So I wake up in the morning as the light from the rising sun begins to peek over the trees. I raise my arms above my head and straighten my legs for a nice, hearty stretch. However, I quickly notice something is amiss. Firstly, I appear to be laying on a flat, soft surface. No pillow, no blanket, nothing covering me except my shorts and t-shirt.
As I look around the room, I do not recognize my surroundings. Everything seems blurry and out of focus. There is no furniture, no objects or features of any kind that I can make out. All I see are large, indistinct masses on all sides. My heart begins to beat faster as I grow more uneasy. I stand up on the surface I am on and try walking in one direction to see if anything can be made out.
At this moment, I hear a familiar sound. The sound of my kids’ voices as they stir in their beds, asking through the monitor if it’s “morning time” yet. Before I can answer, I hear my wife’s voice answering them.
“yes, boys, it’s morning time.”
My confusion only deepens. I can hear my wife and children, but I cannot see them. It is as if they are right next to me, yet I only see blurs. As I was about to attempt to speak to them, the ground began violently shaking. A white mass, not unlike an avalanche, began moving away from me. Something clicked in my head, and I suddenly realized it was the comforter of my bed being pulled away! I quickly looked to my right, and I saw a very large, pink blur moving across. This could only be my wife, as I remembered she was wearing a pink sweatshirt to bed last night. Scanning my surroundings further, I began to make out the vague colors of my bedroom, though still unable to see them in focus. It was as if I had been reduced to the size of a flea, and everything around me was enormous by comparison.
Despite my minisculinity, I could still hear sounds as normal. However, I saw the large pink blur I had identified as my wife disappear from sight. I tried calling out to her:
“Honey? Honey are you there?”
No response. Either she had left the room, or my voice had also been reduced as my body had been.
A few moments later, I heard my wife’s voice again. I heard the familiar sound of her entering the boys’ room, greeting them with an enthusiastic “good morning!” as they rushed to give her morning hugs. While this brought me momentary comfort, I was still completely unsettled by my inability to see anything of note or make noticeable progress moving in any direction. I began to run in the direction I perceived was toward my wife’s side of the bed, but it was as though I was inside a glacier, surrounded by walls of white on either side. I could hear the sounds of my wife and the children chatting and getting dressed, growing increasingly distressed at my predicament. As I frantically looked in all directions for anything that might help guide me, something peculiar caught my eye.
In the bottom, right hand corner of my field of vision, barely noticeable, was a bit of text. I squinted, and read it to myself.
“300%”
Suddenly it dawned on me that I had inadvertently increased the zoom function on my life to the maximum, thus explaining why everything seemed huge yet sounds were unaffected. I breathed a deep sigh of relief, opening the drop-down menu and returning the zoom setting back to 100%. I was instantly transported back to my sleeping position, under the covers and laying on my pillow, kind of like when a character in a movie is having a flash-forward moment and then zips back to present time.
And then I woke up for real.
As I look around the room, I do not recognize my surroundings. Everything seems blurry and out of focus. There is no furniture, no objects or features of any kind that I can make out. All I see are large, indistinct masses on all sides. My heart begins to beat faster as I grow more uneasy. I stand up on the surface I am on and try walking in one direction to see if anything can be made out.
At this moment, I hear a familiar sound. The sound of my kids’ voices as they stir in their beds, asking through the monitor if it’s “morning time” yet. Before I can answer, I hear my wife’s voice answering them.
“yes, boys, it’s morning time.”
My confusion only deepens. I can hear my wife and children, but I cannot see them. It is as if they are right next to me, yet I only see blurs. As I was about to attempt to speak to them, the ground began violently shaking. A white mass, not unlike an avalanche, began moving away from me. Something clicked in my head, and I suddenly realized it was the comforter of my bed being pulled away! I quickly looked to my right, and I saw a very large, pink blur moving across. This could only be my wife, as I remembered she was wearing a pink sweatshirt to bed last night. Scanning my surroundings further, I began to make out the vague colors of my bedroom, though still unable to see them in focus. It was as if I had been reduced to the size of a flea, and everything around me was enormous by comparison.
Despite my minisculinity, I could still hear sounds as normal. However, I saw the large pink blur I had identified as my wife disappear from sight. I tried calling out to her:
“Honey? Honey are you there?”
No response. Either she had left the room, or my voice had also been reduced as my body had been.
A few moments later, I heard my wife’s voice again. I heard the familiar sound of her entering the boys’ room, greeting them with an enthusiastic “good morning!” as they rushed to give her morning hugs. While this brought me momentary comfort, I was still completely unsettled by my inability to see anything of note or make noticeable progress moving in any direction. I began to run in the direction I perceived was toward my wife’s side of the bed, but it was as though I was inside a glacier, surrounded by walls of white on either side. I could hear the sounds of my wife and the children chatting and getting dressed, growing increasingly distressed at my predicament. As I frantically looked in all directions for anything that might help guide me, something peculiar caught my eye.
In the bottom, right hand corner of my field of vision, barely noticeable, was a bit of text. I squinted, and read it to myself.
“300%”
Suddenly it dawned on me that I had inadvertently increased the zoom function on my life to the maximum, thus explaining why everything seemed huge yet sounds were unaffected. I breathed a deep sigh of relief, opening the drop-down menu and returning the zoom setting back to 100%. I was instantly transported back to my sleeping position, under the covers and laying on my pillow, kind of like when a character in a movie is having a flash-forward moment and then zips back to present time.
And then I woke up for real.
