Chapter Four The Alarm Clock Revenge
Linda
IT BEGAN WITH a funeral.
Linda stood in her small backyard. Despite the sweltering Texas heat, she was wearing black yoga pants and her old high school debate team hoodie—the closest thing she owned to mourning attire that wasn’t in the laundry. Beside her, Sara solemnly held a half-melted chocolate pudding cup like it was a sacred chalice.
“In loving memory of function,” Linda intoned, voice grave. “You had one job. ”
She gestured to the shoebox on the grass, its cardboard flaps draped with a paper towel like a makeshift casket. Inside: the formerly sleek, now slightly cracked, über-expensive alarm clock that had betrayed her. Twice. She might forgive once—but twice? Never. The ‘teach-it-a-lesson’ throw had been a little too enthusiastic.
“And failed,” Sara added helpfully.
Linda nodded, a hand to her heart. “Failed spectacularly. Let the record show, you were shiny, needlessly complicated, and wildly overconfident in your Bluetooth syncing abilities.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
A bird chirped. Somewhere in the distance, a neighbor’s dog barked. The world went on, uncaring.
“Should we… say a few words?” Sara asked.
Linda tilted her head. “I think I already said several. Loudly. This morning. One of them might have been in German.”
“Oh right. Schei?e. Very moving. I’d like to say a few,” Sara said, straightening like she was about to address the United Nations.
She cleared her throat. “You were sleek. You were modern. You were too expensive for someone who still uses her oven for shoe storage. But most importantly—you made my best friend believe. Believe in structure. In timeliness. In corporate competence. And then you betrayed her .
“You beeped in German once. You ignored your calling. And you died a coward.”
She sniffled. “Rest in circuits.”
Linda took a deep breath. “Okay. Time for the final act.”
She pulled out a small garden trowel, but after two minutes of half-hearted digging and discovering the ground was 82% roots and 18% regret, she gave up and instead plucked the alarm clock from the box, stomped over to the trash can.
She paused, holding it in both hands like a cursed artifact. “We could do a ceremonial smashing,” she muttered.
Sara perked up. “I have a mallet.”
“No,” Linda said, solemn again. “That’s what it wants. It wants me to stoop to its level. Violence would only give it closure.”
She yeeted it inside with all the dignity of a Shakespearean queen.
“Long live the phone alarm.”
“May it never betray you,” Sara said, raising her pudding cup in salute.
Linda clinked it with a spoon. “To new beginnings. And to not running into Mr. Arrogant ever again.”
Sara gave her a look .
Linda groaned. “Oh God, he’s gonna be at the office party Friday, isn’t he?”
“Rumor has it he’s bringing the dog as a plus one.”
Linda straightened up like she'd been electrocuted. “No. He wouldn't. That’s not allowed. There’s a no-pets-on-carpet clause in the handbook.”
Sara shrugged. “It’s on the loading dock this year. Carpet-free and chaos-optimized.”
“Of course it is,” Linda muttered. “Of course the universe would hand him the perfect dog-friendly, emotionally dangerous platform to exist on.”
Sara popped a spoonful of pudding. “Sounds like fate.”
Linda stared at the pudding. Then the trash can. “Wait—what if this is sabotage? By the clock.”
There was a beat.
“Well, damn it,” Linda muttered. “I have to go. I can’t let the corgi think I’m rude.” And maybe… maybe I don’t want him to think that either. Not that it matters. It wasn’t about the dog. Or the clock. Or the pudding. It was the fact that she didn’t want to spend another weekend nursing bruised pride and pretending she didn’t care what his smile looked like in bad office lighting.
Sara grinned. “And who knows? Maybe the dog’s charming enough to make up for his handler. ”
“Doubtful,” Linda sniffed. “But at least one of them will probably respond when I say ‘wake up.’ Unlike some things.”
From the trash can, the alarm clock remained silent.
But the lid twitched. Once. Like a final warning.
Linda narrowed her eyes. “I swear, if you’re downloading a firmware update in hell, I will call an exorcist.”
Sara spooned pudding with grim satisfaction. “That thing’s not the only one who should be scared. You’re wearing real pants and considering emotional growth. That’s terrifying.”
Somewhere in the wind, a dog barked.
Friday was coming.