I jerk upright and bang my knee on the underside of my kotatsu. Good thing it’s not on, unlike my living room light. As I try to stand, my hand crunches down on a pile of empty plastic containers coated with fragments of okonomiyaki sauce and soy with bits of gyoza chips and onions. My apartment is awash with food containers and empty cartons that still smell of Hokkaido milk and green tea ice creams, like they all swept up on a beach with the tide. That explains the smell.

I stretch on all fours like a cat as I contemplate the giant heap of laundry spilling out from the one basket covered with empty grocery bags. There’s also a small mountain of blankets I had completely forgotten about. Together with the laundry they engulf the vacuum cleaner in the corner. I have my chores cut out for me this week. As disturbing as this whole scene is, I feel nice and warm and satisfied. I snuggle back under the kotatsu and feel something hard and plastic at my feet — the TV remote. The TV greets me with pleasant daytime talk show chatter, so soothing to my ears I consider going back to sleep. I can do with a nice cup of tea first. No one can say I don’t have exciting weekends; by the look of this place, I enjoyed myself last night.

Something draws my eyes to the TV. It’s set to a morning show on NHK, but it’s not the weather forecast talking about Typhoon Lan that pulls me in. It’s the time of day in the upper right corner.

My blood runs cold: the clock says “10:59.”

10:59.

I have one minute to get to work.

“Shit!” I pull off my pyjamas, trip over the kotatsu, and tumble to the floor. It’s a sign. Forget getting dressed. The first thing I need to do is call Manager, beg for forgiveness, and lie that I’m a two-second bike ride away. “Shit, shit, shit …” I scramble through the wreckage for my purse and find my phone way down at the bottom.

It’s dead.

“SHIT.”

I create more chaos by flinging clothes from the laundry basket, looking for pants and a shirt that don’t reek from my Saturday night outfit. Everything smells. Fuck it. I throw on one of my best skirt suits, stick some lip gloss in my pocket, wrap a toothbrush in my handkerchief, shove that into my purse, and stuff a mint tea bag in my mouth knowing full well that I don’t own any mints or gum. Bad idea. It tastes so awful I spit it back out. There’s no time to bother with my hair. Zozo and the rest of Japan will just have to deal with it.