What's the book you've got, Imaj?
Imaj held up the book, and Virgil bent down to read it in the low lighting. “The Little Broken Alarm Clock?” he read. “This thing looks so old...” Imaj held the book out to Virgil. “You...want me to read it?” Imaj nodded.
Virgil took the book and sat down beside Imaj. He opened it up and cleared his throat as Imaj watched the pictures. It definitely was a book for younger kids, but Imaj wanted Virgil to read it, so he did.
The book followed, unsurprisingly, a little alarm clock named Aala. Aala wasn’t made like the other alarm clocks, and whenever someone set time, they didn’t go off properly. Aala was passed around, from owner to owner, who grew frustrated when they didn’t work the way they were supposed to.
One owner didn’t bother to pass Aala off to someone else, and instead he just threw Aala away. Aala sat in the garbage, sad, wishing that they had been made properly and weren’t broken, so their numbers wouldn’t count down and instead that they could tell time like they were supposed to. Aala stayed in the dump for a year until finally someone scourging through the garbage found them.
Aala was taken home but they already knew how this would go. On the first night when they didn’t work, Aala thought they were going to be thrown out again. But instead, the owner tinkered with them for a little more and realized that their numbers counted down to zero before going off. Aala was brought into a new place in the house, the kitchen, and the owner set to cooking. When the owner put something in the oven, they set a time on Aala’s clock. The numbers counted down and Aala’s alarm went off. The owner was happy, and so was Aala, because they finally found something they were good at. They weren’t broken, they just were better at something different than the other alarm clocks were.
Virgil finished the book and closed it. Imaj looked better and his eyes were dry. He held LOG-IN’s hand and pointed at Aala on the cover of the book. Then Imaj pointed at LOG-IN and then at himself. LOG-IN smiled.
