I spent all of Sunday asleep — I didn’t wake up until 5 PM. When I went in to work the next day, everything felt sluggish and boring. The bags under my eyes were intense enough to be designer.

My world moved in slow-motion for the next three days. Get up, get dressed, clip on my tacky name-tag, clock-in, organize schedules, reports and paperwork for my boss: the head of marketing at ExcitMint Gum. I don’t know about you, but I feel like you stop getting “ExcitMinted” about gum as soon as you pass grade school, and it stops being something to keep secret and hide in your mouth from the teacher.

Whatever.

The filing cabinet seemed to open at turtle-speed, every tiny click of the tip of a manilla folder hitting the top of the cabinet seemed to etch itself into time, lengthening the seconds and pausing the clock. The scratch of pens and clicking of computer keys seemed to grow lower in resonance as time slowed.

Why had time moved so fast around Mariann and Mariann’s boyfriend? And why — why hadn’t I gotten their numbers? Was I dumb? I was probably dumb.

Nothing was interesting. Everything was numb. I slurped my gross instant coffee and felt every single disgusting droplet slide down my throat. I looked up at the big digital clock on the wall, willing an hour at least to have passed. Four minutes and three seconds. It was 8:04 and three seconds in the AM, and I felt like I was about to die. No. I was not about to die — I was already dead, my funeral had already passed, and I had already gone back to dust, because time had obviously left me behind. This was a loop and I was stuck in this moment, this mundane moment, this moment that was full of nothing but the absence of anything that made life worth living or anything alive in general because inside I was long dead.

I looked back up at the big digital clock. 8:04 and 50 seconds in the AM. I stared, wanting to see ten seconds pass on their own — to make sure they really would. 51… 52… I found myself holding my breath, unsure why. 54… 56… Faintly, my brain registered the sound of heels clicking as someone walked by the back wall behind me and the sound of the window opening. 57… The heels clicked away rapidly. 59…

Something hot and fast whisked past my head, slicing through wind like a chef’s knife through cabbage. There was an Earth-shattering THWACK and a flaming arrow penetrated the digital clock directly between the colon for the hour, the clock shattering in an electric buzz of wires and sparks. The flames caught, licking the paint on the drywall, and I was frozen in shock as — at precisely 8:05AM — ExcitMint Gum’s floor of the office building began to go up in flames.

Everyone around me began screaming and running for the doors, shoving each other in a panic. My boss’s fat belly scraped across his desk as he bolted for the exit, knocking into a pile of gum wrapper designs and sending them swirling through the air like confetti.

I closed my gaping mouth and lunged for the fire extinguisher. I pulled the pin and aimed at the wall, foam gushed as I swept the nozzle from side to side, shooting out like whipped cream from a canister.

I know it sounds horrible, but in that moment, standing there with flaming gum wrappers turning to ash around me and the screams of my colleagues filling the air,

I was smiling…

Someone grabbed my arm. I turned and had to look up: An insanely tall woman in stiletto heels with reddish-black bangs completely covering her face had a pink-nailed, man-sized hand wrapped around my wrist. A hot gust of air blew a piece of the bangs aside to reveal a single ice-fire blue eye…

Mariann’s boyfriend was matching my grin.

“Leave it, we’ve gotta go!”

I threw the fire extinguisher aside and grabbed his hand. He dragged me out to the stairwell, chucked his heels over the side of the railing and guided me as we sprinted down.

I’m not sure which one of us started laughing first, but all of a sudden we were whooping and laughing as we careened down the steps, his wig blowing back in the wind from our descent, his loose women’s romper fluttering comically.

We slammed through the outside door and gasped for breath, hands on our knees. Across the street from my office building, surrounded by my winded coworkers, who were standing around watching smoke drift out the windows of our floor, sat a rhinestone encrusted limo glinting in the sunlight. Only one couple was nuts enough to use Orion’s Belt as a vehicle for transportation…

Mariann’s boyfriend led me toward the limo. Then, all of a sudden, he froze and ran back inside my building. “My shoes!” he cried. (He returned shortly wearing the stilettos he had tossed to the bottom of the stairwell.)

