The Sleep Traveller
Happened again, I somehow fell asleep and woke up in this weird bed. It wasn’t mine, it can’t be mine, I would never own a hammock let alone sleep on it.
Yesterday was perfect. I had an amazing girlfriend and we had this huge house with trees on it’s yard. Somehow trees grew shoes on them but it was an adequately liveable universe that I woke up to. Not like that literal hellhole from a week ago.
It started when I was 13. The life I live back then feels like a thousand lifetimes ago, because in a way it actually is. I was the youngest in a family of corn farmers in Iowa. I had 3 siblings that were very hard to get along with, a loving mother, a hard working father, a golden retriever named flash and some mediocre grades at my school. So you know, nothing out of the ordinary, I haven’t made a deal with the devil, fell into a radioactive dump, migrated from another planet or anything like that. As you can tell I loved comic books, I would do almost anything to get my hands on a copy of spider-man or even the green lantern. But this is my life now, somehow, somewhere in my life I upset some god and this is my punishment. Every time I fell a sleep, I wake up in another universe with the batshit crazy rules.
The first time when this happened I thought I was still asleep and tried to go back to it, then it changed again. I must have changed 6 different universes that night. Can you imagine waking up and going back to sleep and having completely different life-like dreams every time you do. That would make you question your drugs and your life choices. For my case, those dreams are the real thing, and they change every freaking time.
Over time, I developed a series of tests for my new worlds. They usually have breathable atmospheres and I can eat the food in the majority of them. The ones that I can’t breathe, I end up fainting and waking up in another one. When the food is no good or no drinkable water is present I end up spending some time in and going to sleep hungry and thirsty.
When I wake up I take short breaths from my mouth and try to taste the air. If it tastes like rotten eggs, onions, dead animals etc. it is a good sign that the day is going to be very hard. Then I find something firm and just drop it from waist high to test the gravity and the general physics of the environment. I have been to many universes where I could jump many feet off the air and many that crushed my every cell under its gravity. Then I try to take a few steps and check to see if everything is going well. Then usually hunger takes over my body and the quest to find something edible begins.
Today I am on a hammock. I have never seen a hammock beside on earth. And the air tastes like, salt-water and some flowery scent. This must be a decent place near seas. There is only one sun with yellow and orange colour.
No, it can’t be earth. This happened before, I got excited thinking that I am back on earth and when I discovered the slimy residents and the three moons it only ended in heartbreak. This is one of those fake earths. If I don’t let myself hope, my heart wouldn’t break.
As I wake up on an hammock, I couldn’t find anything to drop down. My body would have to endure the gravity test as I get myself off this contraption.
Just as I predicted, I fell. But the fall did give me a sense of warm feeling, I can’t quite put it into words, I didn’t break anything, I wasn’t bleeding from my nose. I picked a seed from the tree and let it drop to the dirt just to keep the ritual going. It fell somewhat gracefully, a bit slower then the previous universe. I studied the plants growing on the dirt, they were some sort of grass, and as I directed my attention to the plants, the brownish coloured four legged insects greeted me in silence.
I was in a middle of a forest. Well it felt like the middle anyway, for I walked for three hours to find any dweller. I picked some berries and nuts on the way, I ate only the things that I saw other animals and insect consume, it wasn’t very pleasant but it was somewhat safe. I can’t tell how many times I consumed something poisonous and admitted to a hospital/ tribe herbalist/ wizard/ scientist and many other professions that I can’t figure out that studied my body. I usually draw the thing that I ate and they figured out what to do. When I am among carbon based life forms it usually worked, the same could not be said for the energy based life forms though.
I arrived on a clearing, and could saw a figure trying to do something with his vehicle-looking object. The first encounter is always interesting, they usually run away, but if not, it leads to some pretty interesting stuff with me trying to body language away some basic stuff.
I got closer, and the being looked more humanoid with every step I took in the direction. I tried to calm myself down, I wasn’t going to let myself get excited but this universe really did looked like mine. The figure was almost human and the thing he worked on seemed like a pickup truck, just like we had when I was a kid. I decided to take a chance.
“Hello sir!” I let out, failing to conceal my excitement.
The man looked back for a second and returned to his busywork on the now apparent pickup truck.
“Can you understand me, I think I am lost.” I uttered, the concept of Babylon fish really existed in some of the universes that I’ve been in, so trying verbal communication first did pay out in places.
“Hand me the wrench, will ya.” Said the old man, with a resigned attitude.
