The Tokyo Domain

The room was cold now, silent.  The wall was a dark black square looming over me as I lay staring at the ceiling.  My thoughts wandered all over the place, never staying anywhere for very long.  I had trouble sleeping at night, I always did.  The second the sun would come over the hills out my window, and flood my room, that was the only time I could sleep.  The darkness terrified me.  I was never sure why, as I grew older it only became worse.  Even if I was online, I couldn’t stand it.  The way it was always there, a dark void, nothingness.

I could only sleep during the day, winters were one long horribly nightmare.  The sky even now was nothing but emptiness.  Not a single star shone in the sky anymore, artificial light blotted them out forever ago.  I could barley remember the last time I had actually really seen the stars.  I was nine years old.  An earthquake had knocked out all the power for miles.  My father and I stood outside on the street and just stared up at them for hours.  He always used to tell me how bright the stars were whenever he went out to sea.  That wouldn’t be so bad.  At least then there would be something, something to look at, some kind of light.

The moon was an eerie pale glow; just enough light to throw horrid detail into harmless shadow.  I pulled the covers up over my head and curled up into a ball.  Tonight was really getting to me.  I tried to turn my thoughts to other things, other ideas.  I tried to remember the meeting from earlier that night.  The shady guy and his two toadies faded into view, but I couldn’t concentrate.  They probably thought I was on the case right now.  Every one always made that assumption.  Why I will never be able to find out.  All of my work was done last minute, that’s when work gets done.  Until then there is no pressure, no actual drive to achieve.  It’s the premise I had operated under for my entire life.  Paper is due at noon on Friday. Write it Friday morning, or the night before if it is important.

I could see a single light from outside pass across the sheets I was staring up into. It was probably some truck driving by outback.  I couldn’t hear a sound though; it drew my attention back to reality abruptly.  Everything was dead quiet, even my neighbors weren’t making any noise.  I started to sweat, or I just realized I was sweating.  My heart was beating hard; I could feel it thudding against my skull.  It drowned out any faint sounds I could hear, driving my panic even fiercer.

I reached out from under the covers slowly, grasping around in the darkness.  My hands fumbled over a few empty cans of Mountain Dew that were lying around.  Finally I felt the cool smooth lenses of my glasses.  I quickly pulled them under the covers and put them on my face.  The darkness slowly edged away from my vision, and a ghostly white light surrounded me.  I slowly pulled the covers down and glanced around the room nervously.  The light fading in and out in an uncanny way that sent shivers down my spine.  I turned slowly back and lay down, letting the bright white sheets of false daylight play about my vision.  It was better then the dark, but not by much.

“Boo” I jumped and fell right out of bed, petrified. “Did I scare you?” She hung over me like a dream her face like broad daylight.  I couldn’t say a word.  She just smiled.

“I almost had a heart attack…” my voice trailed off, embarrassed to be caught by her like this.

“Your awfully cute when your trying to sleep like this.”  She stood up walking slowly to the other side of the room.

She almost seemed to float; her colors were even more vivid now, at night.  She reacted as if it were noon in Texas.  Her shadows cast perfectly as if the sun were in the perfect position to highlight her every nuance.  Her red t-shirt hung loosely on her, a whole two or three sizes too big.  It flopped around when she moved, like curtains in a strong spring breeze.  It hung low on her, well down to her knees, now fluttering up here and there as she skipped lightly, as if she was weightless toward the monitor against the wall.

“We both know you can’t sleep, so why try?”  She giggled a little bit. “Lets go have some fun!”  She flashed her big smile at me again.  I was wide-awake.

“Alright, what did you have in mind?”  I scratched an itch somewhere on my back.

“Don’t you have a job you should be doing?” She casually held out a hand, now full of a familiar briefcase, dangling weightlessly from her fingertips.

“I am really not in the mood for work right now.”

“It would do you some good to get out of here and do something.”  The briefcase was now missing, her hand empty suddenly, as if it was never there at all.

“Maybe I should go for a ride.”  My mind suddenly lit up when I thought about it; maybe it was a good idea after all.

“Its due in for repair and modification in three days, ride it while you can.”  She spun silently in the darkness, suddenly a shadow, then not.  Now decked out in a familiar black jacket, and pants.  She drew her hands back and pulled her hair back, it was shorter now, straighter.  It fell into place perfectly on the top of her head, the lights reflected off of it in odd colors.  “What do you say huh? Lets go for a night out on the town!”

“Sure.”  I got up.  What did I have to lose?  I wasn’t going to sleep anyway.  I glanced at the clock.  It was twelve twenty five.  “Not many places open this late you know.”

“Only one place I figured we’d go.”  I knew where.  The usual place for runners like me this late in the real world.

“It is kind of a ride from here you know.”

“What have you got to lose?”

She was right.