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t contain my smile.

I looked back toward the rhinestone encrusted limo, and saw a petite figure carrying what appeared to be an instrument case bobbing and weaving between my speechless coworkers.

The petite figure wore giant designer sunglasses, a long green wig, almost as long as she was tall and a shiny silver romper. My colleagues took their eyes off the fire to stare.

Sirens swirled around us as fire men rushed the scene.

Quietly, Mariann and Mariann’s boyfriend and I climbed into the back of the limo and sped away.

Mariann took off her sunglasses, face shining. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek, leaving a blackish-red smudge.

“We missed you, Curious!” she bounced excitedly.

“What-What exactly— who-who’s driving?” I’m not sure why that detail was the most important one to me at the moment but for some reason it was.

“Not sure,” Mariann was nonchalant, “hired someone online.”

I blinked. “What exactly is going on?” I tried to sound concerned, but I was honestly so happy to see them, my voice sounded downright elated.

Mariann and her boyfriend began stripping off their wigs and rompers and changing into their more usual brand of unusual. (Or what I assumed it was…)

Mariann tossed an outfit at me. “Had to get you excused from work some way, hon. We couldn’t just wait until the weekend to see you!” She shrugged.

I blew out a breath, not sure if I was prepared to go along with this. I suddenly realized I had already started changing into the new outfit — thigh-high shiny silver flat boots, a bright green oversized t-shirt patterned with what looked like a vengeful Taylor Swift and black leather shorts that hugged my butt like a vacuum seal.

I stopped tugging on my right boot and tried to look reproachful. “You mean you shot a flaming arrow into my building to get me out of work??”

Mariann threw up her hands. “Don’t just look at me! If Zeus here hadn’t snuck in to open the window, there’s no way I could have made the shot!”

Mariann’s boyfriend didn’t even react, he was too busy lacing up black knee-high Converse.

He looked up at me under long lashes, face blank, “Are you mad?” he asked calmly.

“Well, no,” I thought about it, and began to panic, “Are we all about to go to prison for a felony?! FOR ARSON?!” I panicked again, “This is literally the most conspicuous mode of transportation for a get-away you could have possibly chosen!!”

“Does this make it better?” Mariann suddenly opened up the instrument case, revealing a full-on bow. The kind for shooting arrows.

I felt my panic begin to peak.

Mariann chuckled. “Sorry, sorry, I got carried away. No, Curious. We are not going to prison. No one is going to prison because this method of transportation is too conspicuous. It begs to be seen. It’s the perfect decoy. Something for the cops to chase into nothing. Moreover, the ‘ExcitMint Gum’ Marketing Team is going to receive a mysterious donation from a mysterious charity to pay for the cost of repairs. The arrow is so bizarre that the police will probably think it was a prop for a commercial, and the fire will be considered an electrical fire started by that digital clock.”

I calmed, but then my panic returned, “When you said the cops would be chasing us…”

Mariann’s boyfriend gave Mariann a reproachful scowl. “See, Mariann? This is why you shouldn’t mix your world with reality. You’ve got someone stressed out now.”

“Not now, Val,” Mariann snapped at him. She turned her attention back to me, “I don’t think they’ll actually be chasing us. This is really just a precaution. Well, and it’s fun!” She looked out the window carefully.

“Aha! This is our stop!” Mariann suddenly flung open the door in a shower of sparkles.

Wind rushed by us as we sped along the road. Mariann’s half-blonde-half-red hair danced around her face.

Then she leapt out of the vehicle, rolling along the side of the road.

Mariann’s boyfriend turned to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Jump straight out and cover your head. Watch how I do it and you’ll be fine.”

He was surrounded by light, diamond-esque sun dogs running across his body.

Then he leapt out of the car.

I took a deep breath. The ground rushed beneath me in a blur. I pictured the digital clock from my office ticking the seconds. 57… 58… 59…

I leapt out of the car…