One of the weirdest bedtime stories...ever
Here’s a post for the dream decoders or a piece for the Sci-fi fans…
A short story inspired by a dream. It seems to be a mix between Kafka’s Metamorphosis and the movie, What Dreams May Come starring Robin Williams. Oh, and it also includes reincarnation and aliens. Can it get any more weird?…or random? Perhaps I shouldn’t eat anything before going to bed. Happy reading.
It’s an unusually warm October night. My grandmother and I had been sitting outside watching the sunset. “Well I should do the dishes from supper,” she announces and starts to rise from her chair. I agree saying I’ll help as I take her plate from her, making my way to the porch of the house and passing her to grab the door.
I reach to grab the handle of the screen door when, suddenly, everything is silent.
The crickets have stopped chirping and the light breeze is no longer blowing. Everything feels…stale.
I quickly turn around. “Whoa! Grandma, what was th…” She’s gone. I frantically look around searching for her, but the backyard is empty. “Grandma? Grandma, where are you? Grandma?...Grandma?!” I start to panic and I can feel my heart start to pound. Just as I’m surveying the right side of the house, a quick beam of light in the sky catches the corner of my eye. My head whips up and like a venus fly trap, the clouds constrict and close around the light swallowing it.
The light breeze returns blowing the grass like the sea.
I’m terrified; I sprint inside, run to my room, spring into my bed and tear the covers over my head.
I wake up. I’m in the kitchen with an orange bowl of candy in my hands. I look down at it and notice I am wearing a tattered skirt with witch shoes. The doorbell rings. “Trick or treat!,” children’s voices sound from outside the door. It’s Halloween.
I walk up to the screen door, slide the glass panel down and hand the three kids their chocolates through the opening. I haven’t dared to step outside in four days; I’m horrified of what lies in the darkness. “Thanks!,” a boy dressed as a Power Ranger says as he walks down the driveway with the others. “Happy Halloween!” A little girl of about 4-years-old dressed as fairy is coming up to me as her mother watches on from the sidewalk. “Don’t you look cute! Here you go…” I reach out the opening, stretching my arm to her bag of goodies. But she is too short; I can’t make it. So I hesitantly crack open the door and drop the candy in her pumpkin. She gives me a grin and makes her way back to her mother. As I watch her, I notice the mailbox cracked open; it’s probably full from four days and a package I was expecting. I convince myself to make the quick trip outside.
I retrieve the letters out of the mailbox and start to sift through the stack. Bills…bills…junk…ads…bills… “Ugh.” Silence. I start to look around nervously. No one is in sight, not one trick-or-treater. I feel a soft vibration beneath my feet that is quickly increasing in intensity. I start to run back for the house.
The clouds begin to separate and I can see a large, dark object with three protruding nodules with lights on each one. The panicked feeling returns and I run faster to the house. A great beam of light shoots from the night’s sky.
I’m stopped dead in my tracks. Frozen. I can’t breathe. I can’t speak and I can’t scream.
All I can do is stare into the blinding light.
“Ugh!”…“Oof, ouch!” I wake with a sore back and look around disorientated. I try to figure out my surroundings and it looks like I slept in a puddle next to a sidewalk storm drain in front of a café. How did I end up here? Where am I?
I struggle to get up. I make my way towards the café entrance and notice the doorway is big, really big. In fact, I gaze up and the whole building is gigantic. I begin to wonder if there is something wrong with my sight and I enter through the open door. There are two people in the place- a man in a suit sipping his coffee and reading his newspaper joyfully and a barista cleaning every nook and cranny with a spring in her step.
“Hello. Excuse me, sir. Sir? …Sir? Sir, can you hear me?” The man doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even flinch. Perhaps he cannot hear. I turn to the barista.
“Hi ma’am, could you tell me where I am? I seem to have hit my head…miss? Hello?” She started whistling, walking away to the back room.
Confused and frustrated I make my way to the exit. I sit on the sidewalk curb and try to collect my thoughts.
What is going on? Where am I? A million questions start to go through my head. From the corner of my eye I notice a normal-sized figure walking towards me. But normal only crossed my mind for a split second; I saw how many appendages the creature had. Huuuuuuuhhh?!
“What?,” The creature asks in an Italian accent. “You’ve never seen to a centipede before? Wait, wait, wait. Let me guess, you’re new here.”
I can’t believe this gross…thing is making conversation; I try to keep my cool,“Where is ‘here?’”
“Here. Their planet,” he explains gesturing up to the sky at what looks like a ship hovering over. “Long story short, you were abducted. They performed some experiments, pretty nasty ones might I add. You didn’t make it, as most of them don’t.”
“What? But I’m alive! I don’t un…”
“Yes, you’re alive…in a way. I mean YOU, You are alive. You’re spirit or whatever is, but you’re not exactly walking tall on two legs anymore.”
“WHAT?!” I look down and see six hairy feelers rubbing together. “UGH! What’s happened?!”
“Reincarnation. You died, but this isn’t exactly what you’d call heaven. Because of mankind’s corruption, everyone here has been reincarnating to the lowest of the low-- bugs.”
“What about them?!” I motion to the people in the café.
“The “people” here were the animals on Earth. Did you ever study Hinduism? People are the highest and most sought after part of the reincarnation ladder. Most of those “people” were dogs…damn, those loyal bastards.”
I suddenly remembered my grandmother. “Does everyone come here?!”
“I’ve got to find my grandma!” I start to scurry off.
“Well good luck. Bugs are bugs, no distinguishing features. You won’t recognize her until you’ve had an interaction with her. And you’ll be looking for a long time! A minute here feels like an hour on Earth!
The centipede’s voice drowns out in the background and I dodge getting stepped on as I run off to find her.
