"Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve," I chanted, while I was poking my fast asleep flatmate, "wake up, wake up".
Steve rolled in bed, still half asleep and managed to slap my hand in order to get back to his peaceful sleep, but it didn't work. I was still calling for his name and, at this point, shaking his arm.
"Dude, let me sleep, I gotta work tomorrow morning!" He yelled at me, but I didn't even look at him, I just went on staring through the window. "Do you have any idea what time is it?"
"Do you?"
Steve glanced at the window, it was still dark and the street lamps outside was the only source of light in the room. He was annoyed and sleepy, but I could tell he was a bit curious about what the fuck I was talking about.
"I don't know?" he answered with a shrug of shoulders, "3:00 AM?"
"9:07."
He must have thought I went crazy, and to be fair, I would think so too. But in that said morning nothing really made sense and being woken up by your friend just to see him standing in the middle of the room staring at the window isn't something that common.
"What?" Steve finally said.
"I know, right? My alarm just went out a few minutes ago, but it was still dark so I thought I messed something up while I was setting it last night," I grabbed my phone from my pajama pocket and showed him the time, everything looked normal. "but the thing is, I didn't. So I went on the web and looked up for the world time, which by the way is very accurate and trustworthy, and it was in fact, nine fucking am."
Steve handed back the phone and looked at me, clearly confused. "So?" he asked.
"So?!" I yelled. "Look outside and tell me if there is anything missing."
"Come on, can't you just let me sleep?"
"Just fucking do it, Steve."
He looked outside, looked at the sky, looked at the trees, looked at the cars, he even looked at the neighbours' window across the street. He was still clueless.
"Nobody is walking, people should be going to work at this time right?" he answered finally.
"Oh boy," I sighed, "the fucking sun is missing you dumbass!" I was screaming at this point. "It's summer, and it's nine in the morning, there should be a blazing sun outside."
"Shit." The realization of what the hell was happening seemed to be sinking in very slowly on his mind. "What should we do?"
I think nothing would be the correct answer, right? Stick with me on this one: imagine you wake up, another day in you life, and something was off, something very subtle yet extremely important, like the sun. Was there anything you could do about it?
"Wanna have some breakfast?" I suggested.
"Shouldn't we call it dinner?"
I shrugged. We stayed there for a bit just staring outside, maybe waiting for something to happen, we even tilted our head as if maybe looking at the sky in a different angle could change something.
We just ended up going to the kitchen and made toasts. I wasn't hungry, but I had the urge to eat something, maybe I was just nervous about everything that was happening. Steve also seemed weird, he was stuffing the jelly and toast down his throat as if there was no tomorrow. And he might have been right.
"Why are you eating so fast? You're gonna end up choking." I asked.
"Well, if this isn't just a fever dream I'm having..."
"We are having, I'm in this too." I interrupted.
"Anyways, that means, it's really nine in the morning, and I missed my alarm, and if I don't hurry up, I'll be late for work." He completed.
"I don't think you realize what is going on here. The sun went missing. Honestly fuck your job, there are more important things going on here."
Steve put his toast down and leaned back on his chair. He has always been very stubborn, ever since I've known him, so I was actually surprised he even took it in consideration.
"So I'm just supposed to not go on with my day?" He questioned.
"To be fair I am this close to flip my shit and yell in despair," I replied, "so yeah, I think you shouldn't go on as if everything was normal."
"Alright I guess." he grabbed back his toast and ate it a bit slower. "What are we gonna do then?" He stared at his me, waiting for an answer, and it wasn't like I haven't heard him. It was a small kitchen table, I couldn't ignore him even if I wanted to, but I had something in mind, the last resource of hope in desperate times such as that morning. "Mike?"
"Yeah, I heard you." Steve kept staring me down, and gesturing 'so?', after a bit more of chin scratching and deep thinking, I finally sighed and said: "I think we should have a meeting."
Steve's expressions changed drastically after listening to those words, he even dropped his knife and got the kitchen floor dirty with jelly.
"Really? You think is that drastic?"
"I mean, yes, is a summer morning and it's pitch dark outside, I guess that calls for a meeting."
"Mike, we haven't done that in like 3 years."
"Better late than never." I stood up and clapped once. "I'm making the calls."
Steve sighed and went on with his breakfast/dinner. The meeting we're both so dramatically referring to is a gathering with friends we used to make in middle and in high school. Steve, Sofy, Thomas and me. We're very close friends since middle school and have done a lot of meetings to debate and decide important things in life, such as what dress Sofy should wear to middle school graduation, or which sport should Mike do during winter season, which major should we study in college and stuff like that.
The way the meeting would work is, we would gather anywhere we could, usually in someone's basement with snacks and games to play after the decision was called. But some most urgent meeting have happened is unusual places, like the handicapped stall in the school's restroom. It would always work out, we would display the problem and come up with solution, it was very fun and most the times there was no bad consequences to our poorly thought decisions.
After high school graduation, we haven't had any meetings, and in fact, we kinda lost touch with each other, except for me and Steve since we share a flat, but Sofy and Thomas moved out town for college so we hadn't had a real conversation in forever. I still text them in their birthday, and we follow each other on social media, but it hasn't been the same.
I grabbed my phone and looked for Thomas' number, I knew both of them were in town for the summer vacation, so they would have no excuses not to come.
"Oh it's ringing!" I exclaimed.
"Who did you call first?" Steve asked.
"Shhh" I signed back to him. "Good morning, Thom-Thom."
"Please don't call me that, ever again." His voice through the phone sounded as if he was barely awake. "What do you want?"
"We need to have a meeting."
There was a pause on the phone followed by a long sigh.
"Isn't a little too early to be making phone calls?" Thomas asked.
"That's the whole point of the meeting..." I replied.
"We haven't had a meeting in ages, that was a high school thing." He went on, interrupting me.
"Thomas, trust me on this one, it's urgent. Listen, just be in our apartment in one hour, bye!" I yelled, and hung up on him.
"What did he say?" Asked Steve.
"He was excited about it," I lied, "and he said he misses us a lot".
"Weird..."
"Ok, time to call Sofy."
I can't deny I was a bit excited about having one of those meetings again.
