Random stories

The phantom sailed through the midmorning smog, dissipating into black nowhere feathers when I focused on it. The mind still wanted to dream, they warned. It was ironic to see the first hint of that only now.

I ignored the incoming call. I would try to call Claire later. She would be furious, best to have more of a plan first.

As I entered the Somnus solutions building, the rush of air brought a new wave of migraine. As much as I loathed the Chaindoor warehouse, the blue screen calmed my eyes. The outside world, the freedom of the unemployed, was far harsher.

The woman behind the desk gave me a welcoming smile. She was pretty in an unapproachable way, art behind glass.

"Good afternoon, sir. How may I assist you today?" she asked.

"I'm here to cancel my service," I said.

"Oh dear, I’m very sorry to hear that. May I ask why you want to cancel your service?" she inquired.

"I lost my job, and I won't need to use the clinic anymore," I replied.

"I see. Well, we are truly sorry to hear that, as well." she twirked her nose as she typed on the screen. “Name and date of birth?”

"Marcus Prellden, June 16, 36." A woman tapped her foot behind me. Her yawn gave me a smirk. She fears what she has taken from herself.

“And how long will you be pausing the service?”

I furrowed my brow. “I don’t know how long it will take me to find a job or if the new one will even have 24-hour shifts. Just stop it and I’ll renew it if I need it.”

"I understand. However, if you're going to be away from the clinic for an extended period, we'll need to do a new calibration night for you when you decide to resume the service," she explained.

I sighed. "That was most of the cost of setting up the service. I’m still paying the loan on the last time," I said.

"Well, there is an alternative," she offered. "You could become a sleeper yourself."

"You’re serious?"

I reveled in the lady behind me huffing. I wished I had a lullaby to play. If it hadn’t been to spite her, I might not have entertained the idea.

"Well, we're always looking for new sleepers. It's a program we offer where you can maintain your neural record with the system and get paid for it," she explained.

"It's a simple process."

I hesitated for a moment, considering my options. I needed the money, and the idea of sleeping my days away wasn't the worst thing in the world. Besides, I could always stop if I found a new job.

"Okay, I'll do it," I said.

The woman smiled warmly. "Great." She gestured for me to sit on one of the plush benches.

“Finally,” the lady behind me said, slamming her keys on the desk like a jangling mourning star.

After a few moments of observing some stellar and underserved customer service, an older woman came out to greet me. She led me to a room and began attaching electrodes to my scalp with smooth practiced motions.

"Okay, I'm going to start the test now. Just relax and close your eyes," she said.

I did as she instructed, and soon I felt myself drifting off to sleep. I wasn’t ready for the spreading warmth. It was the first time I slept in seven years, maybe more. I couldn’t remember when I started using the service full-time.

When I woke up, I felt groggy and disoriented. The technician smiled at me.

"Welcome back," she said. "You did great. Your neural record is now in the system, and you can begin sleeping for the clinic whenever you want. Do you want to start your shift now?"

I thanked her and started signing the stack of forms, feeling a sense of relief that I had found a way to make some money while I searched for a new job. “That quick? I should at least call my wife first.”

“The issue there, sir, is we have a shift starting in five minutes,” she flicked through her tablet. “There’s not another opening for several weeks.”

“Oh wow, I didn’t know the shifts were that rare. Yeah, okay, I’ll just call her after.”

“Excellent,” the technician said, gesturing me to follow her as she pushed a cart through a smaller hallway.

I flipped through one of the pamphlets in the bag she gave me, titled Dealing with the Dreams of Others. “Do I need to read this stuff first?”

“No, most of that doesn’t even help, to be honest.” She opened a door and beckoned me inside.

None of the posh hotel vibes of the front lobby made it this far back in the building. This was a concrete windowless room with a small cot. No technology was visible. I lay down on the protesting bed and the warmth spread again almost instantly.

I dreamed of a father I never knew, demanding I clean something. It was already clean. A dog then, in a field of cough drops and garbage. He might cut his paws.

The dreams came faster, glimpses of the lives of people I’d never meet. The range of emotions, fear, lust, gleeful hate, all blended into a senseless cacophony, a crowd singing a thousand different songs.

I blinked and shielded myself from the light but my migraine was gone. My back complained as I sat up, no doubt not a fan of its first night's sleep in almost a decade being on a bed that looked like it was bought second-hand from the corrections system.

“Hello?” I called out. “Do I just leave now or?”

I tried to stand. My legs couldn’t take my weight. I tried twice more before I looked down and saw my pants, previously almost too small, hanginh off me like robes. I looked down at my hands. I could grab around my entire forearm, all the way up to the elbow.

This was another dream, it had to be.

My arm was sore where a bandage was wrapped around a vein, a thin dot of red at its center.

“Alright,” a man said, entering the room without knocking. “You’ve still got about two left on the docket before you pay off the standing debts we were able to look up. I just need you sign a few forms extending you past the initial five you agreed to on record.”

“Five? What is going on? I need to call my wife.” I screamed, or whatever approximation thereof my weak voice could manage.

The man seemed unphased by my outburst.

“Yes, I usually save the update rundown for when your shift is complete, but I can alleviate your concerns there, Marcus. You are single. The divorce went through 2068.”

“It is 2066.” I said, trying to make eye contact with the man, who whipped open a folding table and began to arrange pages on it.

“Of course, disorientation is perfectly normal. It is 2071. You’ve completed five years of what looks like a seven-year repayment plan.”

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/11r5rd1/comment/jc7e591/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

My subreddit: /r/surinical

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Submitted by Surinical on Tue, Mar 14, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

When sleep-outsourcing was first invented, it seemed so convenient. You simply paid someone else to sleep for you and you'd have limitless energy for as long as you could afford it. But now, the consequences of this invention are coming to light.