CHAPTER 1

Eric Day was a rather simple man. Please don’t get the wrong idea, I don
’t mean to say he was stupid or simple minded; in fact, Eric was the farthest th
ing from stupid you could find. Eric was simple in the fact that not much had ha
ppened to him in his 26 years of living, and even less had happened to him in th
e past five years at his job as a book editor, and consequently, he had come to
not expect much out of life at all. Life was living up to his expectations as we
ll. Every weekday was the same, wake up, go to work, read, check for correct gra
mmar and punctuation, come home, spend an evening alone, go to bed, and wake up
the next morning to repeat the process. Every weekend was also spent the same, a
lone. One would think that with all the reading he did that he would begin to qu
estion the severe mundane nature of his life, but five years proof reading books
had instead, filled Eric’s life with words and correct use of those words if he
had anything to say about it. Every where he went, Eric looked to make sure thi
ngs were in order, carefully observing to make sure that all grammar was used co
rrectly and that no sentence went unpunctuated.

Eric also was a stickler for punctuality. As a child he had never been l
ate for school, and as an adult, he had never been late for an appointment. In f
act, it was an appointment to which he would not be late, that changed the patte
rn of his life.
When Eric awoke at precisely 6:30 a.m. he had no idea that this particul
ar day was going to be different. That said, Eric got out of bed, made his bed,
paying particular attention to the angle at which his pillows rested on top of t
he sheets. Then he moved to the kitchen and poured a bowl of cereal.
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In the middle of eating his breakfast, Eric’s closest friend hopped up o

n the table and looked at him intently. Of course, this would have been rather o
dd behavior for someone’s closest friend to exhibit, but Eric’s closest friend w
as not like most people’s closet friends, this close friend was Eric’s cat. Eric
’s cat was a remarkably intelligent creature, though Eric rarely spent his time
contemplating his cat’s thought process. Hardly anyone ever does. Instead of ask
ing his cat just how smart he was and exactly what he was thinking, Eric greeted
his cat with a pat on the head and a scratch behind the ear. The cat, named Twa
in, responded with a purr which could have very easily been a giggle, but of cou
rse, since Eric was already out of his chair and rinsing his bowl, he didn’t eve
n notice.

Eric continued his morning, like any other morning, with his cat watchin
g closely. Eric showered, brushed his teeth, and combed his hair with Twain sile
ntly watching. Though Eric never knew, his cat helped his morning along greatly.
When Eric would dress, his cat would very subtly offer his opinion on Eric’s st
yle, and equally subtly, almost unnoticeably to Eric, the advice would be taken.
When Twain would approve of a particular piece of clothing, he would show his a
ppreciation, and like-wise, Twain would show disdain on a piece of clothing he d
id not approve. Eric would not ever notice this consciously, of course, but only
once had Twain given a subtle, yet strict disapproval of a particular piece of
clothing, a pair of yellow argyle socks, and for a reason he had never thought t
wice about, Eric had never again worn those particular socks.
Today; however, Twain was being particularly choosey about what clothes
Eric was wearing. Twice, Eric had emerged from his closet wearing what he though
t would be perfectly adequate attire for a Monday morning, and twice, Twain had
not approved. Of course, to Eric, there was nothing wrong with what he had chose
n. His first outfit had been a simple white dress shirt with black slacks, black
shoes and a pink tie for a splash of color. A perfect choice, except
2
that when he went to look in the mirror and saw Twain resting silently on the be
d behind him, the outfit was no longer a perfect choice at all. Eric could not p
ut his finger on what had been wrong about the choice of clothes, he had worn th
is exact outfit plenty of Mondays before, but decided to change anyway. Eric did
not know that the reason that the outfit he had worn on many other Mondays was
not the right choice because it was a special Monday, but Twain did. Twain’s int
uition said that something remarkable was going to happen on this particular Mon
day and therefore, an ordinary Monday outfit simply would not do.

The second outfit Eric tried was a yellow dress shirt with khaki slacks
and a black tie with brown leather shoes. Of course, for many reasons, Twain did
not approve of this one either. And for an equal amount of reasons, none of whi
ch Eric could express, Eric decided to change his clothes once more.
The third outfit Eric put on was a light blue dress shirt with a darker
blue tie, khaki slacks and brown leather shoes. This outfit was another that Eri
c had frequently wore on Mondays past, and this outfit Twain also looked at in s
ilent disapproval. And of course, as with his other two ensembles, when Eric loo
ked in the mirror, he could not make the outfit look just right. However, beyond
Twain, on Eric’s bedside table there lied a clock that Eric did notice consciou
sly. He also consciously noticed that he was now fifteen minutes behind schedule
. Eric looked back at his outfit in the mirror, and though it did not look quite
right on him today, he did not have time to waste in his closet looking for som
ething that would fit this Monday. He did; however, have just enough time to fol
d another shirt and tie and pair of pants into his briefcase. And though of cour
se Eric wouldn’t notice, Twain flipped his tail once in approval.
Also lying in Eric’s briefcase, now underneath a pile of neatly folded d
ress clothes, was an unpublished manuscript for a somewhat depressing autobiogra
phy by a man who had lost his
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house in a fire and afterward was promptly fired from his job. It was this manus
cript that Eric was on his way to discuss in an appointment with its author for
which he was now almost twenty minutes behind schedule, and it was this fact tha
t made Eric leave his spacious, third floor apartment in a hurry, leaving his wr
istwatch behind on the end table next to his suede couch. Of course, Twain tried
to alert Eric to his mistake, but, being a creature of such few words limited t
he number of ways that Twain could catch Eric’s attention, and consequently, Twa
in failed in his attempt, and Eric left with a bare wrist.