Gary sat on his bed and thought about retiring. He decided to just have a brief nap and get up later and take care of toilet, teeth, and tea, a ritual before falling deeply asleep for the day.
Gary had a night job, so it was his routine to get to bed about nine or nine thirty in the morning, get a good eight to twelve hours sleep, eat, do house chores and return to work, six days, that is nights, per week. Sometimes he lost track of the day and date, but this didn't much matter. The guys at work always told him during the last shift before the seventh night off.
Gary's naps were filled, as was his sleep, with vivid and colorful adventures. Naps often brought blonds and panoramic parts, like giant breasts gently hovering above him, begging to be touched and tasted. It was when he could bury his whole head in the soft fleshy parts around the imaginably large and tumescent nipples that he enjoyed the most. Yes, naps were short, wet and pleasurable.
Longer periods of sleep had him doing the daily things most people do. Shopping for food, going to the cinema, meeting friends for beer. These dreams were mostly predictable, not particularly exciting, comfortable. Gary had all he needed, including reading material, philosophy mostly. And he read, or reviewed word for word what he had read, while asleep sometimes, if that isn't too strange, or too much of a stretch for the imagination. Gary felt content and fulfilled in most parts of his life.
Work was not much different from his immaterial imaginings during sleep. There he had set duties that he did and did well. There were colleagues to chat with and girls to watch and fantasize about. Life was good. No nightmares waking or sleeping, and no dramatic turns or challenges to contend with, until this.
As he lay back and put his head on the pillow this morning, Gary felt something he had never felt before. Or rather, he didn't feel it and didn't remember having felt it before. Although his head lay cradled in something soft, there was no pillow, no bed, no shades to draw, no sound of morning traffic outside his window. In fact, if it is not stretching the truth too much, there was no apparent window where during his nights and days there had been one before. Gary looked down towards where the foot of his bed should be. He saw nothing. There was nothing there.
"Now, what the?"
Gary immediately recognized it. He had fallen asleep and this was one of his lucid dreams, but definitely a dream. He relaxed and waited for what would happen next. He thought about a particular pair of recurrent big breasts, but not one materialized. He considered having beer with some friends, but could not remember or visualize where the sports bar was, or who his friends were.
"Funny."
He decided to stop this non-starter nap, get up and have a snack or bit more. Now, was it to be breakfast or dinner? He couldn't remember the last time he ate, or what he ate. He wasn't particularly hungry, but eating sometimes helped him doze off when he had a difficult time getting to sleep.
"I have no body!"
Gary was slipping away, from himself. No nap, no dreams, no breasts or shopping, no sleep, not even his own body.
"Time to get up."
Gary sensed that he was now awake. But nothing was any different except the suspicion that it was all in his mind, his imagination. That existed but nothing else.
"Now, who was it who wrote about everything is mind, that we construct our realities?"
Gary couldn't remember, and he couldn't find his bookshelves where he thought the answer was, some writers whose last name began with H? It would surely be there, but where, if it is not stretching the truth too much.
"Ah, I get it. It must be my night off, my day, er, night of rest. I don't have to work or sleep. So, what can I conjure up now to do?"
__________
**** Page 192: A philosopher comes to the realization that all known existence is a product of his imagination. _The Writer's Book of Matches_.
