PodCastle 731: The Travel Guide to the Dimension of Lost Things PodCastle

* Author : Effie Seiberg

* Narrator : Summer Fletcher

* Host : Matt Dovey

* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh

*

Discuss on Forums







PodCastle 731: The Travel Guide to the Dimension of Lost Things is a PodCastle original.





Content warning for depression





Rated PG-13

The Travel Guide to the Dimension of Lost Things

By Effie Seiberg

 

Have you ever felt so tired that you just don’t feel anymore? Where you wake up, burrowed under the covers with a shaft of light somehow piercing through them and right into your brain, and realize that here comes one more day you need to endure, to wait through, until you can blessedly sleep again and stop experiencing this whole existence thing?

This is where I am. I’m deeply considering whether it’s worth just snaking my hand out of my bed-burrito to grab my phone, bring it in, and then just play solitaire until I can fall asleep again instead of even considering what I need to get done today . . . until I realize that the light piercing through is bright green.

I shove down enough of the covers to pop my head out and wince as the light hits my eyes directly. I blink, trying to shake the sleep from my head. It’s one of those lights that projects moving stars or confetti or whatever, like the ones we had at the roller rink I worked at in high school. It’s floating in the air, bobbing as though it were stuck in a current, with its power cable floating behind it. It’s not plugged into anything, but it’s projecting with all its might.

And it’s not alone. In the adjacent airspace above my bed, high up in the sky, float several mismatched socks, a small plastic trophy that says “[Your Name Here] Completed Kindermusic”, a bewildered hamster trying its best to flail its way towards solid ground, a sticky-note with “Don’t forget! Friday lunch!” written in red Sharpie. Pen caps, jar lids, shoelaces . . . just floating detritus everywhere. Like an underwater junkyard without the water. It goes on in all directions.

Behind them is a gray sky, that sort of bright white that has the world laughing at you for ever thinking you might see the sun again. It’s consistent and uniform from horizon to horizon, where it meets an endless sea of flat concrete tiles. This sure isn’t where the sidewalk ends.

I don’t smell anything, which might be because projectors and sticky notes aren’t particularly fragrant, or maybe because it’s a f*****g dream and who the hell smells things in dreams.



* Lucid dream means I should make the most of it. I stand up on my bed, stretch my arms out and try to fly. I jump, creaking the bedsprings. And fall to the ground, banging my knee on the hard concrete. It hurts.



You’re not supposed to feel pain in dreams.

Which brings us to: what the f**k.

I stand up shakily. My knee hurts and the concrete is cold on my one bare foot. (The other one still has the gym sock I’ve been wearing for a few days.) None of this makes any sense, and by god I am in no place to handle whatever it is. I’m so unbelievably tired. I haven’t gone to work in two weeks. They’ve probably fired me, but I haven’t checked my email to find out. I haven’t showered in . . . five, five days. And I’m wearing the same sweats I’ve been wearing all week, the gray ones I politely stole from my dad the last time I went home to visit and forgot to pack pajamas. Do I honestly look like the sort of person who can handle some kind of m...