Day 57 - Alarm Clock

 ALARM CLOCK

Prompt - Alarm Clock : Write about waking up.

There was a noise that wouldn't stop.  Leading to irritation.  Puzzlement. Fog.  Alex turned over, hoping it would simply stop, go away, leave him alone.  Why was it happening?  Slowly the power of his brain was able to shrug off sleep enough to realise that it was his alarm going off.  And then he remembered why.

It was a shock.  A double shock.  The first part of that being the alarm itself.  Nine years since he'd retired, after forty three of early mornings, getting into work by eight, getting the job done.  Obeying the alarm that woke him and Mags at six thirty, day after day after day.  When he'd left they'd sat down and discussed what they were going to do with this new life together.  And what they wouldn't do.  Being slaves to the early morning bell was one of the first to go.  

Like being reborn.  Their days felt relaxed, pleasurable, actually theirs to own and use.  They had fun, something that had seemed unimaginable for decades.  They no longer had to endure all those external pressures, so it felt like every day was a weekend, except that even their weekends had been busy, especially when Greta was young.  Eight and bit years they had, then Mags was taken from him, suddenly.  Heart failure, when they'd been on a fairground ride together, holding hands.  The shock still hadn't left him, eight months later, but he always smiled to think she'd died doing something she'd loved.  There had been a good few fairgrounds before that.  

But there had been a hole in their life too.  A Greta shaped hole.  Their daughter had cut them out of her world a few years before he'd retired, unable to take any more of what she always saw as her mother's interference in her life.  Alex had tried to fill in the cracks, but didn't have the diplomatic skills.  He knew Greta was right, but he could never have told his wife that.  Loyalty was strong within him.  They found what they needed to enjoy their life without their daughter, but it was always in the background.

He called Greta when Mags died, but she'd changed her number and never told them.   He wasn't even sure where she lived now.  Until last week.  He was wary of unexpected calls from strange numbers, but something made him pick up this one.  It was Greta.  She'd only just learned of her mother's death, she was in Perth now, she had two daughters and would Alex want to meet them?  There was more, but those were the bits he focussed on.  He had granddaughters, he would get to see them, and his daughter wanted him back in her life.  It wasn't life with Mags, but it sounded like it might be a bloody good compensation.

All this flooded back into his shuffling mind, gradually absorbing the day ahead.  Get himself up, and out, and on board the 09.45 from platform eight.  And see what this day brought.  Another new life?  His alarm clock had never been so important.