Microstory 2364: Vacuus, August 13, 2179

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Dear Condor,

You’re right, I shouldn’t be so worried about the age thing. We’re both adults. Things are still going really well with Bray. As you know, I’ve told him about myself, in regards to how you and I were separated at birth. I obviously didn’t tell him anything that might even be slightly considered a secret. Like, I never read him any letters, or relayed details that you’ve told me in confidence. This is just how he and I bonded. I guess I should admit that the truth has since come out to the rest of the base since then. I wasn’t bringing it up with others, except for the people I kind of demanded answers from, but the general population has finally found out too. They’re all very curious and interested now. Bray had this idea that maybe you would like to send an open letter to the whole base? That might sound stupid, or be taking it too far. I’m not so sure about it myself. It’s just that most people here don’t have any lasting connection to Earth. Even if they’re old enough to have left an established life behind, their reasons for leaving usually included not having any strong ties. We all knew that it was a one-way trip. Well, I didn’t; I was a tiny little baby. Anyway, they would all like to hear from you, but it’s totally up to you. If you decline the offer, but don’t want them to know as much, I can certainly take the blame for it, claiming that I thought about it some more, and decided that I’m not interested in them knowing anything about my brother. I know that it’s kind of an odd request, but if we aren’t odd, then what are we, right? I feel like I’m doing my rambling thing again, but worse than usual, so I think I’m gonna call it a night. You can disregard everything I’ve said in this letter. I believe that I’m getting less sleep than I used to, now that my social life is a little bit more eventful than it was before Bray.

Goodnight,

Corinthia

Microstory 2283: Is How it Goes

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

I’m sorry to disappoint you, folks but there’s nothing special to report in regards to my sleep study. Why am I sleeping poorly, besides the pain that I’m still in? Stress, mostly. Stress and anxiety. We were pretty sure that that was the issue, but we tested for it in case it was something weird. They took a lot of blood and other samples, though, and there’s nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve always had problems sleeping. When I was a kid, people would tell me that you need eight hours of sleep per night, so I would ask whether that meant we need six hours total, accounting for the two hours it takes to fall asleep, or if I need to give myself a ten hour window. They had no clue what I was talking about. It was taking them ten or twenty minutes to fall asleep. That’s when I realized that I hated people. Not really, lol, but...kind of. I apologize that I’m giving you such an unexciting explanation, because my readers may tune out because of it, but this is how it goes, and it should be for now. Maybe it’s not great for engagement, but that’s what we want. I prefer it to be boring, after all that I’ve been through this year. Stress, I can handle. I have been dealing with it my whole life, even as a child. I’m sure I’ll start to sleep better now. Speaking of which, let’s go test that out now. Goodnight, everybody!

Microstory 2282: Calculated Social Media

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Sorry, I’m rushing to get this thing out, because I have this little medical test this evening, so I’m not going to be available later. I could have had Kelly or Dutch say something, but I wanted to address yesterday’s post myself before I forget what I wanted to say. Before we get into that, it’s all good. My new organs are fine, and I’m not going back under the knife, or anything. I’ve been having a hell of a time sleeping, and it’s become a real issue lately. I have not been diagnosed with narcolepsy, which I want to say right off the bat, because I know people will offer that up as an explanation. They’ve already ruled it out. I’m doing a home sleep study to figure out why I get sleepy at such random times of the day, though. I’m going to be dealing with it for a good chunk of today and tomorrow, because that’s the whole thing; trying to determine how my situation changes over time. I’ll share the results when they come in, and if they’re interesting, which they probably won’t be. It’s probably just that I’m technically a lot older than I look, and old people sleep a lot. Because of my medical history, we just can’t take any chances. Anyway, as I was saying, my last post was as weird as they come, and part of the reason I posted it was because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and didn’t want to worry myself about it anymore, because the doctor was already starting to try to understand my sleeping issues. So, why did I post that? What possessed me to release something so bad? Well, I wanted to see how you would react to it...to something so unlike what you’re used to seeing. I wanted to show you that not everything we do is perfect. In this modern world of calculated social media, targeted algorithms, and ‘like’ farming, I put something out there that was objectively terrible to see how it was received. You failed the test. You received it positively just because you had no reason to hate it. To be sure, some of you did. You could have been a little bit nicer with your criticisms, but I at least appreciate the honesty. The rest of you, on the other hand, just accepted it as deep or thought-provoking, or intentionally absurdist. It wasn’t. It was nothing. I won’t be posting anything like that again, however, so there’s that.

