Preamble One, Part Two: A Sobering Message
As he lay passed out in the plush chair, oblivious to the outside world and pleasantly dreamless, Sergio gradually heard the incessant ringing of his telephone machine. He sat up in a bit of a stupor, noticed a surprisingly high number of empty beer cans surrounding his chair, and a truly horrifying burn mark on his beautiful hardwood floor where his cigarette butt had fallen from his sleepy fingers and put a stain on his castle. He immediately began to calculate the cost of one new floorboard, and the cost of tools required to remove the burnt one and replace it with a new one, including varnish.
Mechanically minded as Sergio was, he found this calculation to be especially difficult, which surprised him because he was used to tuning out all mental disruptions when thinking of such things. And the amount of the previous night’s alcohol intake should not have mattered because it was a negligible amount for him. Then he realized that two things were disrupting his normally linear thought process; His telephone machine was ringing and his television set was hissing at a seemingly much louder sound level than it was when he fell asleep.
In one swift movement, he kicked aside the beer cans that lay in front of his feet, switched off the television and rose to answer the telephone. From the other end of the telephone line came a woman’s voice. It belonged to someone who worked at the local hospital where his wife was giving birth to his baby. The voice told him that something was wrong. This voice continued to babble but as soon as Sergio’s limited understanding of the English language communicated to him that a problem had arisen, he hung up the telephone and ran out the door. He continued to run the approximately five miles to the hospital.