Ey stretched eir way out of bed and padded to the door of eir room, closed.
“Wait,” ey commanded emself. Hand on doorknob. A count to three. A promise to emself. I will open this door and will find the open space across the road instead of the hallway.
Could one dream within a dream? Do so with such a detail that ey would not notice the transition? Had ey dreamed the trip to the clinic? Had ey perhaps slept through the return?
“I do not know. I do not know.”
A supplication. A mantra against hopelessness.
Ey turned the knob and stepped out into the shortgrass prairie of the open space. The packed dirt of the trail welcomed eir paws. The scent of dust and rattle-dry stalks of grass washed over em. Warm, yellow light hemmed em in through the fog of war.
“Wait,” ey said once more. Kept eir hands at eir sides. Loose. Relaxed. No menu to reach for, no gesture required.
A promise to emself. I still have will.
The fog receded upon eir request, thinned, disappeared. Mere breath. The prairie of the open space stretched out before em. A valley, and then a ridge of hills to the east. The mountains behind eir back.
Not a sim. No limitations other than those eir dreaming mind had set upon them. Ey had spent so long in sims, lived eir life out in worlds bounded by the edges of invisible properties that, upon getting lost, ey had imagined the same must be true inside. More so, eir unconscious reasoned, for was ey not constrained by the processing power of eir exocortex?
But it was not a sim. It was a dream, eir dream, eir exo a mirror, and in the end, ey held control.
No commands, then. No promises. Ey knew that, were ey to take a step forward, eir foot would come down on the dinged hardwood floor of eir London flat. Priscilla would meow her hellos and twine around eir ankles.
Ey did not rush. Ey stood still. The breeze fingered eir fur and teased along the hem of eir skirt as a breeze must. There were the turbines on the far ridge, three blades turning laconically as turbines must. There was the highway across the valley, the charging station squatting low alongside it as charging stations must.
No commands in dreams. No promises required. Ey would take that step and all would be as it must.
And then ey took the step.
And then Prisca meowed her hello and twined around eir ankles.
From Qoheleth.