Eternal Ephemerals

The fleeting escape

The alarm pierced through the thick fog of sleep, pulling Daniel toward consciousness like a thread being tugged gently from the deep, dark waters of a calm sea. He groaned, reaching for his phone on the nightstand, fumbling in the dimness of his bedroom. The sharp, mechanical beeping was too loud, too real, too present for this quiet hour of the morning.

6:30 AM.

He blinked against the harsh light of his phone's screen, squinting at the numbers glowing back at him. The world beyond the covers felt cold, harsh, uninviting. The air was chilly, the sun barely rising, casting pale light through the cracks of his drawn curtains. And the bed—it was warm. Safe.

The weight of sleep still clung to him, pulling him back under. He could feel the remnants of the dream lingering at the edges of his consciousness, still vivid enough to tempt him to close his eyes again, to sink back into it. The dream had been... good. Better than anything waiting for him outside the bed, that was for sure. In the dream, everything had felt right—no deadlines, no pressure, no endless list of tasks waiting for his attention. Just peace. Just quiet.

The alarm blared again, and with a heavy sigh, Daniel turned it off, his thumb hovering over the "snooze" button. He knew what he should do. He had work to get to, emails to answer, meetings to attend. The day was already planned out in neat little boxes in his calendar app, waiting for him to step into it, to start moving through the motions. There was a rhythm to his mornings, a routine that he usually followed without question.

But today... today it felt harder.

His finger hovered over the phone, the "snooze" button glowing on the screen. Just ten more minutes. That's all he needed. Just ten more minutes to rest, to linger in the quiet softness of the morning before the world came rushing in. He'd done it before—snoozed once or twice, still managed to pull himself together and get out the door in time. One more snooze wouldn't hurt.

What's ten minutes compared to a whole day of work? he reasoned with himself. I can spare that.

His body seemed to answer for him, muscles already relaxing into the familiar comfort of the bed, his head sinking deeper into the pillow. He turned off the alarm, let his phone drop back onto the nightstand, and closed his eyes. Just ten more minutes. It wasn't too much to ask.

As his breathing slowed and his mind drifted, the dream came back to him, pulling him under with surprising ease. It was the same one he'd been having for the past few days, this strange, idyllic world where everything felt perfect. In the dream, he wasn't running late, wasn't stressed, wasn't constantly chasing after the next task. It was peaceful, tranquil, the kind of dream that made him want to stay asleep forever.

He was back at the beach—the same beach from last night's dream. The sky was impossibly blue, the waves gently lapping at the shore. He could hear the distant call of seagulls, feel the soft sand beneath his feet. Everything was calm. Everything was right. He walked along the water's edge, the warmth of the sun on his skin, the gentle breeze brushing against his face.

There was no rush. No schedule to follow. Just the endless stretch of beach, the sound of the ocean, and the peaceful feeling of having nowhere else to be.

For a while, it was perfect. He didn't think about the alarm, didn't think about the day waiting for him outside the dream. He let himself stay there, moving slowly through the water, letting the waves carry him. It was easy. Too easy.

And then, slowly, the dream began to fade.

It always did, no matter how hard he tried to hold onto it. The edges blurred, the colors dimmed. The once-bright sky grew paler, the sound of the ocean quieter, until it was nothing more than a distant echo. He felt it slipping away from him, just out of reach, like sand slipping through his fingers.

And then, with a sharp pull, reality came rushing back.

His eyes snapped open, his heart pounding in his chest, his body jerking awake as if he had just been dragged to the surface from deep underwater. The warmth of the dream was gone, replaced by the cold, stark reality of his bedroom.

The clock.

His eyes darted to the nightstand, and a wave of panic shot through him. 8:15 AM. He stared at the time, his mind struggling to process it.

No, no, no, no...

He had overslept. By nearly two hours.

"Shit," he muttered, throwing the covers off in a rush, his feet hitting the floor with a thud. His body moved automatically, scrambling to make up for lost time, his heart pounding in his chest as his brain tried to catch up with the situation. He was already late. He was supposed to be at the office by 9:00, and there was no way he was going to make it now. Not without skipping a shower, skipping breakfast, skipping everything.

The regret hit him like a punch to the gut. He knew this would happen. He had known it from the moment his finger hovered over the "snooze" button, and yet he'd done it anyway. He had stayed in bed, stayed in the dream, telling himself it would be fine, telling himself it was worth it.

But now? Now, it didn't feel worth it at all.

The dream was already slipping away, the images fading from his mind, leaving him with nothing but the cold, hard truth of his late start. The dream had been nice—perfect even—but it wasn't real. It never was. No matter how peaceful, no matter how comforting it felt, it was just an illusion, something his mind had conjured up to distract him from the reality he had to face.

And now he had to pay for it.

He rushed around the room, pulling on clothes haphazardly, his heart still racing. The day was already off to a bad start, and the weight of his own choices sat heavy on his shoulders. He'd have to send an apology email to his boss, make excuses for why he was late. It was the same routine every time he let himself sleep in too long. The same guilt, the same frustration, the same disappointment in himself for choosing comfort over responsibility.

But the worst part wasn't the lateness, or the rush, or the frantic scramble to get ready. The worst part was knowing that he'd done it to himself. That he'd let himself believe, even for a moment, that the dream was more important than the life he actually had to live.

As he grabbed his keys and rushed out the door, the echoes of the dream still lingered faintly in the back of his mind. It had been so perfect, so easy, so warm. But that was all it was—a fleeting escape. And now, as reality came crashing down, he wished he had just turned off the alarm and gotten up.

Because the dream was nice, yes. But it wasn't real.

And this—this—was real. The rushing, the stress, the messy chaos of living. The things he couldn't run from, no matter how tempting the dream might be.

He glanced at his phone one last time, grimacing at the time, and let out a long, frustrated breath. Another late morning. Another broken promise to himself that tomorrow would be different. Another reminder that sometimes, the hardest part of the day was simply deciding to get up.