The phone died overnight, and Mona woke up not to the raspy groans of Tom Waits—who worked part-time as her alarm clock—but to the shouts of upstairs neighbors already in the thick of a lively morning spat. The clock showed around nine, which meant she had just enough time to throw on clothes and dash outside to catch the bus.

Only the front door of the bus was working. Her bag caught on the handrail, she tripped, crashed onto her knee, and ripped her tights.
"Well... The day’s just begun," Mona thought, watching the high-rises blur past the window.

She made it to work almost on time, bought a large cup of coffee from the vending machine, sat down, and turned on her computer. The keyboard hung lifelessly, forcing her to crawl under the desk to yank it out and plug it back in. The heel of her shoe tilted suspiciously. She wiggled it—it creaked and plopped onto the floor.
"Can this be fixed, or do I need new ones? No money left, and payday’s 15 days away..." Mona sighed and straightened up.

Hitting the back of her head on the desk wasn’t as bad as the coffee spilling, flooding all the blueprints due tomorrow, by the way. She spent the late evening redoing them.
"Maybe I’ll take a taxi home," Mona decided, picturing the evening bus packed with scowling faces.

Two blocks in, the taxi wedged itself between a garbage truck and a semi. The truck driver honked; somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed; the bus she’d foolishly scorned glided past. Mona pressed her forehead to the cold window.
"What a nightmare. What a terrible, stupid haze."
"In times like these, I practice spontaneous meditation," the taxi driver suddenly offered. "Close your eyes and count down from ten. At zero, everything will be good. Or very good."

Mona studied the back of his head: "Interesting. How often does he do this while driving? Then again, maybe taxi drivers know something special about life."
She closed her eyes.
"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... zero."

Silence. That was already an improvement.
Mona peeked with one eye and saw stones and grass stems.
"Much better," she agreed, striding forward, briskly moving her paws.
"They tell you not to nap in the sun—you’ll have nightmares!" The thought flashed and vanished into the void swallowing her consciousness.

Her body flopped into the river, and she swam.
"Good. Very good."
Water closed over her large green head.

(Illustration by Hector Herrera)