Mark opened his eyes. He glances over at the alarm clock on his nightstand, watching the digital numbers change. His hand hits the off button right as the alarm chimes.

  8 AM exactly. Perfect.

  Mark sits up, stretches his arms, then gets out of his bed and starts making it. His hands run over the silken sheets. Despite the large size of his bed, his practiced hands make the work smooth and precise. He grabs his phone off the nightstand and walks to his bathroom.

  8:05, right on schedule.

  After relieving himself and brushing his teeth, he changes out of his silken night clothes and into his premade outfit. Grabbing a protein bar and a banana from the counter, he strolls out of his apartment right at 8:10.

  Today’s a big day. Mark finally has enough money saved to buy a BigSleepTM mattress. He spares a quick look at the door across the hall before he heads to the stairs. Closed, looks like it’s going to be a quiet walk to the mattress store.

  This is going to make my sleep so much better. Out of all the brands SleepTime magazine recommends, BigSleep’s Sleeptastic King scores the best by almost every metric.

  At the bottom of the stairwell he’s rudely pulled from his thoughts as a woman in a banana yellow cardigan trips in front of him and spills her coffee. Luckily none of the black caffeinated sludge gets on him. People can be so clumsy sometimes Mark muses as he maneuvers around the edge of the dark brown puddle and exits the stairwell. Good riddance anyway. Doesn’t she know that caffeine increases ? Also why did she choose that color? Is she planning on adopting a monkey?

  Ignoring the hustle and bustle of the lobby, Mark beelines it for the door before taking a left on the sidewalk. Nothing is going to stop him from walking the shortest distance to his new mattress. Nothing except two men carrying a couch. He’ll walk around them.

  Continuing his daily dose of exercise, Mark ignores the usual chaos of the city. He looks up at the clear blue sky. Glad it’s sunny today. My brain will release cortisol faster. That’ll help my sleep schedule. He heard a familiar voice in front of him, and turned his attention back to what was happening around him. A group of people arguing, a flower stand, and a man with a forest green hoodie and matching forest green dreads trying to sell his new mixtape. Mark quick lowered his gaze. I can’t let Big Q see me.

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  Big Q immediately saw him. The mixtape wielder rushed over to Mark and threw an arm around his shoulders, eliciting a groan from the mattress-seeking man.

  “Heeeey Marky! What’s good?”

  “Please let me go”

  “Aww, don’t be like that! Anyway I got my new mixtape right here, I know you’ll love it!”

  “Please let me go”

  “C’mon man, you haven’t even looked at it yet! At least give ’er a peek, you might like it!”

  Mark sighed. He made the mistake of buying one of Big Q’s mixtapes before, and now the man singles him out every time Mark walks by, no matter how many times he’s since rejected him. The mixtape in question was titled “Sleep Tight”. Mark had been obsessed with peaceful nighttime ambiance CDs at the time (and quite frankly, still is), and that’s what he thought it was. From what Mark could tell, it was actually a cross between a diss track and a Homer-style epic in which Big Q talked about how he could finally sleep tight knowing that he had vanquished his long time foe Little U. That being said, Mark only got five minutes out of the two hours of audio on the CD, so who knows what else was in there.

  Mark takes a look at the mixtape Big Q was holding inches from his face. It was called “Money Train” with the letters the same shade of green as a dollar bill. The cover of the CD depicts Big Q sitting on a small train made out of stacks of dollar bills.

  If he has enough money to make a train, why does he need to sell me his CD? And why is he selling CDs, who still uses them nowadays? Well I do, but I doubt anyone else does.

  After 10 minutes of persistent no’s, Big Q finally acquiesces and lets him go. A couple more minutes of walking and BigSleep Mattresses was in view.

  Entering the familiar sliding double doors, Mark waves at Jill at the front desk. She’s his favorite person who works there; Jill always tells him about the best deals and when theyre planning on restocking. He would normally exchange a couple of friendly sentences with her, but today he was a man on a mission. Mark beelines it for where he knows the newest mattresses are displayed. He scans them one by one until he finds it. The new BigSleep Sleeptastic King. He runs his hand along the edge in awe. King size. Enhanced memory foam technology. Temperature control. It claims three times the support of a regular mattress while remaining as soft as a cloud.

  He has to try it.

  Mark climbs up onto the mattress, then flops down on his back, sighing in happiness as he sinks in. He could feel the weariness of wakefulness slowly being eaten away. This mattress will be worth every penny.

  He is disturbed from his reverie by a startled yelp coming from the direction of the front desk, followed by several hushed remarks. He cracks one eye open, then opens the other one to double check. There are three tall figures wearing black ski masks turned towards the front desk where Jill is standing with her hands up in the air.

  The mattress store is being robbed.