Paradox

C H A P T E R O N E

What did I do? I thought to myself as I awoke. I groggily blinked as the ceiling slowly came into focus.

I glanced over to where my bed was, on the other side of my room. I had fallen asleep on the floor again. My back was stiff and my neck ached from the floor pressing into my shoulder blades.

Ever since I was young I've had a habit of lying on the floor and staring into the abyss of the ceiling when there were too many thoughts racing through my mind. Often I'd lose track of time, letting my brain run itself to exhaustion.

Then I'd fall asleep on the floor, which often led to back aches and headaches the following morning. This morning was no exception.

I sighed as I made my way downstairs. My mom was already in the kitchen, making breakfast like she always does.

My head was pounding and I needed some ibuprofen, but it's always been a rule in our house that you have to ask before taking medications of any kind. My mom's a nurse and she's always afraid that something will happen to me or my sister like things that happen to her patients.

"Morning." I yawned, rubbing my eyes. I have nearly perfect vision, so why was everything still blurry?

You know when you've just wiped your bathroom mirror and it immediately fogs up again, but for a split moment you can still kind of see? That's how I was seeing everything.

"Good morning, are you okay?" She asked, turning towards me.

"I fell asleep on the floor again." I mumbled slowly. "Ibuprofen?" I asked.

She nodded, grabbing the bottle from the locked medicine cabinet. She shook out two pills and handed them to m with a glass of water from the sink. I downed them, stuck out my tongue to prove I had swallowed them, then trudged into the living room.

I didn't need to be at work for another few hours, so I hoped my headache would fade before then.

I turned my attention to the TV to keep my thoughts form wandering too far. My dad was watching the morning news broadcast, on channel seven. I trained my focus onto one particularly bright spot of the morning's weather broadcast and tried to unfocus and refocus my eyes. I still couldn't shake the fogy vision.

A quiet whisper brought me out of my attempts. I turned towards the direction it came from, but no one was there.

Then I heard the whisper again. I whipped my head to the other side, still nothing.

I shook my head as if I clearing an Etch-A-Sketch. I watched the news with my dad in silence, unable to shake the weird feeling I had.

After a few more anchors had spoken, my dad rose from his chair. He was a tall man and had given me his brunette hair and brown eyes.

"I'm off to work, are you going to need a ride to work?" I snapped out of my thoughts and shook my head.

"Uh, no. No, I'll be okay. Thanks." I had the reply clear in my head, but the foggy lens had slipped into my mind and was now clouding my ability to use my fine motor skills as well.

"Alright. Have a good day." He kissed me on the forehead, I saw him approach me, yet I never felt the contact. I heard him tell my mom goodbye, heard the door click shut.

I heard the car start, its engine vrooming to life. I saw from the window his silver Corolla peel out of the driveway and grow smaller as it drove off into the distance.

My dad was an accountant, who worked in a large glass office in the middle of the city. It was the largest building in the entire city with huge glass windows, brown carpets, and large metal cubicles.