that it might even be considered outright unpatriotic to pass over such a great bargain.
Ch.ase rolled over, yawning and scratching his stomach absently before continuing onward to attend to a sudden persistent itch on his right buttock. Groaning somewhat as he laboriously heaved himself onto his left side with his eyes still squeezed tightly shut, his right hand swung drunkenly overhead the nightstand like some derelict shipyard crane. It groped about clumsily in the still contourless spacey void surrounding his bed as it searched, unsuccessfully at first, for the source of this unwelcome early morning disturbance. Annoyed at this initial setback, Ch.ase finally succeeded after managing to pry open his eyes just a tiny crack to assist in orientation. Upon doing so, he ventured his first cautious glance at the faintly luminescent numbers visible on the slightly smudged face of the clock. Taking in a deep breath, he drew his legs up somewhat under the warmth of the blanket, doubling slightly as he lay there in a near-fetal position with his hand resting flat on his abdomen just below his navel. Remaining semi-petrified in this position for an indeterminate length of time, visions of immense silver-skinned meteorological weather balloons began spontaneously bouncing about in the still-sluggish grey matter between his ears. It was as though he were sitting leisurely in front of the telly.tube, watching the balloons float aimlessly and effortlessly about, first here, then there, growing ever larger as they ascended smartly in the ionosphere that was his lower gut. Completely stationary and still enveloped in his blanket, he vaguely began to comprehend the significance of these visions as he registered the first urgent call of his long-neglected bladder, now clearly communicating one of its most immediate requirements to the still-stationary cerebral cortex regions entrusted with the mundane task of regulating it and a number of his more immediate basic biological functions.
And though the transition from sleep to waking was for Ch.ase a process best described as gradual, his synapses were indisputably beginning to come online now. One brief burst of concentrated activity was all that he required in order to formulate an accurate assessment his present situation. Although he admittedly wasn’t yet very far into the day, he had somehow already instantaneously determined, whether on the basis of past experience or simply by intuition, that it would be a safe assumption to state that this day was going to feel like crap.scheiss as it progressed.
This unhappy sensation of his may have been reinforced to some small degree by the fact that 5:00 am was, when viewed objectively, far too early to reasonably expect a chronically-harried person in his elevated position to regularly commence working day’s activities in anything other than a state of fatigue, confusion or, alternatively, the foulest of moods. His days were just too long to begin this early with a smile.
All that rubbish about whistling while you work certainly didn’t apply to this kind of situation and Ch.ase, for one, staunchly refused to feel apologetic in the least about this.
Getting up this early sucked.
But unfortunately, in the course of humanity’s daily trials and tribulations, it is a fact of everyday life that intentions can at times become subject to perversion through the simplest necessities. And thus it was now, as the time was rapidly nearing for Ch.ase to get into gear, to clamber out of bed and begin with at least the most rudimentary preparations for going to work.
Philosophy was for the idle.
So by now, with the passing of no more than just a few fleetingly short minutes, duty had begun summoning him in a voice that was as clear and keen as that of a siren back in the days of mythical lore, albeit considerably less seductively. Ch.ase no longer led the unhurried life of some mere mortal rehabilitation officer in an elementary position at dep.Corr, as the state corrections system was officially referred to. Instead, he had fairly bolted his way up the career ladder within this institution, ascending it in an impressive, almost breathtaking, series of leaps and bounds. His success had culminated in his having recently been awarded promotion to the much-coveted position of facility warden at a trendy chic showpiece maximum security facility commonly referred to in Libertyville@Esperantia as da.Maze.
Although this term was in reality technically false because it represented only a sloppy translation of its official teutonically-inspired name, irr.Garten Penal and Corrections, Inc., it was nonetheless so commonly referred to as da.Maze that the name eventually stuck, no doubt in part due to some convoluted admiration of the namesake, a similar Irish institution of yore. Indeed, it had in the meanwhile become accepted, if not fashionable, to refer to it as such since only a relatively diminutive handful of people in Libertyville@Esperantia were suitably endowed with the ability to convincingly pronounce the kind of stern diction embodied in the facility’s true name. It was often half-joked that a two to four generation ancestry harking back to some obscure distant Franconian hillbilly hole-in-the-wall town was arguably the minimum pedigree required to produce the double “R” sound contained within the name irr.Garten with any semblance of authenticity, allowing it to rattle sharply over the top of one’s tongue with the suitably arrogant intonation before suddenly snapping into the following “G” consonant. From a pronunciation point of view, it was probably no great overstatement to describe it as the phonetic equivalent of a barrel roll combined with an Immelmann. In the local vernacular, the name often enough mutated to something vaguely resembling “eargarden”.
But da.Maze, by contrast, was infinitely easier to pronounce and everyone knew exactly what was meant by it anyhow. And it could well be argued that the image of the facility in the public’s perception probably over time even gained a bit more mystique through this makeshift translation that had gained such widespread acceptance.
As he lay on the bed, now prone on his back but with his somewhat knobby whitish knees angled skyward, Ch.ase–having nearly lost the first tentative skirmish of the day against the dictates of his circadian rhythm–began to involuntarily drift, slowly but surely, back again into the arms of another round of uneasy and unauthorized slumber, his leaden eyelids falling firmly shut once more as he succumbed to the weight of his head sinking back tiredly into the pillow, slightly yellowed as it was, a tad musty and obviously quite old. Its genuine hypoallergenic Na.Choo!No.Sneeze Styrofoam pellet filling had been mercilessly flattened through many long years of use.
As his head settled back onto the pillow and sleep threatened to lure him back into its comfortable void, the synapses of his brain suddenly rattled back to life again, driven now by a veritable firestorm of bioelectrical activity prodded on by something that immediately manifested itself in the form of a two-headed demon consisting of fear of consequences as well as a potential bout of simple bad conscience.
And so, in a concentrated flash of cold, hard rational thinking, he forced himself into admitting that there was no point in further procrastination now. He was going to have to have a serious go at this.
He was going to have to get his butt out of bed, he thought. It was now or never.
As he did on almost every morning at some point in the laborious process of waking up and just prior to rolling out of bed, he drew a single, sharp deep breath. Although Ch.ase himself was unlikely to have registered it at such an unholy hour, the sound he actually produced in that instant as he mobilized his resolve would have proved to be quite revealing if there had only been someone around to hear it. It was the same kind of quick breath that one might take immediately prior to being forcibly tossed overboard from an ocean-going vessel and submerged into the cool waters off the shore of a somewhat less than delightful archipelago such as those bordering the Bering Sea during one of the more frigid seasons. In winter, the time of year that was once generally referred to as January, February or March, for instance. That was way back in that diffuse era before the Gregorian calendar was unceremoniously canned, having been rendered obsolete by the almost complete demise of any truly linear notion of time.
Thus, following only the briefest of respites, Ch.ase soldiered on through his private purgatories that unfolded in rapid succession within his head in these wee hours, drawing back the sheet and blanket in a concerted display of sheer determination, focused on now rising with a passable attitude of resolve and vigor to greet the new day head on.
And then, despite his having finally gotten this far, he stopped abruptly short.
The birds were back.
He couldn’t believe his ears.