1961 Rude Awakening
It's night in New York City. The lights of skyscrapers, cars, and street lamps mingle with one another to recreate shape and color in contrast to the sky whose stars are made invisible by the city's glare. Occasional people walk the sidewalks of the boroughs, but the crowd is thinning out in anticipation of the early morning calm when garbage trucks and delivery boys take their turn in defining the rules of the Big Apple.
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn. A lone brownstone sits silent. The windows are dark and compliment quite well the shriveled ivy that has somewhat successfully taken over the southern wall. It is probably a lovely sight in summer, but not today. It's cold in November especially at 3 o'clock on an unusually chilly for the season night.
One of those windows is a bedroom filled with obscure shapes and an eerily red glow that helps mark the time on an alarm clock casually set by the bed. It is 3:27 AM.
Suddenly and alarm sounds and breaks the silence: "WEE...WEE...WEE...WEE". A small hand reaches from under the covers and hovers aimlessly above the night stand for a few seconds before it starts to press random buttons on the clock. The alarm continues to sound in the background: "WEE...WEE...WEE...WEE".
The attempts of the tiny hand to discontinue the noisy intruder become more determined and frantic, but unfortunalty not more successful: "WEE...WEE...WEE..WEE"
A head of messy light brown hair emerges from the covers with eyes closed; a desperate lunge later the alarm clock's chord gets pulled out of the plug. A second of silence follows and then a higher pitched: "WEE...WEE...WEE" is thrust back in the room.
A night light flickers and comes on. A smart phone (unknown brand with what seems impossibly too many apps on its touchscreen) is picked up. The nimble fingers half-heartedly press a few crucial keys before a holographic image pops up and the alarm, or whatever the noise is, finally stops.
"Jasper, honey, isn't it a bit early even for you" says the woman while desperately trying to tame her hair while looking for her slippers while smiling at the hologram.
"Wish I could say I couldn't wait to see you, sweetheart (jokingly)... Alas, not a social call, Deputy Director (now more serious). There is something you should be made aware of... a bit of a situation is developing". The hologram is a blue shadow of a man, his army cut hair contrast the old fashioned round glasses that are noticeably too big for his face.
"Jasper..." the woman starts to protest as we see her barefooted in a comfy fitting albeit slightly masculine black silk pajama, hair all over the place and an annoyed frown on her face. Apparently multitasking early in the morning is not her thing.
"Before you chew me up instead of the breakfast I am sure you'll skip (very unhealthy, by the way, definitely the root cause of the glares I get from you before noon)... Laura, please, turn the TV on... CNN. See you in 30, Agent Sitwell out", with that and a well defined click the hologram disappears.