Notes from the Future: Dreams of the Sleeping Porpoise, Part VI

"Honey? Where are you? Can I have a hug?"

Silence.

The lights flicker on and ... I'm in the hospital bed.

I get up.

I try the same door, it opens easily: on the other side is an identical room to this one, looking at it from behind a hospital bed in a niche. At one of nine doors in that room is a pale white guy with his hospital gown open down the back, looking beyond it to a room beyond where another very similar guy with his ass hanging out of his gown is starting to turn around and look toward me as I turn to look behind me.

There behind the hospital bed is another door, and standing at that door is me. Looking behind me.

I snap my head forward, trying to see my face. Idiot. All I see is the back of my head. And my ass. Which itches. Watching me scratch my ass in eternality is a little weird, so I run through the door, closing it behind me. Only to find I'm in the same room.

Something has to change, so I run through the door again.

And again.

And again and again and again. Every time, nothing has changed. I decide to go back.

But there is no door behind the bed when I walk toward it. The door only appears when I open the one I've been opening. Bright Idea: I leave the door open and run toward the bed. The door fades away as I approach the wall; returning to the door, I look behind me: there I am, looking behind me.

Now I try every other door, starting with the farthest to the right.

All locked.

I'm panicking now: what if there was something in one of those other rooms I passed through that I could have used? What if I missed a clue?! This panic begins to build, but I calm it with an experiment: I take the pillow from the hospital bed to the door, open it and walk through.

No pillow on the bed when I pass into the room.

That means ... what? Lucidity? Test it!

I begin looking around for a digital readout, but all dials are analog and functional.

I try the light switch again, and it turns the lights over the doors on and off. There is no light switch for the light in the bed niche.

Where the hell did Veronica go?

"Hello!?" I shout. It echoes.

No answer.

"Veronica! Hello!?"

Nothing.

I'm getting ready to use the bed as a battering ram on another door when I notice the chalk board. It's been tilted. Did I do that, running through?

It's one of those boards you can flip; the side mostly facing me still says SOMETHING HASN'T HAPPENED YET, in my handwriting.

I flip it around and what comes up is at first baffling.

It is a superbly rendered chalk drawing of the room I'm in -- the cell, as I've begun to think of it -- with me standing at the chalkboard looking at a rendering of me in the cell looking at a rendering of me, and so on. The detail is truly incredible. The main picture, the largest one, has a frame around it, with a line curving toward the bottom of the chalk board.

Looking down, I see some tubes sticking from the bottom of the chalk board.

Those weren't there before.

I tug on one and a small keypad drops down, hanging by its tube. It's got a keyboard, but from an old typewriter or something similar; I press a key and the board hisses. Like the stops on a pipe organ.

I pull on another tube and a strange device drops, also hanging from its tube. It looks like the grip of an antique pistol, only with ivory and mother-of-pearl keys built into it for the fingertips. I take it and press a key with my index finger. Hissing again, like a pipe organ, like pressurized air.

... Like steam?

Much to my startlement and delight, the Edward in the biggest chalk drawing turns to the right, as do all other Edwards in the smaller and smaller drawings. I push a key with my middle finger and he turns to the left. I squeeze all the keys and he jumps.

Holy shit.

I pull my hospital gown aside and yank on my cock, prancing from foot to foot.

"Oop-oop-magook!" I shout. "Monkeyballs for lunch!"

Chalk Edward does not join me in my revelry. He puts his hands on his hips, taps his right foot, and gestures to all the closed doors in his chalk cell.

Chalk Edward is an impatient fuck.

I fart. So does he, whiffing it toward him, inhaling deeply.

He looks at me. Gives me a thumbs up.

That's definitely me in there.

Just when I want to sit, a chair is right behind me.  I settle back and start to learn the controls.

Keypad is apparently for some instructions.

Pistol grip is for moving: right, left, forward, backward, jump, duck, run. Though the system appears to be hydraulic, it is smooth and quick.

I move Chalk Eddie toward the first door.  I type, OPEN DOOR.

He tries, nothing happens. He looks sleepy now. I type, SLEEP; Chalk Eddie sleeps and the door opens: he is pulled in by some invisible force, whereupon he is in our Honda, injured but falling asleep as Veronica speaks to angry people outside the car in American Sign Language. Max is barking at them and then they all go down the hill on a big spiral road to Crow Canyon and they stay the night at an inn.

I'm trying to get Chalk Eddie to do something, but he's asleep. Every time the scene changes, chalk dust floats down to the floor as the drawing reforms itself or is redrawn by ... the board? The system? Elves?

 

In frustration, I shake the controller like a bottle of soda, pop, Coke, whatever. Chalk Eddie sits up, shaking his head! I type, LOOK FOR CLOCK. He does, finding nothing. I type, FIND DIGITAL CLOCK. He looks, finding nothing. I type, FIND DIGITAL CLOCK ANYWHERE IN DREAM.

Chalk Eddie immediately begins to move backward through the dream, looking for a digital clock as the events move backward around him as he moves forward into backward.

 

Then, outside the car at the beginning of the dream, there's a guy wearing a digital clock. When Chalk Eddie sees the clock, he peers at it, scratching his head. I type, LUCIDLY AWAKEN.

He stares at me with open contempt. I type, AWAKEN TO LUCIDITY.

Chalk Eddie sits down, starts picking his nose, flicks what he finds at me. A tiny chalk booger flies off the board and hits my right knee with a puff.

I type, YOU ARE DREAMING; INSIDE YOUR DREAM, WAKE AND TAKE CONTROL.

The entire chalk drawing transforms and becomes real, solid, no longer chalk. It looks like I could reach into the scene and squeeze tiny Veronica's boobs. I would do that, but Chalk Eddie is very excited: he is levitating and conversing openly with Max in Mandarin. I use the controller to float him close to Veronica. I type, FLY WITH VERONICA AND MAX TO THE CABIN.

Smiling at me, they all flip over in mid-levitate to Superman flight poses and fly off East, around the smoking hulk of Mt. Diablo, up into the blue sky and white puffy clouds.

Chalk Eddie exits the first room and gives me a thumbs up.

I think I know how this game is played, now.