Day After Day

The alarm went off… again. This time, instead of hitting snooze I turned it off and glanced up at the closed curtains, seeing the morning light around their edges. Getting out of bed, I stubbed my toe on the book I’d dropped on the floor, just as I had the previous morning. Again, I reminded myself to clear all the junk off the bedside table so I didn’t have to keep dropping my book on the floor last thing at night and stubbing my toe on it again every morning.

I stumbled over to the closed curtains, opening them just wide enough to take a peek at what the world had in store for me. I saw it was raining, just like the day before. I noticed the woman from up the street passing by, again. I’d never learnt her name. She was walking head down in the rain, struggling with her umbrella, just like yesterday morning. It looked as though the wind had blown her umbrella inside out… again.

I turned from the window and found my way to the bathroom. As I was pulling the little tab of silver paper off the new tube of toothpaste, something struck me about the morning so far. But I couldn’t put my finger on what was troubling me.

Down in the kitchen, I put the kettle on to boil and switched on the radio. The news headlines didn’t change, the same stories as yesterday.

Then I remembered what had struck me as odd in the bathroom. I’d opened a new tube of toothpaste yesterday morning too.

Then the newsreader said something about the headlines for Wednesday 16^th March. Then, suddenly as the kettle boiled, I remembered he’d said exactly the same thing yesterday: the same day, the same date, just as the kettle had boiled.