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Short Story

Epiphany

Kimberley Martinez sees through the unreality of reality, disastrously.

You know that feeling you sometimes get just before you’re awake? That moment when you’re not quite asleep yet not quite awake, when you suddenly understand every mystery there has ever been, and you think ‘Of course!’ Then as consciousness dawns, the understanding goes as quickly as it came. The fleeting memory fades as you pull yourself out of bed and begin your morning rituals. Perhaps you solemnly regard yourself as you brush your teeth, your reflection staring back at you, urging you to remember.

That feeling happened to Mr Pepperfield all the time. This morning, for example, precisely two minutes before his alarm sounded, he twitched, slowly opened his eyes and thought, “Yes, yes, of course that’s it!”

In the usual course of events, his alarm clock shocked him fully awake and he went unthinking about his day as a very important man in a very important job, driving to work in his very important car and spending the day being very important, before returning again at the end of the day and becoming the least important person in the household.

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