The angry beeping of the alarm clock picked mercilessly into Rob's fascinating dream. He was rollerblading, and nearly fell when the beeping swarm of bees came diving in from all sides. But instead, he awoke and groggily smacked the clock from the bedside table. He would have perferred the bees.

The alarm continued to beep from the floor, which was terrible because now it was out of reach. Maybe if he kicked his legs, something might fall off the bed and kill it.

After what felt like an entire minute, he groaned. Then he tiredly crawled from the bed with just enough energy to stop the alarm. And now that he was hanging half off the bed with no energy left, he decided he may as well continue his trip down and bring some blankets with him.

Half an hour later found him curled up with the alarm clock at the foot of the bedside table. And he would have stayed this way all morning if it hadn't been for his backup alarm: his dog.

Who could have thought that a dog's tongue could inspire a man to such a hurculean effort? Somehow Rob made it to his feet.

The rest came naturally as he slept through the routines of the morning, only forgetting a thing or two here and there. His routine brought him as far as the hall outside his apartment before he noticed what time it was. Then he swung into a run, which, as it so happened, was also routine.

By the time he'd made it to the street, his tie was undone and his trousers falling down. But he continued his lope until he'd made it to his car. He'd do his belt up properly at a red light. That's the kind of efficiency he used when attempting to get to work on time.

He pulled carefully into traffic and began his assault on the office building. He'd creep up from behind and then narrow in, careful to avoid the congestion. Maybe he'd be on time. That would be new.

Rob was halfway to the office when a van drove past him and awoke him with a sudden fright. He swung in his seat to stare after it, and was surprised to realize that he had actually seen it right. There was a man riding on the roof of that van!

He shook his head and muttered under his breath about the maniacs in this world. Then he spotted the boy on the bumper of the truck in the other lane. His jaw dropped. What was the boy doing? He could get himself killed! And the driver...well he could be sent to jail for not stopping his vehicle. Rob watched the boy with a frown until the truck turned onto a side street.

Five minutes later, Rob spotted the man on the fountain. A rather ordinary young man with a fashionable jacket and a green scarf, was sitting on the top of the stone fountain as if it was a park bench! Rob stared as he went by, nearly causing a collision with the vehicle in front of him but thinking nothing of it.

By the time he arrived at work, he was shaking his head in incredulous disbelief. The city was full of lunatics this morning! He had also seen some people climbing on the outside of an apartment building, from balcony to balcony. And there'd been a woman sitting on the roof of a gas station eating a sandwhich as if without a care in the world.

For the first time in months, Rob arrived at work fully awake.

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SPOILERS BELOW
Our friend Rob is beginning to see odd people that no one else seems to notice. That's because they are invisible. That's right, an invisible civilization lives within ours. They cannot be seen or heard, but they can be touched. Therefore, they live on roofs, take the high road to avoid people, and are commonly "seen" scaling tall buildings. To say the least, they are highly agile and coordinated. They have to be so that the normal world does not notice them.
But Rob here as certainly noticed them, and if he's not careful he's going to become one of them.

updated Aug 23 by olius_brightwell