Tonight was the night that something very good was finally going to happen to Drew.
Drew was an unassuming, quiet person. He was the top-ranked therapist of his hospital, whatever that meant, but that meaningless title didn’t bring him any more respect. Most of his fellow staff saw him as meek and pathetic, often avoiding the eyes of others and wringing his hands anxiously when spoken to.
Under his nervous exterior was a steely heart. He worked from the uppermost floor, where only the hardest cases were sent. Everyone knew the ninth floor was hell. Nobody except for him was up to the task of working there, let alone on mental health cases.
He knew he wasn’t pathetic. He knew he deserved recognition. That’s why every day he kept his eyes in the sky for a sign. That’s why he woke up certain that something different was going to happen.
Drew was certain that today was the day. He had already loaded himself up on stimulants in preparation. He was sitting at his desk, in front of his piles of empty coffee mugs, hands shaking as he tried to calm his nerves.
There was a knock on the back door.
Drew stepped with trepadation out onto the balcony. Everything in his life was paving the way for this moment.
There was nowhere there to have knocked on the door. The average person would have said there was nothing here, nothing especially out of the ordinary about this night, but he knew better. Was the moon larger? Was the sky darker?
As if answering his pleas, the ground under his feet immediately began to crumble beneath him. ‘This is it,’ he thought. ‘It’s finally happening!’
The floor wasn’t just disintegrating, it was melting like butter beneath him. Reality was opening up for this glorious moment in his life. He wasn’t afraid of falling, and sure enough, once the balcony was gone he found himself suspended floating in the air.
He could hear a deep, resonant sound. Was God finally here to answer his prayers?
But the source of the sound was no god that he knew of. It was a giant cartoon dinosaur.