By the time he realized what happened, it had already been another lifetime.
The day he awoke arrived without a jolt. Through the foggy indistinctness of half-sleep, he opened his eyes and the dream ended. Not all at once. The alarm — he could have sworn there was a fire alarm going off. And then, the sound on the table beside him, his eyes, blurry shapes, colors, the world… again.
It took him a few moments to come to any sort of terms with this new world, this second place that seemed to exist. Things had been just fine back there. The grass, freshly mowed, dumped into the bin on the side of the road. He was standing there, squinting down the street in the late afternoon sunlight, wondering where the electrician was — and then it was all gone, and he was here.
Soon, things weren’t blurry anymore, and he realized that he was in bed. An odd revelation, to be sure, as it wasn’t his bed. Or… no, it was his bed. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t the bed he’d had the night before, but it was the bed he’d always owned, always slept in, always beside Beatty.
Beatty.
No, it was Em. Beatty. Who, he asked himself, scratching his brow and wrinkling his nose, as if that would help, is Beatty?
She was his wife. He opened his eyes; he knew it was true.
But Em was his wife.
His head pounded. The room was softly lit by the morning sun, evading the half-tilted window shade slats just enough to cast a glow over the room. Yes, he was seeing just fine now.
But what was he seeing? His room, but… what room?
Another sharp throb. The sensation didn’t seem physical, but it was deeply internal. As if his mind was straining for a way out of what it knew was its place in his head. It was in its place, but something else wasn’t. Everything else wasn’t.
And yet it all was. It was all his home. His bed, his room, his dresser in the corner with the blue chipped paint, his nightstand with the nobbly drawer handle and the mug stain on the hardwood finish, his night robe cast over the closet door which stood ajar, to Beatty’s — to Em’s — undoubted dismay.
He closed his eyes. He wanted to vomit for a moment, and then it passed. Why would he vomit? All was well. He was home, he was conscious. He could smell. He had five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot and a little sting on his forearm indicated that, by all accounts, his nervous system was functioning with a degree of normalcy. His room was in order, his wife was out of bed as she should be (it was Tuesday, after all — but what did that mean?), the sun cast a striped pattern on the Indian carpet that they’d brought back from Delhi.
Yes, everything was in order in Teddy’s life that morning when he woke up. Nothing amiss. Not a thing out of place. The world in motion, ticking along, comfortably unchanged, familiar as the backs of his hands. The backs of his hands.
The backs of his hands.
Alien.
Utterly alien.
Skin he did not recognize.
The day he awoke arrived without a jolt. Through the foggy indistinctness of half-sleep, he opened his eyes and the dream ended. Not all at once. The alarm — he could have sworn there was a fire alarm going off. And then, the sound on the table beside him, his eyes, blurry shapes, colors, the world… again.
It took him a few moments to come to any sort of terms with this new world, this second place that seemed to exist. Things had been just fine back there. The grass, freshly mowed, dumped into the bin on the side of the road. He was standing there, squinting down the street in the late afternoon sunlight, wondering where the electrician was — and then it was all gone, and he was here.
Soon, things weren’t blurry anymore, and he realized that he was in bed. An odd revelation, to be sure, as it wasn’t his bed. Or… no, it was his bed. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t the bed he’d had the night before, but it was the bed he’d always owned, always slept in, always beside Beatty.
Beatty.
No, it was Em. Beatty. Who, he asked himself, scratching his brow and wrinkling his nose, as if that would help, is Beatty?
She was his wife. He opened his eyes; he knew it was true.
But Em was his wife.
His head pounded. The room was softly lit by the morning sun, evading the half-tilted window shade slats just enough to cast a glow over the room. Yes, he was seeing just fine now.
But what was he seeing? His room, but… what room?
Another sharp throb. The sensation didn’t seem physical, but it was deeply internal. As if his mind was straining for a way out of what it knew was its place in his head. It was in its place, but something else wasn’t. Everything else wasn’t.
And yet it all was. It was all his home. His bed, his room, his dresser in the corner with the blue chipped paint, his nightstand with the nobbly drawer handle and the mug stain on the hardwood finish, his night robe cast over the closet door which stood ajar, to Beatty’s — to Em’s — undoubted dismay.
He closed his eyes. He wanted to vomit for a moment, and then it passed. Why would he vomit? All was well. He was home, he was conscious. He could smell. He had five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot and a little sting on his forearm indicated that, by all accounts, his nervous system was functioning with a degree of normalcy. His room was in order, his wife was out of bed as she should be (it was Tuesday, after all — but what did that mean?), the sun cast a striped pattern on the Indian carpet that they’d brought back from Delhi.
Yes, everything was in order in Teddy’s life that morning when he woke up. Nothing amiss. Not a thing out of place. The world in motion, ticking along, comfortably unchanged, familiar as the backs of his hands. The backs of his hands.
The backs of his hands.
Alien.
Utterly alien.
Skin he did not recognize.
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