A Typical Tuesday By Jeff Taylor Calvin Farley sat bolt upright in bed, like some corpse brought suddenly to life. An irritating, high-pitched noise was issuing from the small, squarish object next to his lamp. Calvin reached for it, knocked it over, then picked it up from the floor. He sat on his bed and examined the noisy object in his hand, trying to remember what it was. His sleep-drugged mind worked like some fine machine with caramel poured over the gears on a cold winter's day. Ah, yes, Calvin remembered, it's an alarm clock. How does it turn off? He fumbled with all the knobs and buttons and switches on the back. None of them had any effect on the noise, though. Calvin smashed the thing against the wall. There, now it was quiet. Cal looked at the calendar and moaned in a deep and ritualistic sense. This was a bad. This was very bad. This was not good. It was Tuesday. Tuesday was Calvin's designated "unlucky" day. Aside from the fact that he reaped the benefits of Monday's thoughtless follies, all sorts of horrible things had happened to him on Tuesday. When he was five, he had lost his lucky marbles. When he was Seven, a large dog had run off with his favorite baseball glove. When he was nine, all of his grandparents died. When he was twelve, lightning struck his house and had blown out his Nintendo system. When he was seventeen, a large UPS truck had slid on glare ice, crushing his beautiful new car. All these had happened on Tuesdays. Calvin hated that awful day of the week with a deep and heartfelt passion. He struggled to his feet and staggered to the bathroom to take a shower. Five minutes later he stepped out and toweled dry. Calvin then pulled on his "test day" outfit: black, baggy trousers, a white cotton tunic bound in the middle with a length of chartreuse nylon climbing rope, knee-high black leather boots, a black trench coat, a black wool tam covering his green and turquoise dreadlocks, and a heavy bronze chain with a leering gargoyle face around his neck in order to scare away the evil test spirits. Today was his Gaelic exam. Calvin hopped on his mountain bike and began pedaling off to the University of Washington campus. The hills were terrible; like a giant's unmade bed. Why hadn't Seattle put the roads down around the hills instead of right over them? He also hadn't studied for the exam, which made it another typical Tuesday. This certainly wasn't about to help his grade average. He stopped at a traffic light and waited so that he could cross. * * * Bob Stewart liked his job. Being a bus driver was releasing; there was no hurry. He got a chance to see Seattle as well as some of the interesting people who lived there. Recently, however, he had been growing tired. No amount of coffee could keep him awake anymore. He sighed and glanced at his massive, round reflection in the window. It was a problem, no doubt about it. Bob was feeling especially sleepy right now. Perhaps he really should go see a doctor. He tried to fight off the sleepiness, but it persisted. His bloated eyelids closed and he drifted into a series of warm and comforting dreams. He didn't see the traffic light of the young man in the black trench coat walking his bike in front of the bus. His foot slid off the brake pedal. Calvin saw the bus coming, but he figured that it would stop because it had a red light. He dismissed the bus from his mind. From the direction of the sidewalk, some lady was going into hysterics as if she were watching someone being killed. The bus hit him with unimaginable force and rolled right over him amid the screeching crunch of aluminum and plastic. So far this was Calvin's most unlucky Tuesday. On the other hand, he had an excuse for missing his Gaelic exam. Amazingly enough, he survived being run over by a large bus. Granted, he wasn't in very good shape. However, this isn't important. What is important to remember is that he survived. * * * Calvin woke up just as the nurse was coming in to cheek on him. The last thing he remembered was walking his bike across the intersection. He was in a white room, he hurt everywhere, and he couldn't move. "What happened?" he croaked. "You were run over by a bus," she replied "What day is it?" he asked. "It's Friday. You've been in a coma since they brought you in on Wednesday." "What? I got hit on a Tuesday!" "I'd think you'd better rest," she said, closing the door softly behind her. That's weird, thought Calvin. What happened to Tuesday? It's as if there hadn't been one this week. It would be just like a Tuesday to disappear like that and ruin the rest of the week. Oh, well. It was Friday. Fridays were good days. Maybe if he studied today he would do well on his exam and pull his grade average up. Sadly, these thoughts were cut short by an event of historic significance. At that moment, for reasons unknown to science, the sun exploded. Everyone was denied a view of this significant event because the heat reached Earth before the light of the nova did. The heat vaporized everything on Earth instantly. Perhaps it was just an unlucky week.