Morpheus, the God of dreams, wrapped us in a cocoon of dreams. But when he did, he forgot to include a bathroom. I awoke with a four-alarm "urgent need to go" moment as my bladder trembled in an effort to hold back a flood of Biblical proportions. It would be wonderful to wake up nice and slow like I once did in my younger days. I used to enjoy the delightful transition from slumber to wakefulness. No such luck. Personal plumbing issues are now at the top of my morning's To-Do List.

I groaned as I rolled away from Alice and felt around under the heap of clothes I used as a makeshift pillow. I breathed a sigh of relief when my fingers found my flashlight. My sigh turned into a groan when I saw that each LED bulb glowed no brighter than a dying firefly.

Damn it! I forgot to turn it off before I fell asleep. In an instinctive reaction, I shook the flashlight as if that would be enough to wake up a few extra sleeping electrons. I examined my light for the traitor it had become. The Chinese manufactured flashlight carried a guaranteed battery life of twenty-five hours. No way the charge should exhaust itself after a few hours of sleep. Friggin' imports. My little light was almost useless. A dozen lightning bugs would’ve shed more light.

Hauling myself out of the sleeping bag turned out to be a real chore. My stiff muscles protested every move I made and my back was killing me. Payback for not having an air mattress. The atmosphere in the tent was rather brisk, a polite way of saying, "too damn cold."

First things first, I crawled naked past our saucepan, a.k.a: a chamber pot. Screw it! I didn't want to bother cleaning our makeshift toilet, besides we would later need to melt snow to replace our drink water. At the door to our tent, I climbed to my knees. An upset bride once asked a famous advice columnist, "My husband insists on urinating in our backyard. Why does he do that?"

Her answer became the stuff of legend, "Because he can."

I shuffled forward and, plumbing in hand, and sprayed the dry, dusty ground of our cave with a monsoon of yellow rain, the first moisture in more than a hundred years.

Lighting a cigarette and holding my prick in my right hand, I glanced at my wristwatch. The time glowed a few minutes after 11:30 in the morning. Huh?

Had we slept for less than three hours? Puzzled, I examined my lying watch and I noticed tomorrow's date in the tiny square on the dial's surface. Holy shit! We’d been out around the clock and then some.

"Time flys when you're having fun," I shivered and muttered to myself as I irrigated the powder dry soil. As I drained my waste, an annoying army of goose bumps marched in lockstep across my naked body.

Once upon a time, those little bumps at the base of our body hairs served an evolutionary purpose. They helped us fluff up our fur to better insulate us from the cold. When we were threatened, the same fluffing mechanism raised our body hair and turned our ancestors into instant Chia pets, making us appear a bit larger to potential adversaries or hungry predators. That was then, and this is now.

In the eons since, we've lost most of our fur and the bumps no longer keep us warm and fluffy. Instead, the zillions of goose pimples give our skin the appearance of used sandpaper. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

Shaking the last drops off the end of my prick, I collected my thoughts.

At least I had one thing going for me; things could only improve. There is no place to go except up when you start your day naked and freezing your ass off while pissing in a pitch-black rattlesnake den. Right?

After taking one last drag from my cigarette, I used my thumb and forefinger to flip the butt away from me. Like a spent tracer round, the red streak sailed off into blackness before bursting into a shower of sparks as it bounced off the low ceiling of the cavern. Nice, a mini-fireworks display.

=^.^=

"Dennis, I can't believe you're so careless! How could you forget to turn off your light?" Alice stuffed her shirt into the waistband of her pants and glowered in my direction.

"I'm sorry. It's not like I left the damn thing on to piss you off. It was an accident." I finished lacing up my boots.

"Well, it was a stupid thing to do. Now we're down to one flashlight and one lantern," Alice brushed loose strands of hair out of her eyes.

Resisting the temptation to respond with a snappy comeback, I only muttered under my breath, "Thank you, Captain Obvious."

"What did you say?"

"I said we need to get something to eat. We're hungry and cranky." I picked up two military-style MREs.

"We have two choices. Chicken Pesto Pasta or Beef Ravioli. What's your pleasure?"

"Does one of them contain flashlight batteries?" Alice examined the MREs. "How about this one? Maybe it's a misprint. I'm sure they meant to say, Chicken Pesto and Battery Pasta." she said as she shook the MRE.

I clenched my jaw and did a slow count to ten. "Alice, you've already plowed this field. Give it a rest." I zipped up my jacket and picked up the Rayovac lantern along with our survival saw as I crawled toward the tent opening.

"God damn it! Don't you walk out on me when I'm talking to you," Alice scolded as she wagged her finger at me like an angry mother.

I stopped and turned back to face her. "First of all, I'm not walking, I'm crawling. Secondly, you're not talking to me. You are cranking, and right now you sound like an old, ah, err, oh never mind." Better my words remain unspoken then to spend the rest of my life apologizing.

 "If we get stuck in the fucking dark, it will be your fault," Alice growled and pointed at me with a jab of her finger.

I took a long deep breath and did another slow ten-count. "You can vent anytime you want, and I will listen. Once. But, I draw the line at recycling. Like I said, you've already plowed this field. What's the point of doing it again?" I searched Alice's eyes for any sign she understood what I was saying.

"Dennis, you don't understand. I hate being in the dark. Because of your carelessness, we're down to a single flashlight and one lantern. That's not much of a safety margin." Alice crossed her arms, shook her head from side to side, and frowned.

"Alice, mistakes happen. When they do, we need to build a bridge and get over 'em. Look around you; there's nobody keeping score. You and I are the only living creatures within earshot. The snakes? They're as deaf as doornails. They're not listening, and they don't care." I gave Alice a hug and kissed her cheek.

"I'm frightened." Alice's frown melted as her lower lip started to tremble as tears appeared at the corners of her eyes.

"So am I. So, too, am I. Trust me, we'll get out of this together. I don't know how, but we will survive," I said with more optimism than conviction as I gave her another hug.

Nature has a superb sense of timing. As our embrace ended, a faint glimmer of slowly brightening light radiated from the entrance to our cave.

Something was happening.