Technology

I began to stir as the sunlight streamed through the slits in the curtains. ‘Good,’ I thought to myself. ‘If I am waking up before the alarm, that means I get to go back to sleep.’ I stretched my arm out across the bed to grab the clock, and noticed that it wasn’t there.

‘Huh. That’s a little weird.’

There wasn’t enough light coming in through the heavy curtains to be able to do any real detective work regarding my most needed but most hated nemesis, so I got up to turn on the light. A blast of cold air hit me as I pulled back the covers, and I wondered why the heater hadn’t kicked in. I shuffled across the cold floor, my hands rummaging through the air and along the walls in search of a light switch. They found nothing but more air and bumpy wall patterns, and I quickly began to feel a welling of fear and frustration inside me. I felt like I was in a cave, cold, lumpy, dark. I finally summoned my courage and moved my way across the room toward the small shaft of light peeking from behind the curtain. I quickly threw the piece of material to the side, and what I saw horrified me.

As my eyes adjusted to the penetrating light, I saw…nothing. Nothing that seemed familiar, nothing that told me that this was my home, that this was where I belonged. It was almost like waking up in bed with a stranger after a long night of binge drinking, but way, way scarier. I looked around for something that seemed like it was part of my life, but the rickety desk and half-empty ink well only mustered a vague remembrance that I was a writer. But those aren’t a writer’s tools. Those are archaic and uncomfortable. Where was my IKEA chair with lumbar support, my laptop with spellcheck?

Furthermore, where was my TV to tell me what the weather was going to be like today? My beloved cell phone so that I could send out a mass text to try to find out what the hell was going on? Hell, I would even settle for something as archaic as a land line right now!

I stumbled through the rest of the house, and found only the same confusing relics. Oil lamps. Wood stoves. Dried meats. (where the fuck were my veggie burgers?!?!)

I could only come to one conclusion.

In the feverish haze that helped me float off to sleep the night before, I had transitioned into a world of horrific nightmares. The only way that I could see to save myself was to climb back into bed. The plump down comforter was the only solace I could find in that entire house, and I realized that if this was not, in fact, an illness-induced nightmare, likely brought on by a double dosing of Tylenol PM, that I would rather just curl up and die under here.