# 22 : Harvey -Woke up Screaming

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Briiiiiiiiingggggg!

The Alarm clock went off. Harvey woke up screaming. He rolled over and slapped the damn thing. It was Monday morning, right on schedule. Time to get up. Time to go to work. He mustn't be late. He had to stick to his schedule.

Harvey got up, ’took care of business”, dressed, and snagged his lunchbox on the way out the door. He walked down the steps and mounted his bicycle.

Minutes later he was placing an order at a nearby junk food joint right on schedule.

Fifteen minutes later he was riding down the street. He alternated between drinking from a foam cup of coffee in one hand, and eating the donuts from the other. He had no hands left for the handlebars. He didn’t need them. He rode the bicycle effortless using no hands. Pretty good for an old codger.

Just as he had done for the last fifteen years. Right on Schedule.

About an hour later Harvey rode his bike through the gate of the factory where he worked. It was a little bit before daylight. He was about fifteen minutes early.

Just as he had been doing for the last fifteen years.

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Harvey parked his bike in the bike rack, chained it and went inside. He put his backpack in his locker, locked it, and went to stand in line at the time clock. His coworkers were talking visiting and carrying on like young people will. Harvey didn’t say much. He didn’t join in. Harvey didn’t talk much. An old war injury to his throat made his speech difficult for some people to understand. He couldn’t hear all that well either. His hearing loss was due to being to close to too many explosions, weapons fire and loud engine noise. He didn’t even understand their language, mostly. A lot of his co-workers had no English. Harvey didn’t have a lot in common with them other than the job.

At the top of the hour they all began to clock in. Five minutes later Harvey was at his workstation. He operated the glass bead machine. It was a type of sandblaster. Harvey cleaned parts.

He had a fifteen minute coffee break midway through the morning. Harvey went to his locker, removed his lunchbox and went to the break room. He found a seat away from everyone. He sat in the corner, poured himself a cup of coffee from his thermos and read a few pages from an e-book on his smartphone.

Harvey loved his smartphone. He had always been a reader. He’d always had a paperback book in his pocket. The smartphone changed that. He didn’t just have a book, he had a library. Anything at all that he wanted to read he could download from the internet onto his smartphone in seconds. Harvey had literally thousands of books, manuals and other publications stored in his smartphone and backed up on the cloud.

Harvey read books to escape. He could dive into a book and block out the world. He could block out his life. He could forget the pain for a little bit. He’d read almost every Science Fiction book and action adventure book that had been published. That was a LOT of books. He was having to branch out into fantasy, myths and legends for new material.

When the break was over Harvey locked up his stuff and went back to work.

Lunch Break, repeat the procedure. Eat a sandwich.

Mid Afternoon Coffee Break, the same. He drank the last of his coffee.

When quitting time rolled around. Harvey cleaned up his workstation, went to the time clock and punched out. Then he removed his stuff from his locker, walked outside to his bicycle, and rode home.

Just as he had been doing for the last fifteen years.

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@everittdmickey
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