Bind

Interpose

Electronic buzzing broke through my consciousness.

I snapped upright.

What the hell?

The noise was coming from an alarm clock… my alarm clock. Oh no, I was late! Damn!

I slapped the snooze angrily.

Crap, crap, crap. Late again. How do I end up over sleeping with that noisy plastic mongrel? It’s louder than Marilyn at a bar.

I hopped out of bed and fell to the ground as my muscles gave in.

Ow!

 I looked down to see my legs marked up with heavy black and purple bruises. My heart-rate flared and blood rushed to my face.

What the hell happened?!

 I stood up slowly, wading through the pain as I supported my own weight. My heart boomed in my ears as watery knifes stabbed at my stomach. I let the dread wash over me. I was too asleep to reason with it, and I didn’t have much ammo anyway.

I remained still as I looked over my destroyed legs, trying to remember what happened. I quickly checked the rest of my body to see if I could find anything else wrong. I followed the customary protocol for checking my body’s physical state after losing time, tensing muscles, heightening nerves. No scratches, no broken bones, just battered skin. Did I blackout again? How much time was lost?

I glanced over my nightstand for my phone and saw a sleek new one in its place. How much changed this time? Panic coiled in my heart as I poked the gleaming surface, since I couldn’t find the appropriate button. The phone came to life. It told me the time and date with a sliding lock at the bottom of the display. Great… why would I ever get a touch phone? What happened to my old one?

I saw that it was 8:43am, Wednesday the 11th of November.

Oh my god! It was the 5th wasn’t it? I was in the movie theater with Marilyn… wasn’t I? I’ve never lost six whole days before. What did I do?!

I jumped when the thing buzzed in my hand. I cursed and hissed as my legs screamed at my sudden movement.

Well that was unpleasant.

A little red light blinked at me to let me know something I didn’t understand yet. I expected the manual to be somewhere in my room. I tapped the screen again to try and get it to tell me its secrets, but it was still locked. Damn!

Wait…

I remembered Marilyn’s phone and all the glamorous little quirks it had. I touched the locked icon in the bottom left hand corner and slid it to the right. The display changed and told me I had one text message.

Huh… neat.

I tapped on the little letter envelope in the center of the screen and the text became visible. Ok, so maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. My brain tried to decipher the cryptic language of the text.

Hey! Where r u? u said u  were ready

2 come back 2 school 2day.

I tried not to be irritated at the slack handed writing style of Marilyn’s texting. How hard was it to press two extra buttons? The meaning of the message floated to the surface of my mind.

Crap! That’s right, I was still late!

I tried to ignore the pain as I shoved a pair of jeans on. I checked the pockets. Ok, my wallet is still there. The sleek phone slid neatly into my adjacent pocket. I put on some deodorant, attempted to fix my tangled hair, and flew down the hall. I went to grab my keys off the key rack, but the only ones there, were foreign to me.