Jake Devaney tossed and turned in his sleep. Something was going on in his mind, and his mind wanted to make sure he saw it. All he could do was watch.


A long table was situated in the middle of a similarly long room was surrounded by seven chairs. Each chair was taken by a different fragment of his mind. Almost every fragment was the spitting image of Jake, albeit with both arms and different color schemes.

At the head of the table, dressed in an indigo color scheme, was Intelligence to his right and left were Common Sense in orange and Fear in green, respectively. Next to Fear was Elation in yellow and Sorrow in blue. Sitting on Common Sense’s side of the table was Anger in red and a rather odd version of Jake. Odd in the sense that they had the same clothing, but with a purple color scheme, and most of the same features as Jake himself. The only difference was that she was female. Femme, in purple.

“Alright everyone, I have called you here because we have many things to discuss,” Intelligence announced to the table.

“I don’t know why you even call us here, you clocking fool. Jake doesn’t even make use of most of us except for you lot,” Anger said.

“Oh, I think it’s wonderful! I have so much time to myself now to just think! I like thinking!” Elation exclaimed, jumping out of his seat in joy and frightening Fear.

Sorrow sighed heavily.

“Let’s stay focused everyone, these are very important issues and require our immediate attention,” Common Sense said in an effort to gather everyone’s attention.

“Yeah, fine. So what exactly are we babbling on about today?”

“What we are ‘babbling’ about, Anger, is this plan to build the arm,” Intelligence announced. “Fear has suggested we reopen it for discussion.”

“We can’t go! We just can’t! It’s not safe; they’ll lock us back up in the camp and never let us leave!” Fear stuttered.

“Oh, but we’ll get to see the professor again! How exciting!” Elation exclaimed, nearly jumping out of his seat again.

“Mmm, and that golly that stopped by to deliver the message weren’t too bad looking either,” Femme said, eyes closed in thought.

“Femme, please use proper grammar when speaking,” Intelligence instructed.

“Bah, throw a wrench in it, you stop-clocker. We can use less-than-perfect grammar every now and then if we damn well please,” Anger said.

“C-can we please all calm down?” Fear asked, chewing on his fingernails.

“Fear is right, now is the time to make our decision. All in favor of returning to Brunhold with a backup plan to get out somehow?’ Intelligence asked.

Intelligence, Common Sense, Elation, and Femme simultaneously exclaimed “Aye.”

“All opposed?”

Anger yelled nay rather loudly, startling Fear who managed to stutter out a nay.

Sorrow sighed heavily, followed by an unenthusiastic nay.

“The ayes have it,” Intelligence declared. “Moving onto our next topic, presented by Elation.”

“Oh, this ought to be just plain ol’ Godsdamned benny…” Anger said, slouching into his chair.

Elation slammed a visual memory, which Jake’s mind interprets as an object similar to a camera spectra photo, onto the table. “Rum Ginny!”

Common Sense and Anger groaned. Femme seemed interested. Fear was startled. Intelligence sat by and observed.

Sorrow sighed heavily.

“You’ve been flappin’ yer gums about her for days now, Elation. Just clocking let it go,” Anger said.

“But she’s just so captivating! So interesting! So-”

“So four years younger than Jake,” Common Sense said.

“Mmm, she’s pretty. I feel almost compelled to braid her hair…” Femme
said, taking a closer look at the memory.

“She’s got a big knife. It… it scares me…” Fear said, pulling his knees into his chest.

“Everything clocking scares you!” Anger yelled.

Fear whimpered and buried his head into his knees.

Intelligence looked over to his blue-schemed colleague. “What say you, Sorrow?”

Sorrow sighed heavily.

“…right then. We will postpone this topic for now and speak of it at the next meeting. For now,” Intelligence pulled a gavel out of his coat. “It’s time to wake up,” he said, and slammed the gavel onto the table.

Fear jumped.


Jake awoke, gasping and having broken out in a cold sweat. He rubbed his head with his hand. What had just happened…?

He sighed. Gone already. Must’ve not been that important. Jake quickly fell back to sleep.


“…suppress ME, will you? Well, we’ll see about that. Once those three have their backs turned, You just watch. I’ll be the one running the show. I’LL be the one calling the shots. I’LL be the one making the decisions!”


Jake awoke gasping yet again.

…and it was gone. Clock it all.