Your name is Jeff. You live in Burnfield, an utterly typical armpit situated a couple of miles off an Interstate, so devoid of anything even remotely interesting that it can scarcely be said to possess any geography, architecture or culture at all. You're twenty, terminally bored, prematurely jaded, and right now, thankfully, you're asleep.

Ah, sleep... Gracious time-killer, last refuge of the trapped...

It's one of those warm, immersing sleeps, you know, where you're totally out yet somehow aware that you're sleeping, and everything is comfortable and you're situated perfectly atop this heap of blankets and pillows and corrugated foam and half-in, half-out of your sleeping bag. You could almost forget that you're sleeping in a pup tent in your mother's garage - your half-hearted attempt at "moving out" - if it weren't for the persistent quasi-nightmares of being buried alive (or worse, back in high school), and the occasional accidental throttling of the garage door opener's chain drive. But hey, who cares right now - you're sleeping off last night's excess, oblivious to the rummy sweat that slimes your flesh, or the fact that it's well after noon.

UNTIL...