Ashley pressed a button on his cell phone where it sat on the table in front of him:

6:59 a.m.

He glanced at a note on the refrigerator which had several sequential dates scribbled on it, each one preceding a time. Each date’s time was close to the others—just a few minutes’ difference at most. Many of them were crossed-off, but the first in the list that was not was: Sunday, 12/02/2001—7:01 a.m.

Aurelio was still sitting at the table with the plate he had cleaned almost an hour prior. “It’s just that Kent, Ohio, isn’t really the place to be if you wanna be an actor, you know?”

“I certainly believe that.” Ashley nodded. “Would you move if you could?”

“I dunno. I want to.”

“Where would you go?”

“New York or L.A., I guess.”

“I strongly advise Los Angeles,” Ashley replied. “New York is a pigsty.”

He pressed the button on his phone once more:

7:01 a.m.

He grabbed the cell, flipped it open, and brought it to his ear as though he had been waiting all night to make the call.

“Sorry, hold on,” he said to Aurelio with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

“Sure.” Aurelio stood and took his plate to the sink to wash it.

A few moments passed and Ashley pulled the phone away from his head, looked for a button, and then put it back to his ear. He repeated this two more times before finally giving up. He set the phone on the table. The small time display soon faded:

7:03 a.m.

He stood up and moved to the refrigerator where he struck off the date and time that had just passed.

“Anyway,” Aurelio glanced over to him, “yeah, I mean, I think L.A. would be the place to go, but New York City always seemed cool though.”

“I never liked it.”

“Yeah,” Aurelio laughed, friendly as ever. “I think the suburbs suit you better—”

A thump outside broke their conversation. Taking note of it, Aurelio dried his hands and started for the door. Ashley excused himself around a corner as Aurelio stepped outside where the morning twilight had imperceptibly begun to overtake the night. He retrieved a bundled newspaper and re-entered the house quickly, shutting out the cold. He untied the string around the thick Sunday publication and folded it open as he scanned the front page. “Oh, wow,” he said. “George Harrison died.”

“Mm,” Ashley grumbled as though this news was somewhat expected. “He had cancer.” He moved to pick up his cell phone again.

“Oh yeah, that’s what it says.” Aurelio noted as he read. “He wasn’t… the last one, was he?”

“The last Beatle?” Ashley chuckled. “No—there are still two more.” He put his phone to his ear and made another call. No answer.

Aurelio finished looking over the paper and handed it off to Ashley. He glanced at the headline: “Enron Scandal Deepens.” His brow furrowed slightly as he noticed the dead musician was only a blurb toward the bottom of the page.

Aurelio examined the clock on Ashley’s wall:

7:07 a.m.

“When do you think Stam’ll get back?” he asked.

Ashley could only glance nervously back to his phone.