Fragment 2
December 7, 2009
Beep beep beep… beep beep beep
Alex’s eyes popped open and he struggled for a second to get them to focus, as the cloud of confusion slowly dissipated. The large flag of Mexico that hung on the wall opposite his bed was the first thing that greeted him each morning, a present from his Uncle Oscar, given on his 6th birthday. The small wrist watch lying on the coffee table beside the bed read 6:30 am. Alex would have liked to sleep for a few more minutes, but simple rules prevented it. If he waited to set the morning alarm for 7:00, he would miss the bus that took him to school, and Alex refused to wake up on anything but o’clocks and thirties.
Alex sat on his front stoop lawn chair and leveraged all his weight onto the tube of Crest lying in his lap. Squeezing the last bit of paste onto the toothbrush, Alex flung the empty tube into the front lawn, where it joined a sea of other discarded trash.
