Made-Up Dream

I sat in the back at work, my head felt very heavy. Chris and Leah walked in and seemed to be in a hurry or worried. I was not thinking about anything, except what are they doing. They lifted boxes and books and put them down in other places. I felt myself stand up, wanting to avoid them and wanting to seem like I wanted to help them. My joints were stiff, I moved slowly and the others moved quickly and talked nonsense quickly and firmly. I picked up a scanner and scanned some books and looked at a monitor and had no idea why. I looked out the window and trees were swaying intensely in the wind. The sky was grey. My skin felt hot on patches and cold on others. My shoes felt like they were falling off. I was hunched over. I felt an overwhelming urge to leave. Susie sort of shouted something to someone or everyone. I had the taste of a pastrami sandwich in my mouth suddenly and had a vomity tickle in my throat. I walked to the other side of the room then to the back door and back. It seemed I was seeing everything around me but not with my eyes. I picked up objects with my hands and put them back down onto a surface, making a little clacking slapping sound. I crouched down and looked under the round desk and found a bowl of hot soup on a tiny shelf and picked it up and the high heat on my hands made my butt hurt and sweat. I spilled the hot red tomatoey runny soup on my shoes half by accident and looked up and saw a hole under the desk at the back of the shelf. It seemed to be my only way out. It was maybe six inches wide. I put my hands thru and half my arms fit then I felt I was being sucked in and pushed thru. My feet floated up spookily. I was scared. I fell thru the dark hole. I saw blue streaks surrounding me disappearing into the distance. My arms and legs grew ten times their size. My torso felt so small. My head was all that seemed mine still. I saw steam or smoke billow in my eyes. There were bright green flashes, like cameras. I felt like I was in a jungle on an alien planet, but I was not. My legs were moving independently, trying to walk, but I was floating and going nowhere. My arms were flapping and I saw thru some clouds that I was miles above earth. I could not see much of anything except cloud. It was like fog in the sky. I knew I was falling. I felt wind blowing up on my face. I pulled some sticky unwrapped chewy granola bars out my my hoody pocket. I was wearing nothing on my lower half. My arms and legs were their normal size and mine. I saw radio towers get closer and appear taller as I fast approached the earth. It was a grey day. I thought of Mom watching a British TV mystery at home on Saturday. I thought of the Austin American Statesman and how I never want to read it again. I thought of a birthday cake getting stale on the dining table at home. My body felt more like air by the second. I was flattening into a sheet one atom thick. I thought of splashing into water and being a kid. I heard some music that was pretty good. Just before I reached the ground I worried that I would crush everyone under me. When I hit I just became a piece of everything my atoms touched. I did not have a consciousness anymore, I was just a bunch of matter, free to be exchanged for anything and go wherever physical forces pushed me.

Then night came, the clouds cleared, the moon shone and a me-piece of a blade of suburban lawn grass was eaten by a tiny shiny black bug.