The boy fell asleep again today. As usual, without warning he fell to the floor. When his eyes opened back up, he was hiding in a closet as a train whizzed by just inches away. From below, he was able to see all the way down into the space between two cliffs. It could've startled him, but it didn't.
   When he woke up again, he climbed out of the closet and ran outdoors. He and his brother had both been involved, and as he ran into his father's worried arms he was told this time, it'd been for days. His father picked him up in his arms. As he did, the boy whispered in his ear, "daddy, I'm a girl inside." After a moment's pause, he asked if he still loved him, to which his dad replied "of course I do." The boy fell asleep again.
   This time, he dreamt he was in Salem during the time of the witch trials. In a cabin conference room full of angry women he opened his eyes and instantly knew he was in for trouble. As they began to crowd around, he unintentionally began to float in he air. This time a woman, his levitation brought the shouts from all around, "WITCH! WITCH! BURN HER AT THE STAKE!" Luckily, he awoke just in time.
   Each time he goes out, he asks how long it was for. Usually it's only a few minutes, maybe an hour or so. But sometimes, it's for days and these times are the worst. The longer, the scarier. The more he misses.
   The last time he went out, he was on an all- girl's bus and one of the girls in-particular showed interest in him. She has very short blonde hair and dressed in all black. She scared him because she was so quiet and frightened everyone else. Someone had told him she'd once nearly drowned and when she came back up, she was so brain-dead she was practically a vegetable. He didn't know if all the was true, but she just sat there, quietly and looked at him most days.
   Their bus was taking a trip through the mountains and at times it was scary. They were so very high up and there were places they could fall hundreds of feet to their deaths. Every so often, the girl would look over and look anxiously at him. This made him so nervous he tried to get as far away from her as he could. But, no matter how far away, there she always was. The trip seemed to last for days until finally they arrived. At that very instant, the boy woke up with a shock. He didn't recognize a thing but his family on the couch. When he asked how long he was out, his mother hesitated a moment before saying softly and nervously, "you're 18 now..." When the boy last woke he was 12, and this revelation terrified him. "Why, I may have less than 100 waking moments left in my life!" The fact that he could go out whenever, without warning scared him most. He, like the ******* the bus lived his life as a ghost. But his situation was in a way not much different than all of ours. We never know when we may go. Life is but a dream.