Microstory 2202: Were Still Late

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2, and by Pixlr AI image editor

I’m so embarrassed, I woke up late this morning. I guess my body (and my now broken alarm clock) thought it would be funny if today was the opposite of yesterday. Fortunately, Jasmine and I always go into work together, since we live in the same building. I usually meet her in the lobby, but when I didn’t show, she used her copy of my key to check in on me. She didn’t even wait very long, because she was worried that I was hurt again. I was just still in bed, none the wiser. I rushed to pull my clothes on, and brush my teeth, then we ran out of there. We normally take the bus, since I don’t drive anymore, but if we had waited for the next one to come by, we would have been really late. Jasmine, being the friendly neighbor she is with everyone, knows someone else in the building who has a car, so he gave us a ride. We were still late, but it wasn’t serious. Being the boss, I could just claim that I make the rules, so I can do whatever I want, but I don’t want to be like that. Everyone on my staff is dedicated to their jobs, so I need to be just as committed. I can’t really be fired for being a half hour late, but I still owed them an apology. They understood, of course, and didn’t give me any crap about it. I used to set multiple alarms when I was a kid for safety. I should probably look into that again, placing one in a different room to make sure that I actually get up and moving around. That’s it, bye! You don’t deserve more out of me right now.

Microstory 2201: Understanding of the Data

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

I came back into the office today. Actually, I got in really early, before the sun came up, but I just watched a nature show on the gargantuan TV until it was time to “clock in”. What happened was I woke up at the end of a cycle, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I didn’t find myself drifting away during the day, though, so I think it will be okay. Sometimes, fighting insomnia is worse, and it’s best just to accept what your body is trying to tell you, even if you’re better at math, and you know that it’s wrong. I won’t be making a habit of it. After everyone else came in, we put a meeting on the books. My Data Analyst wanted to put the finishing touches on his presentation. He gave us his initial findings. He now understands how jail guests are currently scheduled, and as we suspected, it really doesn’t have anything to do with group dynamics. There is so much data, and so many variables to deal with, this is going to be a difficult task, but I know that my people are up to it. The majority of the rest of the team will begin next week. They’ll be spending time on their training, and getting to know each other, so it won’t be until about mid-August before we start making progress, but that progress will happen. The presentation was interactive, with the other team members asking questions, and already contributing to the understanding of the data. He actually rewrote some of the slides while we were all there together. Right now, I’m consolidating and organizing the information that I’ve received in my brain, and thinking about ways that we can tackle this issue in the future, and I’ll continue to do that after I fall asleep tonight.

Microstory 1836: Sleepkiller

< > Table of Contents

Sleep and I have always had a very volatile relationship. It’s constantly hiding from me, even though I try to be nice, and always treat it well. I’ve tried everything to connect with it, from not watching TV within a few hours of bedtime, to meditation, to of course pills. Nothing seemed to do me any good. The doctors I talked to said it was insomnia. No der, what do I do about it? Nothing I haven’t tried, just keep trying those things. But stay away from the pills, because they can really mess you up. So I did, and I kept failing. I was miserable, and insufferable. I was fired from my job, not just because they caught me sleeping a time or two, but because I was agitated and ill-mannered to my co-workers. I had had enough. Something had to be done, and I didn’t care any more what the consequences were. So I went back to the pills, but I’m not talking about melatonin, or a tiny little sedative. I went for the big stuff. I was going to fall unconscious every night, whether my body wanted to or not. And if that shaved time off my lifespan, then so be it. It wasn’t like I had much to live for anyway, especially if I couldn’t even function during the day. I knew it was going to be rough, particularly at the start, so I carefully prepared for it. I set three different alarms. My regular alarm clock was set to the highest volume. A friend of mine tinkered with it so it would play the noise and the radio at the same time. My smartwatch vibrated simultaneously, which I always found jarring and annoying. Five minutes later, the television in the living room was programmed to flip on, again at the highest volume. I knew this would piss off my neighbors, which would motivate me to actually get the hell out of bed to unplug it quickly before then. I thought it was a foolproof plan, but I was wrong.

