My response to this prompt exceeded the limit. Don't worry I didn't write an obnoxiously long response. It's just a little over. Part 1 is below and I'll post Part 2 in the reply section. Here's Part 1:

"You're listening to WNYT. It is now 7:30 in the morning. Good morning to all of our listeners out there. Our programming is sponsored by..." I open and close my eyes quickly. Gold light spreads on the ceiling above my bed. It's vigor persists through my closed eyelids. I see bright black. The smell of linen sheets and the night sweat set into them pulls me awake slowly. I heard a beep when my alarm went off. It wasn't my alarm. What was that? I've never heard that beep before. I open my eyes and look to my side. Marie is not there. She wakes up before me. She gets the kids ready for school. We fought last night. We never resolved our argument, but we fell asleep anyway. I have a hard time piecing together the argument. I felt despondent lying in bed last night. My anxiousness resisted sleep, but it couldn't resist for long. I don't remember falling asleep. That probably made her more upset. I remembered last night and I felt sad. We have been fighting a lot. We've been both on edge. Marie's been pensive. She'll go almost a day at a time without actually speaking to me. I resent this. I'm worried. I go to the bathroom. I turn on the shower to warm the water up before I get in. While the shower's running I pee. It's yellow and smells faintly of asparagus. We had some roasted last night with dinner. After I finish showering, I brush my teeth. I walk around the bathroom and the bedroom connected while I do this. I'm satisfied and step to the sink to rinse. I wipe the condensation from the mirror. Something's different. My watch. I see it's different in the mirror. I flip over my right wrist. The face says "22h:43m:55s". I'm confused, but I know my clock has started again. I feel panic. It's started again. I find myself staring out the bedroom window from the bathroom. I'm not thinking about anything specific. There's a front of gray clouds in the distance. A group of five blackbirds fly down and out of view. They swoop up again towards the sun. I look at my watch again. "22h:38m:06s". I have to get ready. I pull on my slate colored pants, put on an undershirt, and a white and thin, navy striped dress shirt. I crease my shirt sleeves and roll them up. I think about my watch and roll them back down. I fasten the button on both sleeves. This conservative style would look unnatural and contrary to how i normally wear my shirts. I put on a matching slate blazer on over my shirt. If she asks I'll say I have a meeting. I walk downstairs. I fantasize about walking straight past everyone and out the door. I get to work, have a normal day, come home and everything is nice and normal. "Good morning guys." I say "Morning Dad." Jamie says. Daniel and Charlotte follow with their own preoccupied responses of "Morning." Marie says nothing. She stands in front of the sink and washes dishes slowly. I feel down looking at her. I walk up to her and put my hands on her hips. "Good morning Marie." Again, she does not respond. "Hey." I prod. "Go." her speech is delicate and downtrodden. I move forward to look around to her face. Her eyes are still and wet. "Marie?" "Go." Marie says this without out raising her volume or changing her inflection. I choose to not push her any further. I look to the kids. They are all unaware of what's going on between their mother and I. This is a relieving to me. The kids all go to the same school. Jamie is the youngest at 6 years old and Daniel and Charlotte are twins; they are both 10 years old. Marie drives them to and picks them up at school. I don't want to be in the house anymore. "Ok guys, I've gotta go. I'll see you all tonight." "Bye Dad." "Bye." "Bye." Marie is silent.

I'm stopped at a red light and I think about my watch for the first time since leaving the house. Why has it reset? I still love her. She doesn't love me. She doesn't love me. We just had a little falling out. I admit it's been getting progressively. Our relationship is not the same, but it's always changing. That's unavoidable. We knew that it would change and that it will continue to. I know now that it will change for good. Marie will leave me. Maybe she's been cheating on me. She's got time on her side to do it. I'd never have time to cheat on her. Well I guess I would, but I would have to do some serious work at it. Too much work. Besides I would never cheat on her anyway. I love her. I'm not choosing another soulmate tomorrow. She is. It's not my fault. At work, I ran through all of the scenarios of how I would uncover her treachery. I was nervous. I didn't want us to end. I didn't want our family to be split apart. Our kids. They would be living in a broken home. I've seen and heard that narrative countless times, but I never thought I would directly be involved in one of those stories. Maybe I'm going to meet my soulmate? I had a hard time entertaining this notion. It made me uneasy. I guess something could change. But in a day? No, she would have to have cheated on me at first. That would be the only way I would accept an invitation of flirtation or act on another previously benign attraction. I had lunch with a coworker outside of the office at 12:30. His name was Corey. I was thinking about opening up to him about my watch. He was my best work-friend. He was a borderline real friend too. I decided against divulging my secret. I'm not one to air my concerns to others. I had a meeting after lunch. I wasn't paying attention. I didn't look at my watch either, but I did twist it around my wrist compulsively. I noticed I was doing this and stopped. I started attempting to peak at everyone else's watch. I couldn't see any actives. Mostly everyone I worked with was in a similar scenario: Middle-aged, married, and with children. I twisted my watch more.
I was speaking with a co-worker of mine, Hillary, when I received a phone call. I looked at my phone. I didn't recognize the the number. It was 3:10 in the afternoon. Marie would have already picked up the kids from school by now. About 15 hours left. Hillary and I were working on a project together. She was about 5 or so years younger than I was. She was exceptionally attractive. Was she going to be my soulmate? No, while she was physically attractive, I couldn't imagine it would be her. We weren't compatible. Well maybe we were, but i would never let any light flirting go further than light flirting. There are a lot of attractive women out there. They couldn't all be your soulmate. I heard a beep. My watch. No. That was my phone. That was my voicemail tone. I ignored this until Hillary and I were finished with our conversation. I then excused myself. I listened to my voicemail in my cubicle. "Hello if this Harold Parker, please call back this number immediately. My name is Roger Tisfield. Thank you." The man that left the voicemail spoke shortly. He sounded cold. Was Roger the man Marie had been cheating on me with? Probably not. Who was he? I called the number. "Hello Officer Tisfield speaking." A police officer. What happened? "Hello. I'm returning a call. This is Harold Parker." "Harold. I'm sorry, but there's been an accident. Your wife and children have been in a car accident. Please come to St. Cecilia's Hospital at once." "What happened?" "I'm sorry I can't say at this moment, but please come to St. Cecilia's." "I understand. Thank you officer." I felt fear. What happened? I went to my bosses' office to tell him I had to leave for an emergency. He was understanding without further explanation. He said to go and that he wished everything was alright. I said thank you.