[...] but memories from earlier this day, this week, this year, crawled over him in his bed like spiders, from his belly to his neck, causing his mandible to clench and his eyelids to snap open. Every day was like this with him. In bed, as each memory struck him, his legs and feet would slowly bend into distorted crescents. He lost sleep this way every night.
In the past, he learned, none of this was permanent. But here, it was all written down in the permanent record. Every misspoken word, every embarrassing action, every low grade on his algebra exam. It was indelibly recorded forever, and known to somebody, somewhere, somehow.
That night he fell asleep, and before his eyelids had even closed, the spiraling dance of hypnagogic imagery began to turn in his field of view like a kaleidoscope. He saw fractals, faces, and memories. Before much time had passed, these images had been subsumed by a long, long tunnel which opened up in front of him like the mouth of a primordial snake. There was only dark static and this tunnel. His body was dressed in the static, and shortly, he floated in. The tunnel welcomed him in.
As he fell into it, the tunnel dressed him in a new body. He noticed hair on his arms and legs, broader shoulders, and he needed no glasses to see. He felt distinctly handsome. Distinctly different from thirteen.
In seconds, the tunnel had transported him somewhere familiar. He was in the back row of chairs, facing the blackboard. He raised his hand, and like magic, his algebra teacher appeared. Michael raised his hand, his teacher called on him, and he gave an answer to a question the teacher hadn't asked.
"That," said the teacher, "that is exactly right! Wow!"
With enthusiasm, the teacher wrote the answer on the blackboard. But Michael couldn't understand it. It was like gibberish.
Hmm, thought Michael. He looked around. It was all familiar, but somehow different. He looked at his hands. His wrists were muscular, belonging to a boy much older than him. He had a watch on, but couldn't read the time. And the number of fingers on his hands was constantly changing.
"Oh, I'm dreaming. This is a dream."
Someone tapped him on the shoulder with a pen.
"It's a lucid dream," she said. She was sitting in the chair just behind him. She had black hair, white skin, and green eyes that looked just a bit too big to be real. "It means you're awake and asleep at the same time."
"I know what a lucid dream is," he said, "you don't have to tell me."
"Hm," she said, thinking, "if you knew what a lucid dream was, why would you care what I think? I'll be gone forever the instant you open your eyes," she said.
"I've never seen anyone like you before," he said. He wanted to say: you're prettier than anyone I've ever seen before. Each strand of her hair appeared to him in exquisite detail to be perfectly cylindrical, perfectly smooth, and perfectly black. Her eyes, belligerently green, were carefully following his.
He looked at her lips. They were also black, and shiny.
"Ah-hem," she coughed, "a little respect?"
"I love you, I love you..."
"I love you too, honey," chuckled his mom, touching his smooth face, "but it's seven thirty and you're still in bed." She was sitting on his bed.
"Wait," said the boy, "what?"
She stood up and threw his clothes on him. "Time to go," she said, as she left the room.
He felt around on the bed for something, but it was empty. He felt his face, and it was smooth and round again, like a fourteen year old's face. He looked at his room. It was like the night before. His body was his again.
He sat on the bus with his head against the window. The bus vomited out all the students, and the school vacuumed them up. He sat in homeroom with his head against the desk.
"Psst, ass-canoe," said Zeek, throwing a ball of paper at his head, "if I have to stay awake through this bullshit, so do you."
"I didn't sleep."
"Fuck you! Maybe don't jerk off all night and you'll have the energy to pledge allegiance." said Zeek. Please rise, said the intercom. Everyone rose. I pledge allegiance...
"I only have two settings," said Adan, "jerking off, and jerking on."
"What the fuck does that even mean," whispered Zeek.
Adan thought for a second. "Question: do you remember your dreams?"
And to the republic, for which it stands...
"Yeah, I dreamed I banged your hot-ass mom. Is that where you get your canoe-ass from? Your mom? Her ass is more like a kayak though."
...with liberty, and justice, for all.
"What did I do to deserve you," said Adan. "No, I mean actually. What the fuck did I do."
Later, in computer lab, Adan opened up the web browser and googled "lucid dreaming." He had heard about it before. The page told him to constantly note whether he was dreaming or not. To try to read pages of text, to test if light switches work or not. He made mental notes of all of this.
When he got home that night, he tinkered with the light switches and