24*

The following takes place between just now, and pretty damn soon.
While slurping a cup of coffee, Jack Sauer discovers a shape behind his curtains. He shrieks like a woman, leaps from his comfy chair, and crawls behind his stuffy sofa. His cat, sleeping on that same sofa, looks, yawns, and continues sleeping.

As he looks again, and sees the unknown shape standing behind the curtains, he is convinced that terrorists are planning a heinous crime, like blowing up the world.

He grabs his phone, to call friends who can undertake action to stop this life threatening danger, until he realises that he has no friends, and he decides to throw the phone at the terrorist hiding in his home, holding him, and his cat, still sleeping, hostage.

The phone hits the shape, which turns out to be a flower pot, put there, earlier that day, by Jack's mother. The pot falls, breaks, and creates a mess on the floor. Jack mistakes the noise for a gun shot, and is convinced he has been shot. After 7 seconds of intense pain, he realises what actually happened, and peeks round the corner again.

Shortly after, the 'terrorist' dumped in the bin outside, Jack Sauer is sitting in his coffee stained chair again, this time sipping tea.

* Seconds, not hours.