Earth 1
Autumn Chase woke to the sounds of the alarm going off. The voice from Public Radio sounded distant and soothing. Autumn rolled over and caught the voice vaguely rambling on about some weather preparedness story. Thinking back to her youthful schooldays she stretched and said outloud to no one in particular, "Aw mom... do I have to go today. It is raining and it is cold out and I just do no not want to."
Waking up was not one of Autumn's most favorite things to do. She pushed a strand of curly, reddish brown hair from her face and blinked the last night's dream from the corners of her eye. Groggily she pushed the warm, goosedown covers from her body and sat up. Her cat, Bubba Gadget, a slim, tan and black siamese cat, curled around her ankles in a circle of fur. He meowed and started purring softly when Autumn reached down to pet him.
The air in the was cold and chilly and a grey hue cast itself brightly over Autumn's bedroom. Across from her Queen-sized bed hung a mirror. Autumn did not think of herself vain, by no means, but she took a second to peer into it. Her deep green eyes stared back from the smooth surface. Her mousey red hair, looked tosseled over her head and face and she giggled at the look. "This must be why I can never really get guys to hang around me more than one or two nights." She unceremoniously shook her head, watching her image in the mirror blur out of the corner of her eyes.
"Okay, Bubba," Autumn said to the cat, "I have got to get ready for work. If I do not open the store soon, no one will. And with no open store, that means I cannot buy you any gushyfoods to eat. And you will be one unhappy kitty without the gushyfoods." She scritched the kitty behind the ears one more time and tiptoed into her bathroom.
The green carpet felt cool to the touch and so were all the faucet handles. Autumn could still hear the radio, this time it was babbling on about some new book that just came out and how it was sweeping the nation as The DiVinci Code did years ago. The book was called, Deep From the Jungle, and develed into the mysteries of the Mayan culture and the calendar system and how it was a secret message written as a warming to us about the end times. It was a book Autumn had a hard time keeping on her shelves, despite the lack of desire she had to read the book herself. For some reason, it just never appealled to her as it did the rest of the masses. But, since she was in the bookselling business, and seeing that this book sold in great numbers, she tried to keep a fairly good stock on the store's hands at all times.
"I really should read the book," Autumn thought to herself. "Seeing that everyone and their dog, er, cat already has. I know my patrons are constantly feigning shock that I have not read it at all yet."
Autumn reached her hand into the shower and turned it all the way to the hottest setting. There was nothing like a nice hot scaulding shower to start a cold day off right. The radio voice fadded out a bit under the roar of the shower, but Autumn did catch the day's weather. In Portland, it was another rainy day, with the high barely topping off at fifty-five degrees.
"Cold weather always attracts book buyers", she thought and stepped into the shower. The touch of water on her skin woke her up as she thought about the daily store duties. Autumn owned a small bookstore, located near the upper West area of Portland, Oregon. Her store, while not as trendy as the stores on nearby twenty-first and twenty-third streets did manage to get in quite the selection of patrons. She was fortunate enough to have attracted not only the general masses book buyers, with their small paperback purchases proudly showing off like a "national bestseller's list" badge, to students who liked her small shop and always supported the local markets; but her store also seemed to attract the more distinguished book buyer, whose selections bordered on the obsure titles of Lord Dunsany to Voltaire. Autumn prided herself on being able to make ends meet in such a well read city who was the home to great bookstores like Powell's and Borders.
Autumn stepped out of the shower and quickly ran a towel over her body and hair. The voice on National Public Radio called out the time once again, and Autumn dropped her towel on the counter. Even though she woke up on time, she was running behind. Shaking her head, she rushed out of the bathroom and rapidly began to dress. She pulled out a pair of loose fit jeans and her favorite black chenille sweater. As long as it was going to be a cold day outside, she figured it did not mean that she had to not dress comfortably.
Bubba Gadget lept off the bed and wandered between Autumn's legs and the door. He meowled softly, letting her know that it was time for food and that he was starving.
"You have food, Bubba." Autumn told her cat. "If you would just go to your food bowl, like a normal cat, you would see that you are not going to starve, because there is food there. Besides, I am running a bit late, so you will just have to wait until I get home tonight and have more time to properly feed you."
Autumn bent down and pet the cat between the ears once more. Then she rushed out of her bedroom and into the main room to pull on her Doc Martens and catch Portland's lightrail system, called the Max.