I wake up every morning at 5:00 am; to the sound of blaring alarm from the red alarm clock on my bedside table. At least that’s what they told me. I wake up in the dark, like most people. Along with my eyes closed. Unlike most people.
I don’t grope about my bedside table to hit the off button. I know exactly where to place my fingers to stop the blares. Unlike most people.
I peel off the blanket off my body. Can’t afford to be late to work today. Like most people.
I sit up, at the foot of my bed, head bowed, hands folded. No, I am not praying. Umm, like most people?
I patiently wait for the second alarm to go off. This alarm clock is placed on my study table. This one is blue, so I have been told.
After a few quite minutes, the second alarm goes off. I stand up straight, walk straight towards my study table. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven; exactly seven steps away from my bed. I switch the alarm off. Pull out the old, rickety, cushioned chair. I carefully sit, making sure that no sound escapes the chair. Once seated comfortably, I pull out the book I was reading yesterday night, A game of thrones.
There is a reason I have two alarms placed at two different locations in my room when one would suffice. Initially, when I move into new apartments, it would take me a while to get used to the layout of my apartment. This getting-used-to would cause me delays and minor accidents, which are, well, very inconvenient. So when I moved in here, I came up with a plan, inspired by the triangulation theory that I came across while reading the The martian. I placed the alarm clocks at specific locations in my apartment, with alarms set at specific time intervals. They would behave something like beacons, guiding me around the house until I got a hang of it.
Once I set them out, I would create a mental map of my apparment, I would place other objects relative to these locations. This would smoothen my tour around the house for the first few days. Yea, tour.
After I had all my furniture settled in the new apartment, with the help of a few friends, I placed the first alarm clock on my bedside table. The next on my study table. The third on the kitchen counter, opposite to the refrigerator. A fourth in the living room, beside the DVD player, below the wall mounted television. I placed a few more at similar locations with alarms for specific timings set on them and let the mental image of it slowly build in my mind. One of my friends who was helping me set up my apartment asked me if the clock colours had any significance w.r.t where I placed them.
Roses are red, violets are blue. Colours are something I never knew.
To me, roses are smooth petals with stems of thorns and violets are tiny and thin stemmed. I don’t need colours to describe objects.
With the help of the alarms the first few days went pretty well. My mind was able to
Written long ago but never published blogpost number 2. This was drafted on 27 November 2017.
