Floating and Potatoes

Chapter 8

Trent was floating, an awkward feeling to wake to if ever there was one. He opened his eyes and stretched, then blinked wildly at what he saw.

It wasn't the same room he had fallen asleep in. He should have known it before he opened his eyes; his bed was incapable of being comfortable, while the cloud-like monstrosity he lay on leeched his will to get up before he even thought of it.

The room was roughly the size of his entire apartment and painted in white and shades of white that glowed in the morning sunlight. It was so nice that Trent's heart fluttered nervously just being there.

He tried to come up with some explanation for why he was there, and better yet, where 'there' was. The house felt open and exposed, like his parents' bedroom when he had been a child; it was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be without an escort.

After a tense moment of listening for the whisper of footsteps that would find him out, Trent fought the magnetism of the bed and rolled out with a grunt. He looked down at the pair of nylon shorts he wore and thought himself lucky. Normally in situations like this people found themselves naked.

He looked through the bathroom door, out of nervous curiosity more than anything else. It was the size of a mobile home, but a bathroom all the same. He flipped the light switch and soft blue lights came on. He laughed loudly, then clapped a hand over his mouth at the volume. Stupidity would get him caught before anything else would.

He glanced at the wide mirror above the counter. And stopped dead. His face looked years younger than the twenty-six going on forty that he was used to. He could tell that even with his hand still holding the bottom half of it. Lines and stress marks he had known for years were gone, and his hair was longer than he ever would have grown it. He let his hand down, having forgotten all about his fear of discovery.

“This ain't right,” Trent hurried out of the bathroom and poked his head in to a hallway. No one was in sight, but he couldn't be too careful. There could be someone in any one of the rooms that branched off the hallway. The house was obviously owned by someone rich, and he was done for if he got caught skulking around; rich people had guns. He rushed down the hall, his heart trying to fight free of his rib cage as his feet whispered over the carpet. He ducked in to the first open door so quick he nearly fell.

Den, he thought wildly as his eyes darted from object to object. Two large windows let in light to illuminate the naturally dark room, but he felt he was once again invading someone's private space. Normally the dark made him more comfortable, but this place felt even more private than the bedroom.

He wondered why he was looking around his den like he had never seen it before. Then he flinched as if he could somehow dodge the thought that had already struck his mind. This wasn't his den. He didn't have a den. He didn't even have windows, much less an ebony desk and a few hundred books.

Trent stuck his head back out in the hallway, almost expecting to stare right down the barrel of a twelve-gauge. He still didn't hear anything from the large room at the end. His racing heart slowed, he was alone in the rich house, that was the only explanation for no one being around. He sighed, praying he was right; there was nothing to do but act like he owned the place. Oftentimes boldness would get you further than stealth.

But he didn't feel very confident as he walked toward the large room. As he got closer he could see that two entire walls of the big room were floor to ceiling windows looking out on a meadow that had been stolen off a postcard. The radiant sunlight reflected off the dark blue tile floors to undulate like light through water on the walls. He was stuck in an aquarium. A near hysterical laugh tried to bubble up, but he fought it back in panic. He couldn't see another building through the windows. He was alone in this house, out in the middle of nowhere.

Two moving shapes in the meadow drew his eyes, and he forgot all about his fear of being disconnected from the concrete prison of the Houston slums. He shuffled to the windows and stared out at the two children chasing butterflies through the green and gold sea right outside the rich man's back door.

The two kids told him nothing about where he was. He had never seen them before, but the names Jason and Jenny floated up as he watched them. Trent shook his head, and his brain kicked out of idle. This was just too odd. Everything in the house seemed familiar, but he knew he had never been there before; it wasn't the kind of place he would forget.

“S**t...” He moaned, at a loss for what to do.

“Whatcha doin'?” A voice as sweet as honey asked.

He spun around to defend himself against whatever ninja being had sprung up to attack him.

And promptly rolled out of bed to land on unforgiving concrete. Trent gasped for breath and studied his bedroom. He kissed the concrete and laughed in helpless relief.

Trent rolled over and pillowed his head on the notebooks beside his bed. He shut his eyes and drew deep, calming breaths; it had been nothing but a dream. Nothing more, and nothing to worry about. Erin's voice destroyed his sense of relief.

“What the hell's wrong with you?!” Erin leaned over the edge of his bed, hair sticking out wildly after being woken up so rudely. Trent shut his eyes at the sight of her. Medusa in the morning. Although from past experience he knew she could turn him to stone no matter the time of day.

“Food,” he mumbled.

Erin huffed and shook her head. It really wasn't all that odd for Trent to begin his day in search of sustenance, but he was usually a little more eloquent about it. She slumped back in resignation and rolled over.

Trent couldn't bring himself to look back as he walked out of his bedroom. He had no desire to see an early-morning Erin again. He blinked in confusion when he found the living room empty of his friends, but he shrugged it off and headed for the miniscule kitchen in the corner.

It took less than ten seconds to figure out there wasn't anything substantial to eat. The only edible thing, beyond three paper plates, was a bag of a couple dozen potatoes. He hefted the bag and thought he could put them under his mattress to make it more comfortable for his sleeping Medusa.

But the potatoes weren't to be wasted in giving Erin a crappy place to sleep. He set to searching the cabinets and the two tiny drawers under the kitchen sink.

“Aha!” He exclaimed at last, a bottle of oil held over his head like it was the Holy Grail.

Five minutes later, Trent was happily humming to himself with a joint hanging from his smiling mouth as he sliced potatoes on to a myriad assortment of plates and tupperware lids in the living room. The groggy stoner was going to make some homemade potato chips, or at least potato shapes that slightly resembled potato chips. They might even be edible if he got lucky.

The blade snicked through potato after potato, and Trent smoked his way through joint after joint. He giggled to himself as he wandered to the stove with plates stacked with sliced potatoes of all shapes and sizes. By the time he was done and leaning back on his couch he was surrounded rather completely by mounds of the funny shaped little spuds. He would have been hard-pressed to say whether his apartment smelled more like potatoes or weed. It was an odd combination, but in his current frame of mind he liked it.

Reviews

[Xavier Lee]

What the actual hell happened? Forgive my lack of eloquence but...you had my curiosity, now you have my attention. I was curious to see what would happen, now I find myself angered at not knowing. That is all I have to say because I must continue.