“Close the door behind you, Annabelle”

“Sorry sir, it’s just the coffee got in my way and then I have all these files I have to go through and mark up and all these clients to bill and I just-“

“I just want you to close the door . . . I don’t have a problem with anything else. Except . . . did you get my coffee?”

“Oh yeah!  Well, I got to Starbucks and I was trying to decide which type of coffee to get you, but I couldn’t remember if you liked hot or cold on Tuesdays, so I got both, but then I was leaving and this guy with a mastiff . . . I think it was a mastiff, it could have been a Great Dane-“

“The coffee?”

“Yeah well that guy with the big dog wasn’t looking where he was going and he ran into me and I spilled both of the coffees on his dog and the dog got really mad and almost bit me and then the man acted as if it was all my fault, as if I’m some kind of absent-minded person or something like that!”

“And that’s why there’s no coffee?”

“No, but I have some of mine if you want it?”

“No thank you,”

“Why not? I’m not sick or anything and I’m definitely not contagious.”

“I’d rather not take that risk . . . Just in case.”

“Oh! Oh!”

“What happened now, oh most unfortunate of secretaries?”

“I spilled coffee all over these papers!”

“That is a problem.”

“I can’t understand why these kinds of things keep happening to me lately!”

“Oh trust me, it hasn’t started recently . . . Annabelle?”

“Yes Silver?”

“Why is there a bulldog drooling all over my window?”

“That’s not a bulldog! It’s a mastiff . . . I already told you that.”

“It is a bulldog Annabelle, but my real question is what it’s doing here.”

“Well it’s the dog I spilled the coffee on and I thought that if you really wanted some coffee than you could just get it off of him.”

“Annabelle, I don’t think even the most caffeine deprived person would stoop low enough as to scrap coffee off of a bulldog’s-“

“Mastiffs-“

“dog’s . . . back.”

“Oh, well fine then, don’t.”

“How did you even get it here?”

“The owner said he didn’t like it . . . something about possibly having rabies? I don’t really remember.  Anyway he said I could have it if I wanted.”

“So it’s your dog now?”

“Well no, not exactly . . . “

“Not exactly?”

“Well, what I mean is, it’s your birthday right?”

“No.”

“Anniversary?”

“I’m not married.”

“It’s got to be something today! Maybe it’s the dogs birthday, would you want to turn away a dog on his own birthday?”

“I don’t want a dog.”

“Neither do I, and guess where that leaves us?”

“With you putting the dog back out on the street.”

“But, but . . . then he might get hurt!”

“Lord willing.”

“How can you even say that! He’s such a cute little puppy!”

“Really? Because just a minute ago he was a vicious, biting mastiff.”

“Well people change Silver! Have a little faith in the human race.”

“He’s not a human! I don’t care if he’s suddenly turned into a puppy . . .  but there’s no way he’s becoming a human.”

“Ha! So he is a puppy!”

“Fine, he’s a puppy, but I still don’t want him.”

“But he could live here!”

“In Silver Bullet’s  Private Investigators office? I don’t think so.”

“But he’d add so much to your job offer!”

“Oh yeah, ‘Rabid dog’ just screams costumers.”

“No, but he could be a bloodhound!”

“You can’t make a dog into whatever breed you want it to be Annabelle!”

“Well he has a nose doesn’t he? He might as well use it!”

“Look, if you want him that bad he can stay. But he’ll live in here, I’m not taking him home.”

“Fine. Come and see the puppy Silver, he’s so cute!”

“He’s a slobbering, overweight, smushed-nose dog. How cute can that possibly be?”

“Come and apologize!”

“Fine, I’ll say hi but you need to clean my window.”

“Well we don’t have any window cleaner. See I was going to get some at the store but then I ran into this man who works there who has a parrot, and he said he actually had bought all the window cleaner for himself because his parent likes to smash nuts against the windows but if you want to I can go back and see if he can give me some?”

“No thanks, I’ll just deal with the window . . . the last thing we need around here is a parrot.”

“You’re bleeding a lot,”

“That I have noticed,”

That topic seemed to be a dead end already. I tried reverting back to my original tactic, “Why am I here?”

“We already covered that,” said the boy, idly picking at a scab on his arm.

“Well, how long am I going to be here?”

“Just a few minutes. Look, it’s getting warmer already.”

“What happens when I leave?”

The boy fixed me with a baleful stare,

“Well aren’t you full of questions . . . stop and smell the roses.”

“There aren’t any,” I pointed out.

“It’s an analogy oh simple minded one,” said the boy sarcastically, spreading both of his skinny, battered arms and circling, “rather like this.”

“Wait . . . you mean this place isn’t real?”

The boy’s eyes widened in mock surprise, “Why yes, that would seem to be what I said . . . did you figure it out all on your own?”

I was about to respond, when a sudden, sharp pain raced through my body, I looked down to see my feet on fire, burning up as the ground heated,

“My feet are burning,” I announced.

“The boy had started walking away, he paused,

“Stings doesn’t it?”

I returned to what I had been saying earlier,

“Wait! If this place isn’t real, why am I still here?”

“That would be because you aren’t,” replied the boy, or more specifically, the boy’s voice. The boy himself had disappeared, as had everything else I could see.

“Amnesia?” questioned the boy, for the first time sounding genuinely interested.

“No . . . I know who I am . . . I just can’t remember where I was before this, what I’ve done-”

“Ah,” said the boy, cutting me off, all interest gone, “What you’re experiencing is a c classic personality wipe.”

“But I have a personality.” I retorted, wondering just how sane the boy was.

“Exactly,” replied the boy, not perturbed in the least, “You have the personality they want you to have. They keep the parts of you they like and erase the rest  . . . creating the perfect you. At least in their opinion,” he paused in his explanation, regarding me, “This is all clas C standard procedure I assure you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So this is sci-fi which I don’t really write normally but hey . . . might as well give it a shot in the summer

I’m actually enjoying planning this whole world and reality. fun times are ahead. =D

Anyhoo, my dream started quite an interesting storyline so I’ll post a bit. Random and creepy and odd but interesting . . . at least to me. Anyhoo:
The thunderstorm above raged on, a protective growling guardian against the lighter things in life I didn’t dare face. The ground beneath my bubbled and swelled, stewing from the heat of a underground volcano. the hiss that sounded when my feet touched the earth signified that my flesh was being burned, but my legs had grown use to the constant pain, the only indication I had of something being wrong was the acrid smell that wafted up to me from below.
The smell reminded me of blood. Of pain. Of battle. The things I was most accustomed to in life. While many people spent their time following their goals, eating, working out and dealing with problems in their life that seemed huge, I had always had the same calling, pain.
To be what I am is pain. You cannot live as I live without every part of your body numbed to it, without your mind’s defenses that protect it from any attack. You cannot be what I am without seeing things that make you want to scream in the darkness and hide in the light. You simply cannot be me.

The boy was still there, watching me, his head still cocked although he had moved his arm back down. Now he just stared, a sardonic grin placed firmly over his thin, cracked lips. I glared at him,
“What is it you want?”
Slowly, the boy raised his arm again, and placed one finger firmly over his lips,
“Sssh.” he murmured, “they’re listening.”

“It’s pretty hot now.” I said.
“Not really,” said the boy, “Besides . . . it’s all a matter of opinion.”
I glanced at his feet . . . they were charred black and had painful welts all over them.