Utopia

Chapter One - The Future-Past

She was sleeping. She was sleeping and she closed her eyes, and when they open again the world is different.

Kira isn't sure what first wakes her—the brightness, or the firmness of the surface beneath her—but she wakes bleary and confused. She always sleeps with the curtains drawn, and her bed is so old that it sags in the middle. It doesn't, well, it doesn't hold her up, so she knows, knows, that none of this is right, but it's still too bright to see. Kira holds her hand up above her eyes and blinks to stop the painful light. It's never this bright with the shades drawn.

Then, her vision clears, and she's awake. She sits up just as quickly. More than just the light and surface—Kira is sure she's never seen this neighborhood before. The suburbia of it all would fit neatly in the streets and sidewalks of her own, but she would recognize each planted gardenia of her own.

The houses here are too perfect. From the still bright paint to the square-cut lawns, it's the perfect line between a photograph and a magazine cover. Kira thinks it has to be new—a development community they're still trying to sell. Except for the cars, few though they may be. Every one of them rests with their frame firmly on the ground. They don't even have the curves where the wheels should be.

How did she come here?

Kira goes to stand—she shifts, watching all around, soft ball of her ankle dragging against the ground, she puts her hands down to stand, and she looks down.

Her hands—her hands are sitting inside the pavement—she wiggles her fingers and at once feels a mixture of upheaval and relief. It has to be a dream. The strangest dream. Her legs also sit within the pavement, the tops of her thighs breaking the surface. Kira pulls and watches her hands slip easily from the street.

"Hello?"

Kira startles. A little girl had come up behind her while she'd been playing in the street like water. Elsie, as this girl was called, was just old enough to remember this meeting as time wore on.

"Uh," Kira doesn't think a child as young as this girl is could possibly be dangerous. "Hi."

"How are you doing that?" Elsie goes to the very edge of the curbed driveway and peers down at her.

"Well, I'm pretty sure this is a dream, so."

"This is a dream?" She perks up, her little foot sliding forward.

"Pretty sure."

Then Elsie steps off the curb and the same cold thrill Kira had felt at seeing her hands goes through her now as the girl stands solidly on the surface that she's sitting in.

"It's a weird dream," she says defensively.

Elsie's face pinches. "I don't think this is a dream if I don't get to play too."

"I didn't say it was your dream," Kira argues before she can think not to.

Elsie stomps her foot. "I'm here so this has to be my dream!"

Kira wonders for a minute which part of her mind this creature had crawled out of, which part created neighborhoods, and cars without wheels, but she cannot feel the air—she can see the winds in the flitting of the little girl's hair, hear it in the rustling leaves, but, against her, it stands as sternly as in a sealed room. It has to be a dream.

"Alright," she says to the pinched face, "it's your dream. What now?"

"Now I want you to get out," the girl demands, crossing her arms.

"Okay," Kira stands. Takes six in-and-out of the pavement steps to the curb. At the curb, she hesitates, then steps up onto that small strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street. She nearly laughs. In this dream, she could stand on grass. It's almost too peculiar—she can imagine almost everything about it. The bend, the tickle in the gentle curve between her toes, the stiff, pointed poke of dying blades. The earth is soft, and she knows without looking that it'll stick to soles of her feet. "What next?"