I wake up and rise from the bed at exactly 8 AM, when the alarm goes off. It is merely a shallow box with a large blue blanket, but at the end of the day anything will do. I have 20 minutes to shower, brush my teeth, and eat my allotted portion of coffee and lasagna. It might not seem like a lot of time, but at this point I don’t even think about it. I don’t think about anything. Garfield is happy that way. If He’s happy, I’m happy.

I exit my apartment at the same time as my neighbors, not even acknowledging each other. Some of us will go to bake lasagna for Garfield and the populace. Others will go hunting for The Odie. I’m a Strip Writer. I help write the strips, using tested formulas and keywords that are proven to keep our spirits up. Every day at lunch, a variety of strips are displayed in the sky for everyone to read and laugh at. Funny topics include Jon misunderstanding Garfield’s greatness and Odie being horrifically mutilated in various ways by Garfield. Occasionally a strip will contain nothing but three close-up drawings of Garfield’s face. We always get a kick out of that one.

As I ride the train through the sprawling grey-and-orange cityscape of New Garfield, I see a silhouette in the distance of someone running. It takes me by surprise. Running was outlawed, and I hadn’t seen anyone do it in years. A closer look reveals that the figure wears a blue shirt and jeans, not the orange-with-black-stripes jumpsuit everyone else wears. The Police pursue him. I wonder what the figure is doing. I think about what it would be like to be like him, defiantly going against the law and feeling the eyes of the city on me. To not have the same routine as everyone else. To be different from the others. Just for a moment, my hand curls up into a fist.

I watch the blue-shirted man narrowly escape, and barely muster up the courage to think: *Godspeed, figure.*