KATACLYSM: A Space-Time Comedy Read Free Page B

through the jumble of dirty laundry strewn about as he made his way to the bathroom.  Turning on the shower, eyes still closed, Jude whistled Rondo alla Turca as the hot water hit him.  He was a slim, non-descript thirty year old man with short black hair and ears that stuck out a bit too much.  Women found him good looking but not that good looking.  The few of them who took the time to talk to Jude found that he was actually one of the smartest and most unusual Bostonians, but his most conspicuous character trait was an almost awe-inspiring talent for laziness.  It was the only thing he ever really worked hard at.  Generally, Sunday was the one day of the week on which Jude could manage to accomplish anything.  Monday was a write off.  It was nearly impossible to concentrate knowing that there were a full five workdays ahead.  To distance himself from this kind of negativity, he tended not to work on Mondays at all.  Nonetheless, Monday always seemed to cast a lingering shadow on the rest of the week from which Jude found it nearly impossible to recover.  He would sometimes start to feel better about life on Thursday afternoons at 3 o’clock but by then it was hard to achieve any kind of real momentum for the week.
    Jude emerged from the bathroom and promptly knocked over a pot of marigolds he had been given as a gift.  He ignored the mess.  Jude had never been particularly good at taking care of plants.  The few he ever bought usually died within a couple of days.  Recently he had started buying fake plants, but even these were beginning to look wilted.  Weeding through the clothes on the floor, Jude found a stained undershirt.  He threw it on.  Next he selected five T-shirts smelling each of them in succession.  They all smelled the same.  The one he settled on was a hideous teal and adorned with the words “Wilt Chamberlain is my dad and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”.  Then, in his routine and extensive attempt to thwart the cold weather outside, he put on thermal underwear, a pair of pants, a long shirt, a vest, a sweater, a bright yellow scarf, a huge fake fur coat, earmuffs, a hat and gloves.  On his feet he wore a double layer of socks and giant boots.  Covering his eyes with a visor, he looked more like a massive otherworldly fur ball than a man.  But Jude didn’t care what other people thought of his eccentricities.  He simply refused to let Mother Nature get the better of him.  Taking slow, wobbly steps, he carefully descended the narrow wooden staircase that led downstairs from his apartment.  As he reached the bottom of the steps, he took a moment to mentally prepare himself for the snow and the bitter wind, then he stepped out of the door.
    “What the…?”  Jude was bewildered by what he saw on this mid-winter’s morning.  Over the many travails of his lifetime, he had become accustomed to looking ridiculous and getting stares, but on this day the people who passed by were actually pointing and snickering.  He could hardly blame them.  They were all wearing short-sleeves and jeans.  There wasn’t a drop of snow on the ground and the temperature was more befitting of a day in late spring than early February.  Jude shook his head.
    “Lousy weathermen.”
    Ten minutes later, Jude reemerged outside his building having shed most of his apparel.  He decided to celebrate the unseasonably good weather by wearing a clean polo shirt he found buried under a mound of socks next to his bed.  Jude began to walk in no particular direction.  Although he now recalled that the weather had been warm all week, he had the unsettling feeling that it should really have been freezing cold outside. It was just a sense he had.  He wasn’t sure why.  Certainly, something had changed.  But as he wandered down the sidewalk, Jude had no inkling of how profound the change was. He just felt uneasy.  Best not to worry about it, he thought.
    Had Jude been paying any attention at all, by the