Test Day

Morgan awoke on the 3rd of July feeling slightly dazed. He'd been in the middle of a wonderful dream—somebody was congratulating him with a certificate when his alarm clock rudely exploded into applause.

"... that concludes Miles Davis' famous performance of So What, recorded live in Stockholm in 1960." announced the DJ who was now queuing up another classic he assured the listeners they'd recognize. Morgan did not.

Dimly, a memory swam to the fore of his consciousness... And it hit him like a wet fish. He knew the woman in his dream. She was the lead scientist of the longitudinal study he'd enrolled in two decades ago.

Today was the final day of the study to determine whether or not he were a competent human being—and he was beginning to think that he was not off to a great start.

What the parameters of their inquiry were, Morgan could not know. His ignorance was essential to the integrity of the study, they'd explained. He was given a phone and told to return it for an upgrade every two years and in the meanwhile to try to make something of himself.

In that regard, Morgan thought he'd succeed fantastically. He was a DJ by night and a barista during the day. In fact, his next shift was in half an hour.

He knew he was late the moment he heard the backup alarm, which usually was his queue to exit the shower. He must've passed out last night, he reasoned, feeling a strong urge to brush his teeth.

He did so.

While brushing, Morgan flung open the window to check the weather and traffic, when turning his head—to his great surprise—he found himself face to face with a giraffe. It appeared that someone had fed it peanut butter, causing its long blue tongue to flop wildly as it scraped the roof of its mouth.

Looking around, Morgan saw the entire street was ground-zero for a pop-up circus. He wanted to complain about the lack of notice—but lost steam immediately. He hadn't checked his snail mail in weeks.

After all, everything he needed was on his phone, he'd thought and now regretted.

Morgan had no time to shower. Ripping off yesterday's husk, he donned fresh clothes—albeit with a fantastically mismatched pair of socks—one embroidered with hamburgers and the other meant for skiing.

Morgan knew the circus would delay the buses so he made a very brave choice that turned out to be a tremendous mistake. He decided to rollerblade to work.

While strapping on his skates, Morgans thoughts turned to dread. He tried to convince himself there was nothing inherently dangerous about strapping columns of wheels to his feet and hurtling down the street alongside two ton metal-polymer automobiles—some on which pilot themselves and could crush his torso like a ketchup packet—while wearing nothing for protection but a Starbucks apron and a styrofoam helmet.

Furiously, Morgan pinched himself accidentally with his chinstrap and heaved a exasperated sigh, asking aloud of no one, "Why did the circus have to be today?" And with that he exited the threshold, abandoning comfort, and immersed himself in the awaiting chaos...

Morgan bought a churro from a vendor by his porch and flung himself down the street. Within moments his childhood reflexes had returned. This was easy. This was fun! He could do this—he would do this. How he'd love to come out of this 20 year long invasion of privacy with a declaration of competence! He laughed aloud from sheer mirth. Gliding down the lane, taking in the scene, the thought occurred to him that he might even score some points for adapting so gracefully to the untimely disruption to his routine.

Unfortunately, rollerblades are not known for their incredible stopping speed...

It's probably just a tremor, Morgan thought as the ground beneath his skates began to shake, causing him to wobble sporadically.

Stopping had occurred to Morgan but the trouble was his brain seemed to have lost control of his legs. Zooming down the hillside, he was rocketed forward by a sudden jolt in the asphalt—somehow managing to maintain balance by waving his arms crazily like a cartoon bird.

To his horror, Morgan watched the bottom of the hill flake apart like the crust of an apple pie as a slice is dislodged.

Flabbergasted by how quickly rollerblades lose their frictive forces when the chunk of planet you are traversing abruptly and dramatically changes its angle in relation to the rest of Earth's central mass, Morgan nevertheless calculated that he was batshit out of luck and attempted to hitch a ride on a self-driving car—which was making remarkable progress up the broken ground—by flinging himself headlong at the hood.

The car automatically swerved out of the way.

Morgan tumbled down the crevice and was poured into darkness...

Peering up for his last dire glimpse of sunlight, Morgan watched as the Salesforce tower wobbled and toppled into the Goodyear blimp, ripping it from the sky, trailing flames in its wake like ribbons on a kite.

Descending into the unlikely cavernous depths beneath the city, Morgan's final thought was this: would the earthquake nullify today’s effect on the study? But with a sinking feeling, he knew it would not. If he couldn't demonstrate competence in a crisis, then he surely was not competent.

Morgan's helmet cracked into a water pipe as he flipped, akimbo into the abyss and knew no more...

How much time had elapsed before Morgan regained consciousness, he knew not—nor did he have any recollection of the previous half-hour.

Propping himself up on a mound of freshly fallen dirt, amidst a cornucopia of random street debris and more glow sticks than was entirely warranted—all of which fit comfortably within what was unmistakably a Tyrannosaurus Rex footprint—Morgan awoke, feeling slightly dazed with the faint awareness that today was somehow important and—reeling from the splitting pain of stirring his head—he was beginning to think that he was not off to a great start.