You Can’t Escape the Alarm Clock

Read and listen to part two of ON MORNINGS, a nonfiction writing & podcast series

It is that ever-present nuisance of modern mornings. No matter what you do, no matter how fervent and terrible your hatred, you won’t escape it. It doesn’t matter how many times you smack the snooze button, how much you plead into the pillow. Your alarm is coming for you.

It can be a phone, a bell, a song, a lover. It can be noisy neighbors or even noisier roommates. It can be as gentle as a hand on your shoulder, nudging you awake; it can be as rough as a piercing gash of noise that grinds itself into something like beep-beep-beep.

Here are five stories from people all over the world, all experiencing their own alarm clock moment. There is only one comfort these stories can offer us: no matter how awful your alarm is when it wakes you up, nothing can compare to how awful it is when it doesn’t. — From the Editor, Evyn Williams

I.

Every morning is a knockdown, drag-out, back-alley fistfight. Human versus clock.