The creed of the gremlin is a sneaky one. We are born with a haunting passion to sneak and to sabotage. Birds were made to fly, dogs to be companions, cows to be eaten, and gremlins to sneak. The Divinity in his greatness has entrusted in us a certain nature to augment the basic sneak. A sense. An eye for opportunity and for exploitation; and the volition to cloud, to confuse, and ultimately to subvert. We work meticulously, methodically; aggravating and deteriorating the soundness of ones sanity.

Eric's demanding schedule necessitates naps. He lies in bed at 5:27pm. He needs to wake at 6:30pm in order to uphold some important obligation. His days are long and his resistance to fatigue is wearing thin. This hour of sleep is one that settles his sleep debt. This hour invested twice weekly allows him to maintain his schedule the way that he wants it. This hour is to his life what a supply line is to an enemy entrenchment.

He lies face down, head turned left towards the wall, his head on his pillow. He clears his mind of thought so as to fall asleep more quickly and not waste precious sleep minutes. He tucks his long hands beneath his thighs, and rolls his shoulders in and around his neck. A fortress with its back to the cold. His eyes close, and now, the battle belongs to me.

I climb slowly and quietly from beneath the kitchen sink. The cabinet doors slide like a whisper on their hinges, their silence a formidable ally. My body is light as air. My flesh so soft and puffy, so noiseless in nature. Like dryer lint wrapped in a cheese cloth, my feet pad sans-vibration on the floor. I am beside his bed. Sneaky.

Tiny aluminum plates lined up like sliced bread - all encased in a cylinder no larger than a thumbtack deep inside Eric's clock - have been collecting electrons like snowflakes on a window pane for a fraction of a moment. All at once, all of the electrons on all of the plates magically clump together in a brilliant but microscopic flash of light; like a million glowing droplets of water joining hands in a beautiful display of water tension. The brilliant flash burns its way through tiny hairs of copper wire at a million miles an hour – stampeding towards the LCD display on the face of said clock. The living spark slams into a relay switch – and like a sluice altering the course of a fluid body, the switch moves a steady 5 Volts DC from one set of wires to another. The current splashes across the electrodes in the LCD display, and the liquid crystal molecules align themselves parallel to the new electric field. An eight becomes a nine. 5:29pm. Eric's eyes are closed and his breathing has become regular.

I reach my weightless arms through space and cosmos and grip time by the north seam. My fingers search quickly but precisely for an almost undetectable imperfection in the temporal plane. Like a sailor on an aircraft carrier folding laundry, like a housekeeper folding towels, like a gardener pulling a weed, like a gremlin who has done it a million times before - I fold 5:29pm forward slowly but surely with a steady, experienced grip. I lay it down on top of 6:27pm and press it between my thumb and forefinger firmly. Like warm wax, the two become one. I slide my hand out of the temporal plane very cautiously – like retracting your fist from a broken glass window.

Quickly, and silently, I return to my lair beneath the kitchen sink. Another hour stolen. Another victim with no available evidence without denying all that is real to him. I breath deep, swelling with pride from a job well done. Just a few more months of this, and he's sure to suffer from mild fatigue. I am so sneaky.