They've always told her, 'Don't leave to Tomorrow what you can do today,' and she was fairly certain it was a sick a play on her name.

Tomorrow checked the time on her screen, and narrowed her eyes at the hour. "Somebody must me toying with me."

She idly chewed on her pencil while observing the stamped digits, and when the seven rolled over to an eight, she sighed, tossed her pencil on the desk and leaned back in her chair.

Her eyes were burning, her head ached, and her back was cramping. She had worked for hours, but the clock told her that she had been here for no more than ten minutes. Hardly possible, given the mountain of work she had powered through.

But then again, she did have infallible motivation.

She rose from the chair, decided to kick off her heels - not like anybody would come stumbling in at almost nine in the evening to admonish her on appropriate work-wear - and shuffled over the staff kitchen.

There, sat atop the counter, next to the buzzing fridge, was her one hope for a happy life - the percolator. If she was going to die in - she checked her watch - six hours and twenty-two minutes, then she was going to make damn sure that she died on a caffeine high.

She filled the percolator with water and replaced the coffee, switched on the machine and strolled back to her desk. Usually management would frown upon the amount of coffee she planned to consume, but they weren't here.

Besides, what were they going to do? Fire her? Stick a notice of termination on her caffeinated, twitching corpse? She'd love to be alive to see that.

She flopped down in her chair again, eyed the stack of paperwork, and sighed. If she didn't do it... it wouldn't make much of a difference, probably, but she was doing it anyway. She had the time, six hours and twelve minutes, in fact, so might as well be productive. 

She prepared her work, looked for her pencil - it had taken her a few minutes to realise it had rolled off the desk - and finally glanced at the clock one last time before digging in.

She frowned, and tapped her computer monitor. "You're wrong," she told the screen, pointing at the time. "It was almost nine almost ten minutes ago. How are you telling me it's only half-past eight?"

She waited, almost expecting a reply, but none came. She checked her wristwatch, and, indeed, it was only half-past eight. That gave her, what, six hours and forty-nine minutes left to live.

Something very odd was happening here. She observed her wristwatch, just to make sure that time was moving in the correct direction. It seemed to be.

Tomorrow eventually conceded that she must have simply confused herself. She supposed she might be more inclined to make a mistake than the laws which governed the universe.

Not that the universe was infallible. Oh no. The universe had made its fair share of mistakes too. Stealing her time, for example. Shoving her into a vessel destined to die when she was promised a life a live. Capitalism. All great mistakes by cosmic folly. 

But, then, the universe did have its perks. Like overtime pay. And coffee.

She set down the last of the small stack of papers, stamped it 'PROCESSED', and shoved it into a file. Maybe she punched it a bit skew, but in - check the time - seven hours and six minutes she'd be past caring.

She slapped her computer. "That's not how time works, you silly machine!"

Her wristwatch agreed with the glorified calculator. Again, time was moving the way it was supposed to and her mind was racing.

Well, crawling. She could perhaps figure out the anomalies of the space-time continuum after a freshly brewed cup of Kingsling's Coffee.

Tomorrow was used to things not going her way, even used to appliances disobeying her. Sometimes the electric whisk would go at maximum speed when she set it to slow, or her fridge would decide that twenty degrees below freezing was a suitable temperature for storing things.

She never, however, expected the percolator to betray her like so. Not only had the percolator not produced a fresh brew of coffee, but it was also idle, empty, and blinking the time at her rather innocently.

She cautiously approached the devil machine, and eyed it closely. There was absolutely no indication that anybody was preparing coffee. 

"Hey, Tomorrow!" She almost absolutely jumped out of her skin. The unexpected voice sent her heart into an erratic race as she turned to see Michael standing in the doorway, his blazer slung over his shoulder and his hair in a mess. "You're still here," he said, raising a tired eyebrow.

She nodded, then blurted out, "Did you touch the coffee?"

He frowned and turned to the percolator. "No, but now you mentioned it, I wouldn't mind to make some. Here, let me." He moved past her, set his blazer down on the counter and set into preparing the machine. Tomorrow watched him work, the movement of his body and the way his head hung.

"You shouldn't work so late," she said. "You look terrible."

Michael chuckled. "Thanks, how very flattered I am, but I was planning on clocking out in just a few minutes. I don't like staying away from the kids like this."

Tomorrow nodded thoughtfully. She might have had the same philosophy if she had kids. She would want to spend her final - check the watch - ten hours and nineteen minutes with them.

"I'm very confused," she said to Michael. Just then, another voice snapped her attention. It was her manager, Sam, peeking his head into the kitchen. His carry-bag was slung over his shoulder and crammed full of paper.

"Oh, are you staying late tonight, Tomorrow? Keep this up and I'll have no choice but to promote you."

Tomorrow frowned and looked at Michael, then back at Sam. "Yeah, I am. I have to finish off some recons."

Sam nodded, and smiled. "Just don't overwork yourself, okay? These long nights can't be good for you."

"I'll try my best. Michael's offered to make me some coffee, so I should be fine."

"I did? Huh, I don't recall, but it does seem like something I would do."

Tomorrow narrowed her eyes at the man, her thoughts racing. "Thanks, I, uh, better get to it then."

She quickly returned to her desk, severely surprised to see a few of her coworkers, busy packing things at their desks. The late-afternoon sun was streaming in through the large windows overlooking the city. 

She flopped down at her desk and stared the monitor.

She must be losing her mind.

Or, maybe the universe had broken.

Or, maybe she was dead and this was just how the afterlife worked - time going backwards and having to relive all of it, slowly, recreating every good memory and every heartbreaking moment.

But, her work was still set out for her. If she wasn't so determined to finish it, she'd have crawled under her desk and lost her mind in privacy. She checked her watch. Seven hours and forty minutes until death.

She breathed in deeply and sighed. She'd finish her work and then go figure out what was up with the space-time continuum. 

~~~

She finally packed away the final file. All the accounts were in order and made some semblance of sense, even if the universe around her didn't. She'd occasionally look up and see more people in the office, notice that the time of her death was retreating, moving further into the future, and it was a very odd sensation.

Her death was in nineteen hours and six minutes, and very quickly disappearing over the horison.

Sam appeared next to her desk.

"Are you alright, Tomorrow? You haven't been working all night again, have you?"

She surveyed her desk, and all the mess strewn about it. "I have, I am tired, the accounts are up to date and I need coffee."

Without waiting for a response, she rose in her chair and headed to the kitchen, where one of the early birds had already prepared some coffee. Sam followed her without a word. She poured herself a cup, drank it all down, and poured herself another.

"I'm worried about you, Tomorrow," Sam said.

"Me too," she responded.

He ran a hand through his hair, and sighed. "Maybe you should take the day off, and relax. Life isn't all work, you know."

Tomorrow nodded, finished her coffee and glared at the percolator on her way out. She checked her watch - nineteen hours and two minutes left to live. She almost yelped for joy when time made sense again. 

She collected her things, looked for her shoes, and headed to the elevators, flashing a quick goodbye to Michael.

When she reached the bottom floor, she had eighteen hours and forty minutes left live.

Things were great and good and whole in the universe again. 

She could have sang about the relief she felt if it wasn't underlined by her impending death. 

She'd really have to have a word with the Big Man after, to sort all this nonsense about backwards time out. 

But, for now, she had almost an entire day to live and she was adamant about dying on a caffeine high, so she went off to buy herself a percolator.