A new personality sometimes took over at night. At first, I didn’t know what was going on. Things were moved around, the refrigerator was open, the floor mat was upside down. I realized that I was sleepwalking. I had heard of that being a side effect, but never thought it would happen to me. Okay, that was okay, I could deal with it. Place a lock on the bedroom door, and line the floor against the walls with pillows. I could still hurt myself, but at least I would land softly if I fell. It didn’t work, as you might imagine. I still found weird things the next morning. Nothing truly bad had happened, though. I didn’t have any stairs, and I never once got in my car, or left the house. I would wake up feeling a little weird and dizzy, but I was otherwise better rested than ever in my life. So I kept taking the drugs, careful not to overdose, and kept just cleaning up my place when I came home from work. I did go through a lot of knives, though. My sleepwalking self had a habit of throwing them away, and always on trash pick-up day, like he periodically felt that it was time to refresh the collection. Again, fortunately, I never hurt myself with them. Then it happened. After all this goofiness, I did something truly terrible, and I still can’t explain it. I did get in my car, and I did leave the house, and I drove onto the highway. Evidently, I came across a horrible car accident, a victim of which I managed to pull from the wreckage. For whatever reason, I scooped her up, drove her to an industrial park, and threw her off the roof of a two-story building. I read about it in the paper the next day, and used my GPS history to put the pieces together. She didn’t die, but she was seriously hurt, and it was all my fault. I can’t live with myself anymore. So I’m back on that roof, but by myself this time, and completely awake. Goodbye forever.

Microstory 1787: Flying Fish

< > Table of Contents

Sleep and I have always had a love-hate relationship. I love it, but it resists me every single night. I was an adult before I learned that normal people fall asleep within twenty minutes. When my health teacher told us that, I wanted to punch him in the face, and knock him out. Then I wanted him to wake up, and punch me in the face so I would know what it feels like to not lie awake in bed for literally two hours. Over the years, I’ve tried some things to alleviate the problem: meditation, melatonin, stronger pills that put me, and the morning drivers around me, at terrible risk. Some of it has helped a little, but nothing has helped a lot. I would get six hours on a really good night, and I was proud of myself for anything over five. Now that I’m older, I’ve decided to prioritize my time better. Instead of staying up late, and waking up just before it’s time to go to work, I figured I may as well go to bed early, and have more me-time in the mornings. If it’s early enough, it’s still dark, so there’s no glare on my TV. That’s what’s really helped, waking up before sun, instead of fighting for every ounce of rest in those precious final moments. Now I lie awake for an hour, but since I give myself more time overall, I end up with seven hours, and it probably doesn’t get any better than that. I even try to avoid this thing called social jetlag, which means sleeping different hours on certain nights, which for most is due to not having to work on the weekends. Last night was different. It was a Friday, and I was in the middle of a good TV binge, so I decided it would be okay to go to bed at 23:00. That’s 11:00 PM for you people who can’t count past 12. It turned out to be a bad idea...for a bizarre reason. Had I gone to sleep at my new normal time, I wouldn’t have been awake to hear the man outside my window.

At first, I think it must be an innocuous noise. The purr of my refrigerator, the buzz of the street lights, the revving of a distant car. It isn’t so distant, and it isn’t so innocuous. It sounds like someone mimicking the sound of a motor with their mouth, and it only gets worse when he starts talking. “Flying fish,” he says, “flying fish”. Over and over and over again, “flying fish. Yeah, baby, flying fish.” Fuck, what does he want with me? I’m about to die, I’m about to die. What do I do? Don’t turn on the lights, then he’ll see that you’re here. Look out the window. No, not that one, it’s too close. I can’t see anything. What about the window in the study? Still nothing. Can you still hear him? “Flying fish.” Call mom, she’ll know what to do. No, bring the dog in first, and put her in her cage.  Then call mom. Shit, it’s late, they go to bed earlier than I do. Call 911, she says, that’s what it’s there for. Yes, it qualifies an emergency, call them now. Dispatch doesn’t understand my problem fully, but she dispatches a fleet anyway. Firetruck first on the scene. I look back out the window in the study. The firefighter is bent at the hip, hand on the shoulder of a man. He’s sitting in the street, up against the curb. He’s wobbly, and incoherent. He must be drunk. She’s being gentle and patient with him. Ambulance, police cruiser, that red pickup truck the fire station boss drives, another police cruiser. It’s okay, Daisy, go back to sleep. Chew on your cactus if you’re nervous. They load him up faster than I would have thought. I’ve seen car accidents in real life; been in a couple myself. They usually move slower than movies make it seem. They close the ambulance doors, and clear the street. The quiet returns, and it’s like they were never even here. Then a fish flies past my window, followed by another, and another. He wasn’t lying.

