Adam Nelson poured himself a second cup of coffee, sat down at the dinner table in his kitchen, adjusted his tie, and prepared to enjoy his absolute favorite time of the day. It was around 8:15 in the morning. Silence reigned.

Claire had left for work a full hour earlier, and their ten-year-old son Cory had just closed the door heading to his bus stop. Adam loved every minute spent with his loved ones, but sometimes their problems and emotions were a little overwhelming.

The quiet following the usual morning chaos made him feel like he was on top of the world. From 8:15 to 8:30am every weekday morning, Adam found he could just sit in complete stillness and really enjoy his second cup of coffee before he was forced to drive away. The Nelsons lived on the outskirts of New York, and just as this quiet time was the high point of Adam’s day, fighting traffic to and from work were the low points. Adam put the commute out of his mind and took a sip of his coffee. He turned his thoughts to the morning’s parenting challenges.

Cory did not want to go to school today because of Jeff. Jeff Hammond was the local bully, living just down the street from the Nelsons, and had allegedly pushed Cory out of his place in line for recess in front of the whole class. Adam had his share of bullying experiences when he was growing up, yet, curiously, he had no idea what sort of advice to give his son. Being bullied didn’t necessarily build character, but perhaps it was a kind of rite of passage for every young boy. There will always be bullies at every age, and everyone needs to learn how to deal with them sooner or later.

Claire, on the other hand, wanted to accompany Cory to his school with a baseball bat. As amusing as that might be, Adam sometimes didn’t think Claire’s parenting style was very healthy. The description “control freak” didn’t do Claire justice.

Adam picked up his iPad and opened the New York Times app, navigating straight to The Strange section. A recent rash of bizarre stories from around the globe had prompted the paper to begin grouping them all into one section for easy reference. Their biggest problem seemed to be what to name it. They had started with “News of the Strange,” switched to “Strange Update,” and then finally stuck with “The Strange.” Adam saw interest in The Strange articles was outpacing Politics and Sports, and wondered when they would bump it up on the splash screen. CNN was already launching a daily evening show called, “The Phenomenon.”

Adam didn’t quite know what to make of all the weirdness. The nut carrying the sign outside his office building clearly believed the world was ending, his neighbor Eric thought it was all a mass media conspiracy designed to make people fearful and obedient, but most folks felt just like Adam did: curious, fascinated, and maybe just a little frightened by it all. At least it wasn’t another pandemic.

Conscious of his limited leisure window, Adam quickly scanned through The Strange as he slurped his coffee.

The most common Strange articles were always the ones about superhuman feats at times of great stress. When Adam was a boy, he had heard the urban legend of the mother lifting a car off her trapped child right after an accident. Nowadays, it was unusual for a mother not to manhandle a twisted pile of steel to save her child. Adam thought of Claire. He suspected she would first lift the car off Cory and then go flip over the car that hit them.

The most interesting Strange stories were well-known myths and tall tales, but now accompanied by actual people involved with actual photos and videos. Fascinated by dinosaurs as a boy, Adam had made a point to follow the recent Loch Ness Monster stories. The official tally of people “suspected of being attacked” by the monster had risen to three. Really what they meant was, “believed to have been swallowed whole.” The best pic of the beast by far was taken a couple days ago. The photo was strangely similar to an old well-known Loch Ness Monster picture, with a shadowy outline of a body and thick neck. The new picture was almost the exact same shot, except it looked like someone had cranked up the resolution. It made the first one look obviously fake, showing the actual ripples of the waves and the texture of the monster’s skin. In the age of photoshop, it didn’t exactly qualify as proof of a monster’s existence, but the rest of the stories and pictures sure were pointing that way. Adam hoped he hadn’t lied when he told Cory the other day that monsters weren’t real.

Today the headline on The Strange was all about the increasing strength of something called the Placebo effect. Adam quickly lost interest as all the talk of data sets and probabilities just reminded him of work. Adam scrolled through a few other sections looking for anything about monsters before glancing at his watch.

It was nearing 8:30. He needed to be at his desk before 9:00, so he gulped the chalky remains of his coffee and headed for the door. Adam was close to becoming manager of the accounting department and was pretty much just waiting for the company to find an excuse to remove his current manager, Melvin. Until then, he needed to keep his punctuality record intact.

Adam worked for a computer hardware company called NextSys. Others might describe accounting at NextSys as stifling, but to Adam, the slow pace allowed him to really connect with his coworkers, whom he genuinely enjoyed. Frank could always be counted on for the mindless morning conversation, which was traditionally scheduled precisely between 10 and 10:30 a.m. after Frank got his first cup of coffee. Not as reliable as Frank, but also fairly consistent was Ellen, the secretary, who would often find an excuse to stop by his desk. Her self-conscious manner always made Adam smile, but Adam was married, and even if he wasn’t, Ellen was not his type. Even Melvin, Adam’s lousy manager, was amusing to Adam in his own flustered little way. Probably the greatest source of stress at the office for Adam was the fact that he couldn’t become manager until his friend Melvin left.

Adam closed and locked the door to his house, mentally preparing himself for the confrontation with Tuesday morning traffic. The thought on everyone’s mind was when, where, and how this strange phenomenon might manifest in their own lives. Adam felt secure as he queued into the onramp line for the freeway that if there were to be any unexplained occurrences in his life, there was no way in hell they were going to happen at NextSys.