by Godzprototype, HSM filmmaker

I cooked a super dinner this evening, like I do every day. Went down to the barn, opened the big doors, hopped onto the tractor. Went and got a couple of rolls of hay to feed the cows. They were anxious, as always. Dropped the rings over the rolls and put the tractor back up. Walked back up to the house. This is one of my favorite times to think about things. This day, I was thinking about the sun becoming a diamond — for a time — in one of its final death throes. What a thought!

I went into the house, plopped down, and turned the TV on. Picked up my controller to do my usual gaming thing. Only this time was different. Very different.

I grabbed my PlayStation 4 controller and hit the button. The little blue light came on, the PS symbol came up, and then I was baffled. No menu! In fact, it was on, but it was just me. I was in a room with a bed, a dresser, a clock. There was a huge window and outside the window it appeared to be getting  dark outside. What on Earth was going on?

My avatar was getting out of the bed in the room I found when I turned my system on.

So I began to flip around with my controller to see what was going on. I moved to a walk-in closet in the room. Found a few shirts, shoes, and pants. There were also a few watches. One of them looked pretty interesting. An option on the left-hand side, slightly transparent, appeared — offering the contents of the closet to me. So I picked what I wanted to wear. The screen went soft for a second, and I was shown wearing what I had picked. Looked in the mirror, nodded and walked out of the closet.

I wanted to see what was outside that window. And as I exited the closet the ASOBI bot floated over to me and offered me a cup of tea.  Well, that was a trip, to say the least. So I started over to the big window with bot in tow and the wall next to the window started flowing water like a waterfall, and in that water were icons. I went to select one, and my avatar reached for the one I selected. It was a globe, and when I touched it, one appeared in the room. It had landmasses, water, and clouds. A sun, a moon and other planets further out. As I approached it, more symbols appeared. Seemingly leading to particular places in that solar system.

I still wanted to see what was out that window. I turned to walk towards it and ASOBI bot flew over to the wall in front of the bed and activated a 240″ screen that offered Netflix, Hulu Plus, and the latest in movies on offer from the PlayStation Network…just like that. Now my watch started ringing, and I looked down at it. It was Burbie52, with a reminder about the meeting on Saturday. An option to open conversation with her, but I think you know it wasn’t time to talk.

You know, at this point, I thought I had just died and gone to heaven. I still hadn’t seen much out that window, except a few little lights and the moon.

I walked over to it, ignoring everything else. And looking out, I saw much more than I had expected. It was night. A few small clouds. Some twinkling stars. A dark azure blue sky, and in the far distance — planets. I stepped up to a telescope sitting by the window and looked through it. Pointing it at one of the planets. On it were busy little cities. I stepped away from the window and let out the breath I had been holding since all this started.

My phone rang. It was important. Stepping away from that screen for a minute became a small crisis and I didn’t want to, but I had to.

When I woke up the next morning, I went over to the TV and turned everything back on. The PS4 symbol came up, as did the menu.

I don’t think I’ll be taking those sleeping pills again any time soon. Made for one hell of a dream, though.

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