Stress Relief

He was very polite, as was expected of someone in his trade. He was proud of that.

Harold was less proud, and also less polite. "They’re here already," he complained to Marylyn as she hastily roused him. "I thought they were supposed to help us relax, not wake us up at the crack of dawn on the only day I’ve had in years where I can sleep in." It was a futile argument: Marylyn Putrinski was already in the shower, singing excitedly to herself. The slightly off-tune rendition of the Hawaii Five-O theme song was mercifully being muffled by the water, the shower curtain, and the closed bathroom door. With no one to complain to or argue with, Harold capitulated and got out of bed. He pulled back the stained corner of a bedroom curtain and stole a peek out into the drive. The stain was from his own fingers, from a hundred other peeks stolen in the same way, at the same drive. This time, however, Harold saw something different. It wasn’t the neighbors dog crapping in his yard, or the neighbor himself staring up at the bedroom window (the neighbor often would wait in the drive for a sign of life from the Putrinskis, and would bellow up a cheerful "Good morning to you!" if he saw one—much to the annoyance of the Putrinskis). Today, Harold saw a spaceship parked in drive. At least, it looked like a spaceship. He was pretty sure that a normal car couldn’t possibly be that black, or that shiny. At the front, there was an ornament on the hood that Harold didn’t recognize, but he could see the rear-end of the vehicle more clearly, and he could make out the word "Lincoln" despite the reflection of the morning sun, intensified by the crisp lines of chrome. It was as if a killer whale had leapt from the ocean, turned to glass and grown wheels.

Harold picked his nose.

The driver was leaning against the passenger door, reading a tattered paperback. Sensing that he was being watched, he tucked the book away and stood alert once more, eager to serve. Harold dropped the curtain.

"Shit, I can’t believe this is really… real," he breathed. "Holy shit." He pronounced "Holy" in two long syllables, like he was from the south (which he was not). He said it like this: "Hoe—Lee", and then a longer pause and then "Shit". It was the best Harold could do in the way of an exclamation. Harold wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, after all. When it came right down to it, he wasn’t the even the sharpest spoon.

A few moments later, the chauffer was allowed to do his job with aplomb, nestling the two giddy and awestruck bumpkins comfortably into the soft and spacious interior of the limo, and then driving them at a quick and comfortable—but not reckless—pace to the dock. When they arrived they were ushered so quickly onto the Hypnos that their first impression was of the lobby, rather than of the vessel’s rather impressive exterior.

The lobby—special simply from the fact that it was a lobby—consisted of hardwood floors in pattern of dark mahogany and something lighter, possibly cedar. Neither of the Putrinskis has ever seen mahogany before, of course, and while they had seen cedar, they had never seen it beneath layer up layer of highly polished polyurethane finish. Atop the floor, a reception counter stretched longer than the limo had, and shined nearly as bright.