How Mark and Ann Fell in Love

A short story

When Mark O'Donnell woke up an hour late on Tuesday, March 17th, which made him thirty-seven minutes late for work, he expected his boss to scream and fire him. 

Promptness was not only a matter of policy at Madison Life Insurance Incorporated but also the measure by which Jesse Madison, the company’s president and great-grandson of its founder, judged all his employees.

But Madison had not yet arrived. 

Even worse, Ann Labalme, another actuarial, wasn’t in yet. Mark always did his best to time his arrival so they could share a few moments in the coffee room before work commenced. Familiarity breeds fondness, and Mark wanted Ann to grow fond of him. 

Over the next hour, the remainder of the staff staggered in, many out of breath, some with wild, which-way hair, and a few had breakfast stuck between their teeth. Two male employees arrived with razor-scarred faces, and two female staff appeared with mascara that looked like a first-day-on-the-job makeup assistant had applied it. 

Everyone gave the same excuse: My alarm didn’t sound.

At nine-twenty-seven a.m., Ann turned up. She walked over to Mark’s desk. 

Mark smiled. 

“What are the odds?” Ann asked. “It strikes me as highly improbable that everyone’s alarm would fail on the same day.” She tugged at her wrinkled skirt. She opened her statistical analysis app,  tapped for a minute, and frowned. “There’s not enough data to calculate the probability, but the fact is undeniable that everyone’s alarm failed on the same day.”

Mark worked his keyboard, furrowing his brow as he opened two screens on his computer: an engineering failure probability table and an alarm clock schematic. His eyes flitted back and forth, and he guessed that the likelihood of so many alarm clocks failing simultaneously was close to a trillion-to-one. But that was only a guess, and he didn’t want Ann to think he based his decisions on guesswork. He wanted her to know he was a thoughtful, careful person and a good prospect as a future husband. 

Before Mark could answer, Ann’s phone buzzed and flashed. “Oh my god.”

“What?”

“It’s not just Madison Life Insurance.” She swiped through news and social media sites and whistled. “Japan, Singapore, China—Asia was first. Europe followed, then America.  Nobody’s alarm anywhere in the world sounded or vibrated this morning. Hotel alarm clocks, Apple watches, Android phones, clocks not connected to the internet, cuckoo clocks, old-style wind-up night table clocks—they all failed. Every alarm clock in the world went silent no matter what type or technology.”

“The probability—”

Ann gasped. “This has nothing to do with probability, Mark.”

“What does it have to do with?” 

Ann studied her phone, shaking her head. She sat on the armrest of Mark’s chair, her long, brown hair tickling his neck, a breast pressing against his side. 

Mark’s respiratory system stopped. His pupils grew wide. 

“CNN is interviewing a physicist from Stanford and a cosmologist from CalTech, both baffled.” She swiped again. “Fox is reporting on gay bowling clubs, but the crawl says, ‘Up Next: Psychic Lou May Explains the Alarm Holocaust.’” 

“Anything else?” Mark had resumed breathing, but barely. 

“The New York Times’ website reports the same phenomenon occurred on the International Space Station. The ISS’ wake-up alarm, set to US Eastern Standard Time for six-thirty a.m., didn’t sound this morning.”

Jesse Madison summoned everyone to an all-staff meeting in the company’s renovated conference room on the sixth floor. The large, rectangular oak table accommodated twenty-six. The remaining staff sat in chairs along the room’s walls. 

Steam wafted up from two dozen coffee cups. 

Mark sat next to Ann. The global alarm clock outage aside, he considered this the best day ever. 

Madison cleared his throat. “We have a few problems, and we’re going to talk them through, you and I.” He nodded, and the attendees nodded back in unison. “The first problem is WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS DO TO OUR LIFE EXPECTANCY TABLES?” The windows vibrated. 

Everyone cast their eyes downward.

“Well, anyone?” Madison asked.

Like students in a high school algebra class where no one had done their homework, they avoided Madison’s gaze. After a preternaturally long silence, Madison said, “Ferris, you’re the lead actuarial. What say you? If there is no such thing anymore as an alarm clock, are people going to live longer, shorter, or the same length of time?”

As Ferris sputtered to complete a sentence, Mark interrupted, "Life expectancy will increase in the long run, but in the short term, we will see more deaths, especially among the third and fourth-tier income groups." 

“Across all industries?”

“I think the pattern will be similar to a forecast model I prepared two years ago, which breaks the data down by income, years employed, education, and lifestyle.” 

