best friend and like the sister I never had. When Skylar was asking about their meeting last night, I didn't tell him that she practically dragged me along because of this "gift", though they had that covered. I didn't help or need to but she insisted anyway, what was I gonna do, say no?

 The dreams, though, are the weirdest part. It's not apparent at first, but it becomes one of those things that I can't shake for a couple of days, and it's always the same situation. The dreams will always come the night the meeting has occurred; almost all of them are meetings I have had a hand in. The dream starts in a room looking at a dresser with two picture frames on top. The two people in question are in the frames separate from each other. Then it goes to black, and a puzzle is being put together, piece by piece, an image starts to come together and, from previous experiences, the image that forms is one that I will see with my own eyes, the couple holding hands or hugging or some image of them together. According to the dream I had last night, the guys looked happy, relieved even. Not until Tyler almost bashes my face in with the door do I realize I had reached the keeper building.