Chapter 1

It was a bright, clear, chilly morning, and Oscar J. Stone gently opened his eyes to the white light shining through his bedroom window. He felt around for his glasses on the bedside table and put them on before peering over at the electric clock beside him. 8:53, it read in red digitized numbers. 'Don't have to be at the shop 'til 9:30,' he thought. Not in any sort of hurry, Oscar pulled down the covers and sat up in bed, squinting as he glanced out the window. He put his hand up to his face. He hadn't shaven in a couple of days, and was starting to get a bit of reddish-brown five-o'-clock shadow. He never felt comfortable when clean shaven, of course; he liked to be reminded of his Celtic roots.
Oscar climbed out of bed slowly, and realized his wife Susan had already left for her daily errands. The kids had gone to school, and so he was all alone in his apartment. It was the latest he had woken up in the morning for months, for he had always been an early riser. It seemed a bit strange at first, once he realized that except for the cockroaches beneath the floorboards or the spiders behind the refrigerator, he was the only living being in his apartment room at that time. The familiar noises that were usually heard through the walls in the house, like his two sons wrestling in the living room, his wife vacuuming the hallway, and just any racket from the television in general, were completely absent. He knew that this should have made him feel relieved and relaxed, but for some reason, he felt uncomfortable. His head began to feel light, and his heart started beating a little faster. He dreaded the silence; there needed to be SOME kind of noise going on around him.
Oscar walked over to his black and silver Technics record player in the opposite corner of the room, reached under the table on which it rested, and pulled out one of the albums from his collection at random. He turned it over and looked at the cover. It was Dave Brubeck, one of his favorites. He had a strong liking for jazz, and the smooth rhythm of Take Five seemed a perfect cure for this particular morning. He pulled the vinyl out, placed it on the turntable, and set the needle down, and the melodic sounds of Brubeck began to float around him. He started feeling better, and as he looked back out the window, he noticed the white light was not so blinding to him anymore. His heart rate felt normal again, and he didn't feel the slightest bit dizzy. It was then that Oscar remembered he needed to open his watch repair shop a little earlier that morning, because a client had made an appointment for exactly 9:30, and he needed to clean the place up a bit before he arrived. He then stopped the record, took a quick shower, poured a cup of cold, leftover coffee, grabbed his coat and hat, and headed out the door on his way to the shop.