Lester's Tomorrow:

  Lester was awake for several seconds before he deliberately opened his eyes.   He was having a dream just before, and something happened to wake him up, and it was something he did not enjoy.  It was the dream.  It was coming back to him now after he pulled the blanket up to his chin then stuffed his hands back down between his legs to keep them warm. 

  She was present in his dream as she so often was these days.  They were at his parents' old house, a house he had not set foot in in over twenty years save for during his sleep, and during those times it felt just as familiar as it did when he used to call it Home.  She was there in the kitchen and it was night or morning and he could not remember what had happened, but he felt humiliated by her again.  Several of his friends were there too, he now remembered, and one was twirling her bra around on the end of  his index finger in the air above her head while she giggled and tried to grab it from him.  No one seemed to notice or care that Lester was standing right there in the room with them.  He felt jealous about this bold flirting activity and wanted to say something,  tell them to just stop it, or call her some nasty name, but he didn't want to spoil the gathering with his moodiness.   When she tackled the other friend and straddled him laughing, fighting for her underclothes he knew that they had just slept together.   He began to become more upset and started to say something to them, he began to make his protests known and as soon as he began to speak up they were all gone and he became aware that he was now conscious and staring at the insides of his eyelids.

   He was furious now that to the insult of being cuckolded while he slept could be added the injury of waking up before he was good and ready.   He didn't have to open his eyes and look at a clock to be able to tell it was early still.   He could feel it in the cold air against his face, he could tell by the lack of traffic noises in the street outside.   He kept his eyes closed and tried with all the powers he knew of to get back to sleep and get back inside that dream so he could give everyone a good shaking.   In just a few seconds he knew he would not be able to do it, and in fact was quickly forgetting the plot to this newest episode of somnambulic degradation.      By the time he had opened his eyes,  he entirely disrememberd why he was feeling so humiliated in the first place.    He lay there for a moment, and then pulled the blanket up to his chin before stuffing his hands back down between his legs to keep them warm.    Blinking at the white textured ceiling, he began to recollect, and thereby relive the dream again in tiny fragments, his face wincing now and again involuntarily.

  It was really cold outside of the blankets, and Lester felt really warm and comfortable mantled under them there on the couch like he was, but he didn't want to revisit this dream any longer.  His mind had a way of torturing him with ugly unpleasant visions no matter how much he tried to think about other things, so he thought he would break that cycle this morning by getting up early and giving his tireless brain a rewarding task to perform by ordering it to make him some coffee.   It worked.

   In retrospect, and only after he had risen for very different reasons, did Lester remember that it was New Years Day.    He would subsequently later tell people he had begun performing his new duties of resolution, of which rising earlier was one, but it would be a lie, if even only technically so.   He knew that he was lying, but he really was going to start waking up at 6 anyway soon,  go ahead and watch him and see if he doesn't do it again tomorrow!

    Standing in his kitchen wearing a green sweatshirt over a black t-shirt over a white thermal top, some red boxer shorts and a disintegrating pair of flip-flops,  every breath he exhaled made a little white cloud that floated away from his face and disappeared before the next one was released to chase after it.

  'NOW!' he yelled out loud into the cold, and as if conjured by a magician's trick this word itself turned into one of those little white floating clouds looking not much different than all the rest.  He tucked his hands into his armpits birdlike to keep them warm while he stood there like a fool watching the pot of water and waiting for it to boil.