Buy or Die. There cometh a time of ruthless advertising

The servant looked at his watch. Six hours fifty-five minutes. He went to the kitchen, borrowed some ice cubes from the fridge, returned to the bedroom, and stuck the ice under the blanket. His efforts were immediately rewarded with fierce curses. Y finally sat up in bed and glared at the dial.

“Bloody hell!” he groaned. “Five to seven! Are you kidding? We’re too late. How many times have I asked you to wake me up earlier?”

The servant bowed silently and went into his corner.

Y looked around. Tess slept soundly, not aware of Twick’s heel, which was, without doubt, very dirty and smelly, right under her nose. Twick (who had had nightmares lately, making him move from his own bedroom to his parents’ in the mornings) slept like a log, and only Tess could wake him up. Kwick slept across Twick. He could sleep until the Judgment Day, or until Twick woke up – whichever came first. And finally, like a cherry on a cake, Mick crowned the heap. He slept like a baby, was a baby, and, most importantly, was utterly content to be a baby. It was Kwick’s job to wake Mick up in such a way he immediately was in a good mood, skipping all the numerous other gloomy states.

Y gently touched his wife by the shoulder. She instantly opened her eyes.

“Just a second. Everything is almost ready,” she said vigorously, and closed her eyes again.

Y smiled and, leaning toward his wife’s ear, said clearly: “Five minutes to seven.”

There was a terrible curse in return, but in less than a minute, Tess woke up Twick, who woke up Kwick, who somehow managed to jolt Mick wide awake. The most amazing thing is that all three were in excellent spirits.

“They’re probably not my children,” Y mused aloud. “I never, never managed to smile before ten o’clock!”

“What? What? What? What? Wait a second.”

Four pairs of eyes stared at him questioningly. Four pairs of hands stretched to pull the earplugs from their ears. Y shook his head hastily.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Good morning to everyone!” he yelled as loudly as he could.

Tess herded the whole flock to the bathroom, and Y went to the kitchen to chat with the chef.

“Good morning, Poe,” he said. “What are you going to feed us today?”

In response, the cook opened the door of the refrigerator. It was empty.

“Well, I know you’ll manage somehow,” Y said. “I trust you, my friend. By the way, we’re running late.”

The cook’s lenses flashed, but he turned away silently and began to rattle some utensils.

At ten minutes past seven, breakfast was ready. The family tradition required that everyone was able to speak and hear each other at breakfast. Earplugs were pulled out.

Twick took his plate and the smile at once disappeared from his face.

“Oatmeal,” he announced darkly. “Again. I can’t stand it anymore.”

“Yeah, really,” added Kwick. “I’m fed up with it too. Do you take us for done cases?”

“For donkeys, dear,” Tess automatically corrected. “Don-keys.”

“Thanks, ma.” Kwick replied. “So, you do. I always thought so.”

Mick anxiously twisted his head, assessing the situation, but so far he was silent.

“Oatmeal is very wholesome,” Tess said with a lack of confidence.

“And if someone wants something harmful?” Twick retorted.

“It is not!” cried Kwick with his lips treacherously quivering. “It’s the opposite. Oatmeal is killing us!”

Mick frowned at this and began to push the plate slowly away from him.

“Boys!” Tess raised her voice.

“What?!” Twick exploded. “I can’t eat it, and that’s it!”

“I can’t either!” Kwick joined hastily.

Mick perked up and forcefully pushed his plate away, spilling the contents onto the table.

“Me too!” he announced happily. “Me too cannot. Oats meal is a bad meal!”

“Ma,” Twick whined, “why it is always a porridge? Why can’t we have, say, an omelette for a change?”

“Omelette! Omelette! Omelette!” the trio began to chant.

Y glanced at his watch and shook his head.

“What’s an omelette? We are already late.”

After thinking this over for a second, Kwick clenched his teeth decisively.

“Then I will not go to school,” he declared.

“If he doesn’t,” Twick added hastily, “I won’t either.”

“Me too!” Mick yelled happily. “Never ever forever!”

The adults exchanged glances. Y looked at his watch again, sighed, leaned back in his chair, and said casually:

“I bet you can’t guess what I dreamed about last night…”

The children froze.

“Jack of Air?” still not believing his luck, suggested Kwick cautiously.

Y raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“How did you know? Right, it was Jack in person. And guess what happened this time!”

The children, as if spellbound, slowly took their spoons, scooped up the porridge, and brought it towards their mouths. Tess turned away, hiding a smile. Jack helped invariably. He was always at hand – in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.

Jack was the hero of the book that Y had been writing for many years in the evenings after the work, regularly falling asleep at the keyboard. The venture was almost hopeless, but Y did not give up, and the work slowly moved forward. As far as Tess could judge, the book was going to be a good one, but even now it was already too large and intimidating. The book was about Jack, or rather, as Y had explained after taking in a serious extra portion of alcohol, the book was about all of us, born human and ceasing to be human gradually. So gradually that, going along this road, nobody sees the changes and only gets horrified at the very end, after turning and seeing the completed path. Jack had a model or, rather, two models, taken from the few men Y could more or less get along with. These two were himself and his friend, Z. More of Z, actually, as Y was well aware that he himself was too far from the generally accepted male format.

Jack’s days, no matter how inspirationally Y colored them on the pages of his book, were coming out one worse than the other, as slow gray drops, flowing down into a common dead puddle. The nights were better. At night, Jack could fly in his dreams. In his dreams, he knew and could do things that he never thought of in daylight. In his dreams, he was light as air. Damn it, he was the air! And they called him Jack of Air in these dreams. At first, true, his name was Air Jack, but later, to avoid unpleasant allusions to that stupid device for lifting heavy objects, he became Jack of Air, the fearless and noble hero in a consistently good mood. Very canonical. And it was these very dreams that Y fed together with porridge to his children for breakfast in the mornings. All in all, it was better than just storing them in a drawer. Y strongly doubted that anyone would ever publish his book (that is, of course, if he ever finished it).