Microstory 1717: Carina

< > Table of Contents

Carina Silver awoke face up on a diving board. She had grown so used to sleepwalking that she no longer freaked out about it. Regularly, she returned to the world of the living in awkward, or even dangerous, positions. It was best to remain as still as possible until she could assess the situation. She saw a waterslide in the middle distance, but it was still difficult to tell how far up she was. She had to move to figure that out. She sat up slowly, and braced herself on the edges. Swinging her legs down to straddle the board, she now realized she was on the high dive, and also that the pool was empty. It wasn’t covered, or anything. Judging by the leaves and trash below her, it was abandoned long ago. Falling from this height could be fatal, and even if she survived impact, it could potentially be years before anyone else came round here. The two ladders still remaining appeared to be in bad shape, as was the board. The more she moved, the more she could hear it slide against the bolts that once held onto it tight. It was a wonder she hadn’t fallen to her head while she was still asleep. Obviously the more she approached the steps to safety, the more stable the surface would become, but getting far enough away from the far end was going to be hard. It might be impossible. She made one move towards the steps, and the entire thing came up like a seesaw, tipping her over towards an early death. Carina exhaled as it teetered, hoping the release of air made her light enough to keep from going over. She didn’t know if that had anything to do with it, but the board did end up tottering back, and returning to its rightful place. Moving was not an option. She had to keep it in balance, so if she was ever going to get off this thing, it was going to take a miracle, or maybe just some assistance.

Carina was a quiet person, both literally and socially. She spoke in low volumes, and said unprovocative things. She didn’t like to disturb people, and even now, when calling out for help could save her life, she struggled to speak beyond a whisper. She kept trying to raise her voice, so others would know she was in trouble, but she just couldn’t do it. Part of it was fear that her voice alone could tip her back towards the concrete below, but most of it was because of how unnatural and unfamiliar it felt. Before too long, she gave up, and lay back down on the board to watch the stars. She could not see them well when the tears welled in her eyes, and rolled down her temples. She fell back asleep, knowing that she could end up falling over because of it, but also calculating there to be a remote chance that her sleepwalking self would figure out the problem for her. When she awoke yet again, the stars were gone, and the sun was blinding her eyes. The sound of joyful cries and laughter overwhelmed her ears. A few drops of water made it all the way up to her, and danced upon her shoulders. She sat up and looked around. Yes, she was still above the pool, but it was no longer abandoned. It was full of patrons, mostly children, and also water. They were jumping off the two lower boards, and chasing each other around, and swimming laps in the lanes. Had she traveled through time, or filled the pool with her own tears, or had she simply imagined the state of the place last night, and it was actually all fine all along? They were having all sorts of fun, and appeared to be unperturbed by her presence. A child was standing at the top of the steps, waiting to take his turn on the high dive. Below them, Carina could see a line of others. They weren’t complaining, or yelling at her. They were just waiting patiently, and letting her take all the time she needed. Even so, she didn’t want to keep them waiting, so Carina smiled and waved at everyone. Then she rolled over, and dove into the water.

Microstory 870: The Scoots

< > Table of Contents

Name a sleeping disorder, and I got it. Sleep apnea? Yeah. Insomnia? Sure. Kleine–Levin syndrome? Not sure what that is, but I bet I have it too. So it was no surprise when I woke up this morning, and headed straight for the fudge emporium, for no reason. I don’t even like fudge, so I wouldn’t have gone there if I were in right mind. I wasn’t sleep-walking, but I wasn’t fully awake either. It was more like someone was driving my body and all I could do was watch. When I got there, I was still tired as hell, so even though this mind intruder wanted to explore, I wasn’t capable of taking two more steps. Fortunately a fleet of those disabled-person scooters was sitting there by the entrance, beckoning to me. I sat down in one of them and started driving around. People looked at me and laughed, and I couldn’t figure out how they knew I didn’t really need this. Sure, some of them saw me walk in, but this place is giant, there was no way that everyone knew. I ignored them, and tried to get to the other side of this ordeal in one piece. I spent about an hour there, going through every single aisle at least twice; once one way, and once the other. Finally my mind driver let us head to the exit, no fudge in hand. When I got home, I tried to tell my roommate what had happened, but he just laughed too. “That wasn’t a fudge emporium, dumbass,” he said. “That was a sewage treatment facility, and you were on a forklift. They weren’t laughing at you, they were trying to get you to stop. I think the only reason you got out of there without being arrested was because you didn’t end up hurting anyone.” When I asked him how he knew all this, he gave me this weird look. “You’re not wearing clothes, dude. My uncle, Rob works there, and he livestreamed that shit. You need to get some help.”