“Not geography?”

“No, sir. It’s the same for all locations in the United States. My model suggests an increase in short-term deaths, followed by a three to five-year average increase in lifespan, except for places where there are already few alarm clocks, such as Maui,  assuming alarm clocks are gone forever.”

Ann spoke next. “They are. Scientists now say alarms have been forever rendered inoperable because a collision between a neutron star and black hole in the constellation Fornax has altered the structure of space-time.” She studied her phone for a few beats. “That’s the assessment of NASA, the Japan Space Agency, and the European Space Consortium. There will be no more alarms.” 

“Okay then,” Madison said. “O'Donnell, I want to see those life expectancy tables by tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Which brings me to our next problem: How do we get you all here on time if alarm clocks don’t work?”

Another stilted silence filled the room. Eyes averted, thumbs twiddled, doodles drawn, but nobody answered. 

Madison drummed his fingers on the table. 

Ann placed her mouth against Mark’s ear and whispered, “Do you snore?” Her lips grazed his skin. 

“Um, maybe—”

“Good,” Ann said, her voice still a whisper. “I’m sleeping with you tonight.” She pressed her foot against his. “I’ll explain later.”

Mark thought he saw Ann wink, but she could have been squinting because of the bright sunlight refracting through the window. 

“Alarms or no alarms, I want you all here by eight-forty-five a.m., same as always,” Madison bellowed. “If you have to stay up all night every night, then that’s what you have to do. Madison Life Insurance’s workday begins at a quarter to nine. That’s the way it’s always been and will always be.” 

When Mark’s doorbell rang at eight-twenty-seven p.m., he felt as if electricity had traveled from the button to the buzzer by way of his body. He tingled all over. His heart beat wildly, atonal thumping echoing inside his chest.

Mark opened the door. 

“May I come in?” Ann smelled like jasmine tea and oranges. Her green eyes sparkled, and her lips curled into a smile. 

Mark nodded. 

Ann kissed him on the cheek and found her way to the living room. She sat on the stout couch and patted the space next to her to invite Mark to sit.

Ann surveyed the room. A small, two-person table with two chairs catty-corner to each other was against the far wall. One chair cushion was as flat as a deflated balloon; the other looked brand new. The sofa bore a deep depression in front of the television. 

Above the table was a photo of a little boy, a miniature Mark, with two adults holding his hands and a faded photograph of a cocker spaniel. 

Silver cords held the plain, gold curtains in place on the sides of the living room window. A dark blue rug covered the floor, and two standing lamps bracketed the couch.

“Why do you want to know if I snore?” He thought his voice sounded like a frog’s. “I am a loud snorer,” Mark blurted. Why did I say that?

Ann smiled. “I’m a light sleeper. It’s a curse. When I was a kid, I shared a room with my sister, who liked to read past bedtime. The sound of the pages turning kept me awake. If a car alarm goes off in Brooklyn, I wake up. With its sirens, all-night construction, seven-day-a-week, early morning trash pickup, conversations that echo off of buildings, and rumbling bus engines, New York is not for light sleepers. But neither is the country. I’ve tried that. 

“Do you know how loud crickets and owls are? I spend half my salary on white noise machines and apps and the other half on earplugs, but those don’t help, either.” Ann chuckled and rested her hand on Mark’s leg. “Here’s what I’m thinking: When you snore, I’ll wake up. I’ll open an eye and if it’s still dark, try to fall back asleep, and you can continue to sleep. If it’s light, I’ll wake you, and it will be time for us to get up. Mark the snorer and Ann the light sleeper will be a perfect pair. Together, we’ll complete an alarm clock, and we’ll never be late for work.”

“What about the office? We'll have to come in at separate times so that people don’t start gossiping about us that we’re—” As if a bulb lit inside his head, Mark said, “Oh.”

Ann kissed his lips. After their kiss was over, she said, “If it’s okay with you.”

Thanks to their promptness, over the next few months, Mark and Ann received a series of promotions, from actuarial to senior actuarial, to assistant vice president, and finally vice president. The following year after suffering a debilitating heart attack attributed to his sleeping in the office every night, Jesse Madison retired. He appointed Mark and Ann president and chief executive officer. 

Soon after that, Ann gave birth to twin girls, who they named Alarm One and Alarm Two. 

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If you enjoyed this story, I think you’ll also like my story, The Ferris Wheel.