The sun had just begun to rise over the distant hills of Velvet Grove as Herb Loveland started his bedtime routine. Herb brushed his top row of teeth 72 times and his bottom row 68 for a total of 124 seconds. He rinsed his mouth twice and then his toothbrush for 15 seconds before placing it back into the cream-colored holder.
He stared at himself in his spotless mirror. His whole figure seemed to blend into the sky-blue wall behind him. He was neither attractive nor unattractive. He wasn't too tall nor too short, neither thin nor round. His smile was white, but if you looked close enough, you'd notice a slight crook in the third tooth. Herb looked like someone you'd seen but couldn't quite remember where. He'd spent his entire life blending into backgrounds and was quite ok with it.
After sliding into a pair of navy-blue silk pajamas, he went to the living room, where his automatic coffee maker poured hot water into a plain white travel mug. He grabbed a chamomile teabag and tossed it onto the scorching water. He sat on his couch and forced himself to yawn eight times, which took approximately seventy-eight seconds. He stood to his feet and stretched his fingertips towards the ceiling and then arched his back until his hands pointed towards the top of the back wall. He held for ten seconds and repeated the stretch five times.
Herb pulled his phone from the charger and was not surprised there were no notifications. He was pretty sure if he were to slip, fall, and crack his head, it would be at least a month, possibly two, before someone would think to come looking for him. He put his phone on "do not disturb," just in case. He discarded the tea-bag, screwed the lid onto his travel mug, and walked to the leaving-the-house shelf he'd drilled into the wall beside his front door.
He pulled his white-noise earbuds from the shelf and slid them into his pocket. He slid his custom-ordered 15% Visual Light Transmission sunglasses over his eyes and grabbed his key ring off the hook. He forced three more yawns, opened the door, and froze.
His body shook slightly. This was not a part of the routine. What is this? No. Take a breath. Six seconds in, hold for five, now seven seconds out. Calm down. Calm down.
Herb did not calm down. There, in a sizeable dull-orange pot in the center of his otherwise bare porch, sat a giant sunflower. The flower was in full bloom, with the head roughly the size of a volleyball. The dark brown disk seemed to glare back at Herb. It was beautiful; it was vibrant; he had not placed it there. As he scanned from the flower to the root, his heart skipped for a second time when he saw a small piece of cardstock sticking out of the soil.
Herb looked both ways down the quiet suburban street to ensure no one was watching. He nervously glanced at the house on the corner and saw no movement in the windows.
Slowly, he knelt and pulled the paper from the dirt. His fingers twitched as he read the note. A phone number, written in excellent penmanship, sat at the bottom of the card. Above the number was one sentence. "I know it's been you. Call me."