Pieces Of The Puzzling Grey

What if the greatest adventure Luck would ever experience happened at the age of twelve? This was what Lucky thought as he floated through the air. Well… as he fell through the air was more like it. At least that’s how it felt. Luck was frozen in time. He couldn’t really move, and the world, his world, was a spinning sea of grey.

Specks of light appeared in the distance rushing towards him, and then whipping past too fast for him to focus on. They were bright lights though. Bright enough to illuminate this weird grey room around him. A two-by-four takes shape above Lucky, or maybe it’s a different type of wood? Either way, it’s a plank and that’s what Luck was going to call it, since he’s only twelve and can learn the different types of wood when he’s older.

Lucky does know what bed sheets are. He sleeps in them every night… but the ones moving slowly above him aren’t his bedsheets. These aren’t the cool blues and greys and blacks of his favorite superhero. They don’t have the cool yellow mask that hides his identity. The same yellow mask Luck’s mom got mad at him for cutting out of the sheets with scissors. Which he had to do because his mom wouldn’t buy him a real mask, and he needed it so the bad buys wouldn’t know who he was. She just didn’t understand, but he could explain it to her later.

She did eventually say she would buy him a real mask so long as he promised not to cut any more out from his sheets. Some nights Luck finds the hole he cut and slips his foot through it so Muffin will attack it when he’s pretending to be asleep.

But these sheets that are slowly moving away from him now, aren't his blue and grey and black sheets. These are all black like Billy’s sheets. Black like the cape Luck’s favorite hero wears. If only Luck could slow down his fall and swim back up. Then he could grab the plank and the sheets and tie them together– maybe staples would be better? There’s one in mom’s office. Then he could- well not fly exactly, but maybe Luck could glide?

There’s a humming in this room that Luck didn’t notice before. Something angry and pulsing and fast like a gong or like a heartbeat… “No.” Luck thought. This sounds more like that cave Billy took us to down by the water. The one Billy said pirates used to hide out in. He said the pulsing was just the waves crashing under water, but that didn’t make any sense, since waves crash above the water. And this pulsing was too deep. Too… alive.

Like the ocean had a heart of its own. The angry humming reminded Luck of the ocean’s heart. Which is pretty cool. The room even tasted like the ocean. A little salty– No. it’s more like the sandwich mom wrapped in tin foil. That day, Luck was so hungry he didn’t even notice he had taken a bite with a whole chunk of foil still on it. At least, he didn’t know until it sent little shocks of electricity through his teeth. Is that how computer keys feel? Like they’re snacking on little chomps of electricity.

The room kind of tastes like that. Maybe he’s inside of a computer. Mom’s laptop is grey…

But the room also kind of tastes like that time Luck fell off his skateboard and bit his tongue. What happened to that skateboard anyway? Luck hadn’t seen it since that time he took it onto the roof and tried to ride it into the pool.

Luck isn’t a dummy like Billy might say. He’s twelve now, and high school is only a year and a half away. Lucky couldn’t survive if the older kids thought he would still ride a skateboard off his roof into the pool. It was obviously too far away. 

But maybe… maybe if he could build something to carry him a little farther– like wings or maybe a cape. Then for sure he could make the distance. Clear the gap. Even if the skateboard didn’t go all the way with him. He could glide the extra few feet.

Luck looks up hoping to see the bedsheets, but he’s fallen too far, now. And his eyes won’t stay still. They have a little wobble in them, and it kind of feels like he’s moving sideways now, and upside down, at the same time.

It’s weird and Luck doesn’t like it, and why can’t he see where he’s going?

“This grey room kind of stinks,” Luck thinks.

It has to be a dream… but Lucky’s never felt so dizzy in a dream before. Except that time he had the flu and puked off the side of his bed. His belly even feels kind of the same, like there’s a whole pool of fish swimming in it.

If only Lucky could flip over. That would definitely help him see where he was falling to at least. Maybe the ride will be over soon? 

“And could someone please turn down the lights,” Lucky says– but that doesn’t sound like the normal way Luck says things. This kind of sounds like he’s trying to talk with a mouthful of marshmallows. Like when they go camping.

Billy can always fit more marshmallows in his mouth than Luck, but that’s just because Billy is bigger and has more room in his mouth to say dumb things like, “I was watching him mom.”

No– Billy would say something way dumber than that. Try again.

If. Only. The. Pulsing. Would Stop. Thumping. So. Loudly.

“Of course I didn’t help him up onto the roof, mom.” That’s a little closer to the Billy Luck knows. Come on Billy, say something really dumb. 

Oh– he’s slowing down! Luck finally isn’t flying sideways and upside down anymore. And the lights have stopped moving. But why is there a shadow blocking the lights? Now the room is a dark grey like trying to walk through the house at night. It’s the hardest type of light to see anything.

Something warm grabs Luck’s arm and squeezes. He reaches towards the touch, but his arm doesn’t move, and neither does the hot grip pressing into him. The kind of grip that Billy might give right before he twists Lucky’s arm in a rug burn. 

“Ahh. Please don’t give me a rug burn,” Lucky thinks… or does he say it?

“Wake up, Luck, you little dummy. If you wake up, I promise I’ll make you your very own cape. Or you could have my sheets. You could have whatever you want… but you have to wake up.”

“Whatever I want,” Lucky thinks. 

That’s more like the Billy he knows. That’s the dumb brother Luck remembers. “With whatever I want, I’ll finally be in control! Billy will have to obey my every command. I could even have that lightcycle model he says I’m never allowed to play with. His world could be mine!”

Only if Lucky could figure out how to get unstuck… Ok. For his first wish Billy, Luck wants to get out of the grey room. He’s tired of it. He’s done with this adventure.

Perhaps he’ll have a new one. A better one. When he’s older.