Good Morrow, Thor

A rooster crowed somewhere within Thor's subconscious, rousing him or her from a sound sleep.

Damn it, Isabella. That was a good dream.

Isabella the Rooster was the basest bane of Thor's existence. Thor acquired the bird--actually little more than a hallucination born of ill-performed hypnosis--from a traveling salesman at a fair some six years before. Said salesman sold but two products, sun-dried raspberries and so-called "internal timekeeping devices." Isabella was one of these devices, a top of the line model, the best of the best, superior to all the rest...at least, that was the sales pitch.

In spite of the salesman's thick unidentifiable accent and his grotesquely inappropriate choice of footwear--sleek white ice skates on a hot summer 's day--Thor determined the man could be trusted. Also, Thor was very taken with the idea of forever dispatching the shrieking alarm clock necessary to alert Thor to the start of the day.

For just three easy payments of $29.95, Thor got Isabella...and in essence, Thor got screwed, because what Thor got for all of his or her troubles and hard-earned money was a defective piece of intangible merchandise. The ruddy creature squawked whenever it felt the urge. This was most often at night, just after Thor had fallen asleep, or in the morning, anywhere from one to three hours after Thor's desired waking time. Thor hadn't arrived at a single function on schedule since Isabella's birth...installation...whatever.

Thor fumed at Isabella's countless failures, interpreting each of them as personal insults rather than systematic errors in a deficient product. In truth, Thor was emotionally attached to Isabella. Needless to say, this was unhealthy. Were it not for Thor's tendency to look for love in the most absurd places (fake rooster...um...), perhaps Thor could've cut his or her losses and returned to a life with some resemblance of order, regulated by good ol' fashioned clockwork. But logic never was Thor's way. Nor was giving up.

When Thor started something, he or she made a point to see it through to the bitter end. The little situation with Isabella was certainly no exception to Thor's overall attitude of perseverance. And so, another day like every other began as Thor's days always did, with Thor rising belatedly and ranting and raving at a figment of his or her own imagination before settling down to a bowl of cornflakes with a heaping helping of sun-dried raspberries.