Duckrabbit Habitats
an excerpt

The cell phone gets three rings in before Cilantro can finally put a blind hand on it. With one bleary, protesting eye, she looks at the number, decides that, at this moment, she can’t recognize it – which doesn’t necessarily mean she doesn’t know it, but just that it can’t be anyone important – and shuffles the call off to voicemail. The ignore button depresses without any resistance, but the ringing doesn’t stop. She tries again, then again, pushing it now at an increasing pace until the gaps between each frenzied jab decreases to, approaches zero, and she is finally just holding the damn button down and swinging her fist in impotent fury at the ceiling above Indigo’s bed. It still won’t stop.

“Mmm. Not your phone,” Indigo finally says, stirring now to do his own blind groping. He rolls over, reaching one arm over Cilantro, threading his arm under her own to make a half-assed, blind grab for her breasts as he passes by, missing entirely, taking a fistful of blanket with him to the bedside table. He pretends his hand has ears and can navigate to the phone by its sound, but that just manifests as blind stabs onto the table surface, brushing past the bedside lamp, knocking over an unknown book, one of Cilantro’s band biographies, no doubt.

It’s Cilantro who actually locates Indigo’s phone. She passes it over him, covering her naked breasts with her other arm in mock defense. “Fucking, it’s Rodney,” she mumbles.

“Fucking Rodney. What time is it?”

“Early,” Cilantro replies, even though she doesn’t really have the faintest idea what time it might be.

“Rodney!” Indigo pauses. “What fucking time is it?”

Cilantro doesn’t hear the reply.

“No fucking way.” Indigo turns to Cilantro. “He says it’s almost noon. Do you believe him?”

“No.”

“Cilantro doesn’t believe you. I don’t believe you. Did you miss daylight savings?”

“No, I didn’t miss daylight savings. Daylight savings has yet to occur,” Rodney replies. “Our dear President recently passed legislation to move the time change back a week. Remember?”

“Remember what? I don’t even remember your fucking name. Who is this?”

“It’s being moved from next week, which has yet to occur, to two weeks from now, which still has yet to occur.”

“Who is it, cariño?” Cilantro asks in support of her boyfriend.

“It’s fucking Rodney. Rodney, why are you calling me in the middle of the night?”

“My apologies,” Rodney now adding a mocking emphasis to each consonant. “I hope I didn’t awaken you at a reasonable hour.”

“A reasonable hour might be, like, noon, man.”

”What a coincidence. In three minutes time, at least according to my watch, which happens to be correct, unlike your watch, which happens to be, I would guess, completely imaginary and subject to arbitrary laws of metaphysics, it will, in fact, be noon.”

Indigo pauses. “Wait. Wait, what did you just say?”

“What did he just say, cariño?” Cilantro asks in support of her boyfriend.

“He said, I think he said coincidental watches are three minutes off at noon? Is that right, Rodney? Did I get that right?”

“Look, should I call you back? Perhaps at a more reasonable hour?”

“Yeah. Do that.” Indigo hangs up without waiting for a response. “He’s going to call back,” he informs Cilantro.

Three minutes later, the phone rings. Indigo picks up. “Rodney!” He adds a half-beat pause. “What fucking time is it?”