Dreamlike State

Dreamlike State

The flickering fluorescent lights cast a yellowed tone over the office. Moonlight peeked in through the cloudy windows. A large, gray, boxy computer sitting on a desk had the word “Lucid,” on it, a wavering script on an animated ocean background. The scent of fresh-cut wood and fabric wafted through the air, with something else.

Caelan sat on the tile floor, curled up against the cold metal of the desk. He was wearing a button-up, a pair of suit pants, and new, shiny dress shoes. He pulled himself up onto his feet, letting out a groan from just awakening. He turned to see the computer screen. He paused for a second inspecting the odd text. His vision blurred for a moment, shaking. He looked down, a small moist, moss carpet sat below his feet, his shoes cushioned by the verdant layer of vegetation. It was strange to see moss in an office full of cracked tile and metal desks. Caelan adjusted himself, now looking up again.

The scenery had changed; he was now in a sunroom with cracked and peeling yellow wallpaper. The room was trapezoidal in shape. A large window in front of Caelan let him see a flowing, rocking sea. Seafoam flowing like silk across rolling waves like hills. Caelan felt out of place in the room; He felt like an object in the wrong room. He turned around his dress shoes dragging against the tan carpet. He saw a small, weathered, wooden school desk. On the desk was a small piece of paper. Caelan took a step towards the desk. Deja Vu began to set in. A young child, maybe 8 or 9, appeared in front of Caelan. The child was a little chubby, wearing a polo shirt and khaki pants. “What?” Caelan asked, almost involuntarily. The child stared at Caelan, eyes wide.

After a short moment of awkward staring Caelan walked around the child, towards the desk. He slowly reached out towards the desk. The paper was oddly heavy in Caelan’s hand after he grabbed it. The paper was crinkled, faded blue lines, now jagged. There were words on the page, ragged and rough pencil marks. It was the sentence, “I will respect teachers.” written from the top of the page to the bottom.

Caelan straightened his posture. The page uncrinkled a bit. “Wake up,” a raspy voice said, seemingly from nowhere. Caelan let go of the paper. It fluttered down to the ground. The room began to blur almost, Caelan’s eyes began to close. The unnatural buzz of fluorescent light returned.

Caelan’s eyes reopened, to see a view from an office window. A wet, cracked parking lot sat a few stories down. Streetlights burned a bright yellow-ish light onto the pavement. One car sat in the parking lot, barely illuminated by a flickering streetlight. He couldn't tell what kind of car it was, but it almost made him feel wistful in a way. The air was cold, thick with the scent of cold water and rocks. The image of the child flickered in the glass for a split second. Caelan turned around, the grid of desks was uniform, empty. Except, there was that one desk, at the center of the room, that bore the wavy Lucid text.

Suddenly, something began to inflate from under the desk, a primary-color laden, shiny plastic mass. The sharp sound of an air compressor began to fill the room. Then, the sound of a balloon blowing up. The mass inflated up, walls and towers rising up like a childlike monument trampling over desks.

His vision blurred again. He involuntarily looked down; a small green dinosaur sat knocked over onto the tile. A child’s toy, its paint weathered. He was sure that didn’t happen.

The office walls began to shift into a cracked wood, then a cloudy blue sky. The floor, the walls, even the dinosaur slowly fazed out of existence. It was just Caelan in a cloudy aerial expanse. Weightlessness took over Caelan’s body as he floated towards the bouncy castle. The castle expanded, forming new gates, laden with black mesh and bright pillars. Caelan was propelled into the fortress, no, the labyrinth. Gravity returned to him, softer, more a suggestion than a hard rule. He jumped into a large bouncy room, beginning to grin. Balloons flew into the room from weightless corridors. Red, yellow, and blue flew together in the childish foyer. He fell down into the bright nylon. Gravity shifted, heavy, thick. He could barely breathe as he was shoved farther and farther down.

The sharp beeping of an alarm clock shot through the air. Caelan sat up, in his bed, nearly dripping with sweat. A thin yellowed light poured in through his window. He turned off his alarm clock. What a horrible case of the flu. A beach ball sat at the foot of the hotel bed, barely deflating. His bedside plant was wilting, leaves bowing down. The smell of the warm beach air wafted through a window, accompanied by the sound of waves crashing and children laughing on the beach. He looked at his alarm clock, it said something stranger than the dream. A floating script, white and pearly, contrasted against the dark background of the alarm, read, “Lucid,”

The screen turned off, then turned on and showed “10:20”. Caelan shifted to sitting on the side of the bed. He switched on his lamp, the light streamed into the room. He stretched out his arms and yawned. His muscles ached softly and he had a little headache.

As he got up, he began to smell old, wet wood coming from the window. After a short pause, he walked over to the window, still in his pajamas. The beach was bright, people playing volleyball and swimming. Around a long pier, the water shifted, greenish. A giant wooden pole rose out from the water, impossibly colossal. The dark pole flew towards the sky, neverending.

Caelan closed the binds. That was scary. What a, a, I don't know.