New Years Day

“Let’s shift to warp speed helmsman Guy.” Commander Totalie stated with confidence.

Guy responded with a simple, “Eye-eye, Cap.”

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Totalie asked back.

“Nothin’ Cap, just tellin’ yah”

“Okay, so long as we are clear.”

They sat in silence and stared at the screen in front of them. White dots moved slowly from the center and worked their way lazily to the edges. New dots would show up in the center and get added to the ever moving series of dots. It was mesmerizing. 

“Ahem…” a voice drifted in from Totalie’s right. “Ahem!” It repeated.

“Are you getting sick?” Totalie inquired, slowly turning his head to see the communications officer.

“No! but there seems to be something attacking us.” replied the officer.

“Attacking?” Totalie questioned excitedly.

“Well I wouldn’t so much say attacking, but more like pinging us.”

“Pinging? What does that even mean?”

“Sort of like a repeated tapping, against our bow, cap”

Totalie thought deeply about this, then he could hear it, faintly at first, a tap, pause, tap, pause tap… it continued, getting louder. This seemed vaguely familiar. It was digging at his subconscious.

It hit him!

A pebble, through his slightly open window. He rose from his bed and lightly rubbed where he had been kissed by the pebble.

“Are you awake yet?” a bubbly voice rose from outside. Totalie knew that voice, and knew it well. “Come on sleepyhead, don’t make me search for louder rocks!”

Totalie jumped to his feet, he knew if he didn’t the next thing coming through his window was going to be baseball sized. He wasn’t feeling up to dodging projectiles this early in the morning. ‘Weird’ he thought, ‘Is there a time I would feel like dodging projectiles?’

“I see your points! You are awake!” the voice had moved from bubbly to excited. “Totalie! It’s the new year! We have things to do!” She pulled an exclamation point with every sentence. it’s hard to imagine someone could keep that sort of enthusiasm, but if anyone was able to, Trulie was it.

Totalie opened the window beyond the inch or so it was open. ‘How did she get that pebble through that space?’ He thought to himself. A blast of winter air smacked him in the face, any bit of sleepiness that was hanging around hopped on a plane and booked it south. Totalie was awake!

“Haven’t you heard of a doorbell?” Totalie said down to Trulie’s smiling face.

“Yes, but you said not to ring it before noon. So I had to find a different way to get our day started.”

Totalie’s morning sleep plans defeated, he got dressed and met Trulie outside his front door. “Hop, hop, hop,” Trulie was hopping in a circle like a bunny.

“Trulie, what are you doing?” asked Totalie.

“I was hopping you’d ask…” Trulie started, but Totalie interjected quickly.

“Haven’t you already done enough puns today?”

“No! not at all. In fact, I’m behind already.”

“It’s the first of the year how can you already be behind?”

“Well I made this…” Trulie pulls a piece of paper from behind her with some lines scribbled on it and one very very thick line going diagonally across it.

“Graph?” Totalie tried to help.

“Chart.” Trulie stared at Totalie and smiled, “I sea you don’t have legs for this.”

Totalie crossed his arms and stared at Trulie, “Was that a nautical pun?” 

“I prefer boat joke.” Trulie responded.

“I can see this is going to be a long year.”

“Really? I thought they were all the same amount of time. Speaking of…”

“Trulie,” Totalie interjected, “Perhaps we should just get on with the day. I don’t see us making much progress on this porch.”

“Eye-Eye!”