Upon waking up, Harry remembered that none of his family is awake at the time he gets up for work. He goes to work very early in the morning, before the sun even rises. Every morning, he watches his steps very closely as he gets ready for work, because he does not want to awake Everleigh or Little Lucas.
The sun isn't up yet, so Harold doesn't bother to check the time. It's early enough to avoid being tardy anyways, so what's the point?
Eating breakfast, brushing his teeth, and getting in uniform for work he was, all while anticipating the great day he has ahead of him, just like every other morning.
As he is ready to leave, he decides to check the time on his watch. He didn't do this "just in case" or "to make sure." He didn't even have a gut feeling that it was late, but he checked just because he felt like it.
Upon checking the time, Harold found out that he was late to work.
"Ring!" The house phone rang once.
Once is all it was able to ring because Harry bolted so fast toward it after he heard it ring only once that it almost seemed like he teleported. It was loud, and he did not want to disturb the souls resting upstairs.
"Hello? Who is this?"
It was the familiar raspy voice of an old woman.
"Yes, this is Mary from Terra Mental Hospital. It is currently 7:05 A.M. so about five minutes later than you should have been here, Mr. Elmer."
"Yes, I'm sorry, Mary please forgive me, I'll be there immediately."
How could he possibly forget. Last night was the time change for daylight savings. No wonder the sun was still down at seven in the morning.
"Yeah Elmer, we would like you to attend immediately." She said, laughing a little at his panic voice.
Harry quickly hung up and got out of the house. He started walking to work.
He wondered why they called his house phone instead of his cell, so he reached in his pocket for his phone.
"Oh, that's right, I don't have a cell phone."
Finally arriving at work, the staff greeted him warmly.
"Our best surgeon here in the flesh!" The one who said that was Michael, the 60 something year old president of the institution. White thinning hair and wrinkles all over his face. He was considered the 'boss' of the hospital and had the most medical experience, but was retired and now only bossed around other doctors.
"You're fifteen minutes late." said Mary, the seemingly cranky old woman with a unique sense of humor. Most of the things she said would sound very serious if she didn't laugh after saying them. No one but her laughed.
"Harry! We missed you here!" That one was Pete, the assistant who always looked up to Harry.
"I'm fifteen minutes late and this is how you people react."
Smiling, Harry continued "Okay let's get to work."