I was so surprised I couldn’t move for a moment.
“Look kid, if you want anything, you gotta help me. Or we’re both stranded on this goddamn middle of nowhere.” The man said, taking my confusion as a refusal to cooperate I guess.
The thing that got me was the fact that I could understood the man. Even with a universal translator implant, only the other party could understand me, I didn’t have an implant at the moment so I really must be on earth.
“Yes sir, of course sir” I replied, after some time passed with my bafflement and I handed him something from the toolbox.
After some trial and error and stern looks from the guy, he got up and took it himself.
“Where are you headed?” Asked the man, when he finished mumbling to himself about how ignorant I am on the matter of tools.
“Excuse me for asking but, which country is this?” I found myself asking, ignoring the man’s question on the basis of me being not headed for anywhere specific.
“Iowa, boy, United States of god blessed America. Did you dropped from the skies, what kind of a dumb question is that?”
Every hair on my body was standing up. I could not believe it. I was home, after all those years, nay lifetimes, I was finally home.
“Could you give me a ride to town when you finish fixing the car sir?” I asked.
The old man nodded and asked for grease, I handed him the can with a label of grease. I was finally in a place that I can read the labels on the cans. I would have never imagined being able to read could make me this happy.
It took a while but finally the pickup was ready to take us to the town, I did not know which but it mattered not. For I was home, and nothing could change that. A pain in my stomach had me fold over myself. It was like boiling hot water being poured all over my head. Something could change that. Sleeping could change that.
I rarely got attached to the places that I visit. When I did, I quickly remembered the fact that I will never see the place or the beings in it and I made peace with the idea. But this time, it was different. This time I was home. I dreamed of this day so much, and now I could only think of how I will have to leave it behind.
No, there must be some way, some way to beat this thing. I had so many stuff that I got to do, so many people that I have wondered about.
Right as these thoughts filled my head, we crossed over a railroad crossing. It was somehow familiar. I knew this road, I used to go to school over this road. I asked the old man if he knew where the McNeil Farm is and he pointed somewhere over the horizon and said its six miles that way. I asked if he could drop me off somewhere close and he dropped me off at a junction with a mile walk left.
I spent that mile thinking about every single greeting and catching up I had been dreaming of for years. How I would explain my condition to my family. How I would tell them my exciting adventures over dinner and my older brothers and sister listening to me awe-struck.
I was walking so fast at some point, I had to stop and catch my breath. With watery eyes I checked my surroundings. Not much have changed, same corn silos and same farm houses mostly.
Found my mother on the porch. She asked if I was a Jehovah’s Witness. I couldn’t hold myself as I rushed to envelop her in my arms and saying, “Mama, it’s me” over and over. She was speechless as she also buried me in her arms.
We caught up over some hot cocoa and cookies. They thought that I left them at night and went to Chicago. They have searched everywhere and even sent my photo to be printed on milk cartons. My father have passed away some years later and my bigger brother took up the farm. My sister and younger brother have gone to college and had respectable jobs in the big city. Some reunion. But even the sight of my mother was enough for me.
My brother got home and as we had dinner I’ve learned that my other siblings could only join us over the weekend, it was Monday. There’s no way I could stay awake that long without damaging my brain.
As I guessed, they did not believe me. They thought that I became this habitual liar and just came up with a ridiculous excuse. Of course I couldn’t blame them or prove myself but I believe that my mother started to believe me when I snooped around on our ancestral history so much. No one in my family went missing or had a native American curse on them as I can tell.
Days passed, I could hardly keep awake anymore. I had “obtained” some adderall so I could stay awake and continue on my research but nothing came up. I didn’t want to leave this place, not again. There must be some way that I could reverse this curse.
There was a way, I did not want to resort to it but there was a way to stop this curse and stay where I am.
Sleep was creeping in from every part of my body, I could not tell the days apart. As time passed the only thing that I could think of was my last resort plan.
I wrote a letter to my mother, and explained why. I’m sure, in time she would understand. I got my father’s hunting rifle, and retired to my old room. I covered the bed and the walls with some tarp I found in the barn.
I just want to sleep…
…
…
…
I wake up in own my bed, looked around, found something to drop and noticed my hand. So small. I rushed to the bathroom to check myself. I was thirteen again. Left the bathroom and stumbled on my father, “Bad dream?” He said with his reassuring voice. “Uh-uh” I said. “Go back to bed son, everything is going to be alright.”
I could only hope so.