Microstory 853: Sleeping Gods Lie

< > Table of Contents

I am a dreamwalker, which not only means that I can enter other people’s dreams, but also exercise full control of my faculties while I’m traveling. Most people believe that dreams are just the mind’s way of understanding their past experiences, and consolidating new information. Though this is indeed true of sleep’s biological necessity, it is not the full story. The unconscious mind is capable of entering independent parallel universes, called branes. These worlds are inhabited by free-thinking individuals who generally aren’t aware that you don’t really belong. They also don’t last very long after you wake up, because you were the only thing keeping their world alive. There are some worlds, however, that are created by someone else, but which you can enter while asleep. Dreamers can’t usually tell the difference, but since I have such acute control over where my mind goes, I can actually do this on purpose. I don’t do it for fun, though. Many years ago, I started noticing some odd behavior from the “locals”. They expressed an awareness that they lived in a simulated reality, even though that description does not really do them justice. They are real, just short-lived, except these people weren’t even that, because they lived in dreamworlds that should have long ago collapsed. I started tracking these strange occurrences, hoping it would lead me to the source of the problems. It took me weeks of real time, but I finally figured out where the culprit lived. At first, I thought I had just met another dreamwalker; one using his power to harm others. I even entertained the possibility that he had learned how to deliberately stabilize dreamworlds, and perhaps didn’t realize that he was harming them. But the truth was far more sinister than I could have imagined...and I have a pretty good imagination. I found myself face to face with a god-monster that had started out merely as a non-playable character in someone’s dream, but had spontaneously become self-aware, and was now spreading his evil influence to others.

Despite his hideous appearance, and clear disdain for me, I attempted to reason with the monster, hoping to show him that he didn’t have to be like this. “The point of becoming self-aware is that you now get to choose how you live your life,” I tried to tell him, but he refused to listen. I was forced to fight him, but he was much more powerful than he seemed. He was able to wake my mind up in my own world, but keep my body from knowing it. People experience sleep paralysis all the time, and as an expert, I know how to free myself, but this time was different. I was stuck there for an entire day, missing out on work, but unable to notify my boss. To this day, I’m not sure if I got myself out of it, or if the monster eventually just let me go. The next day, I confronted him again, armed with more determination, and a few dream weapons I didn’t think to bring last time. In the end, I was forced to kill him, which I didn’t want to do, since he was technically a new lifeform, but he did not give me a choice. I stopped walking through dreams for years as a result of what I had to do. As soon as I felt safe and comfortable enough, though, I went back out there, and learned that I had been terribly wrong. The god-monster was not dead, but instead had continued his wicked ways starting about a year ago. I sought him out once more, which was considerably more difficult than last time, because now he knew someone like me might come after him. It was worse than before, with entire worlds being turned apocalyptic. I had to stop him, even though I was afraid, so I figured my best bet would be to contact what few other dreamwalkers I knew. We pooled our resources, and shared information. A week later, they called me to a meeting in a neutral location, claiming to have found the monster. When I arrived, they tied me down with ropes, and started interrogating me. I had no idea what they wanted from me, or what they thought I knew, but after hours of torture, he showed up; the god-monster. In the mirror. I had not killed him at all, but had somehow absorbed him into my own mind. He cackled and freed us from the ropes, then he killed every single one of my friends. I tried to tear him out of my mind, but I was powerless against him. He forced me out instead, but now I wish he had killed me. I’ve broken the record for the longest time in sleep paralysis, by about five years.

Microstory 376: Calm

Click here for a list of every step.

Luxury

I know I said I wasn’t going to change the titles for any of these last couple dozen stories, but something happened to me last night (at the time of writing). I’ve always had a sleepwalking problem. I’ve gotten out of bed and tried to do things that don’t make any sense like turning the light on a poster, or looking for markers to write a greeting card I didn’t need. I’ve battled flying monsters and swiped imaginary spiders off my body. This particular episode was the worst it’s ever been, though. I was dreaming that I was sleeping in army barracks. An enemy snuck into my room and attacked. Your brain has this feature that basically paralyzes your body so that when you dream of running, your legs don’t actually move. Sleep paralysis is when your brain walks up without deactivating this feature. Sleepwalking is when the feature deactivates without waking you. This meant that I started fighting back against the attacker. I shoved my little nightstand and TV tray to the floor. On it were my glasses, remotes, jewelry, and this little glass toothpick holder my great grandmother left me, along with a few other things. During the fight, I tried to run out the exit to gather reinforcements. On my way, I knocked my television off the cart, into the wall, and down on my foot. One strange thing about my sleepwalking is that I can’t open doors. I guess it’s good that I’m not likely to end up in walking through traffic, but in this case, it made things worse because I couldn’t escape my enemy. I started slapping the walls, looking for the doorknob, and running into other things. Fortunately I recently moved my bookcase to the other room, because I probably would have thought it was a staircase. I finally woke up to cuts, bruises, and a shooting pain in my shoulder that’s still here. Sleepwalking has many causes, but in my case, it comes out of stress. I have a lot of responsibilities, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes that I’m trying to correct now. I’m feeling rather overwhelmed about it. A truly happy person is not completely free from stress, but they also know what calm is.

Life Extension

Microstory 164: Dathan Shapiro

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

Dathan Shapiro shared his ability with Hankford Apolomure, though in a much broader sense. His brain was extremely efficient, which allowed him to collect a wide variety of skills, as well as retain episodic memory with 100% accuracy. While his protégé, Denton Wescott could absorb knowledge by simple proximity, Dathan would still have to learn new things the old fashioned way, but he would be able to do it at a far faster rate, and without the neurological side effects. Dathan found himself in the midst of a constant internal struggle, though. On the one hand, he wanted to know as much as he could about the world, but he also felt overwhelmed by his knowledge, and was never able to stop thinking. All of the things the brain does while in sleep mode, he was evolved to do manually throughout the day, but this meant that his body lacked the rejuvenation that sleep also provides. Unlike Jen or Tamra, he would have to gather that missed energy by eating a bit extra and by consciously slowing down activity. As a coping mechanism, he developed a grand sense of superiority and entitlement. He went back to college several times over, and earned licensure degrees in a few different fields. After he was bored with that, he moved on to receive magnatoral degrees, and ended up one of the handful of people to become a supermagnus, which basically meant that no one in the world knew more about a given subject than he did. Still feeling unfulfilled, he went ahead and attended law school for the standard six years, medical school for the standard nine years, and finally pursued a teaching degree for the standard eight years. Just about the only thing he didn’t do was become an aidsman, because he was both a pacifist and rather selfish. Not happy with teaching at any one institution for too long, he decided to become a guest lecturer for anyone who asked. When he was in his 70s, he and Denton joined Bellevue together, but did not work with each other very much. Denton focused primarily in genetics while Dathan worked with Cambrio in general research. When called to action, he participated in Team 8 to provide them with a plethora of useful skills out in the field.

Microstory 6: True Story (so...NOT microfiction)

So, I have this sleeping disorder that causes me to sleepwalk, but it's really intense. I never think I'm in a different place, or anything. I always think that I've woken up. But the truth is that the dream I was just having bleeds into reality. I will spend a minute or two compelled to do whatever while gradually realizing what's going on. Last time, whatever I was dreaming about gave me the impression that there was something painful on my face. I don't know what it was, but it caused a burning sensation. I jumped out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom, and even turned on the light so that I could rub off the mysterious substance. Then I woke up and went back to bed.

Today, I drove a palette over from the warehouse to assembly. There is a gap between the truck and the dock, so we drop this dock plate to connect them. It's super heavy and cumbersome. Once I was done unloading, I lifted the dock plate by myself and ended up stepping right through that gap. I lost control of the plate and ended up smashing my face into it as I fell. But not just anywhere on my face. No. It was the exact same spot that I was trying to get the mysterious acid off of while I was sleepwalking the night before. Who says I can't tell the future?