Vorfreude An International Community Of Writers

The letterman

The Letterman
Rosh cracked open his eyes to the sound of heavy rain pounding on the pavement outside. He rolled over and glanced at his alarm clock. It was far too early to be reasonably  conscious on a Sunday morning.  His cell phone was buzzing on the bedside table, three new text messages and a voicemail. Rosh groaned. He was in no mood to go out. He was supposed to be at brunch right now.... or something. Rosh couldn't remember. Dutifully, he picked up the phone and cancelled all his plans for the day, as the late night out and the rain only added to his anti-social mood. "Well, seems there's nothing to do now but work on my stats in DotA 2." He stalked over to the entertainment center. The lulling sound of the familiar game mixed with the pounding rain as his eyelids slowly closed.

When he woke up, he saw the 'Victory' screen glowing on his computer. The headset and chat were going wild, and everyone was yelling about his miraculous winning move for the team. Rosh was confused. He didn't even remember most of the players that were yelling over their microphones. For a moment Rosh thought he was still dreaming. Perhaps he should lay off the DotA for the time being... He pinched himself, hard. Wincing, Rosh was convinced that he was awake and had just seriously leveled up his stats. Had he played while sleeping? Or maybe he never fell asleep and just blanked out?  He was confused by the lapse in time and his great success, but he put it out of his mind. After all, it was only a small thing.

  He avoided thinking about the strange occurrence and went on with his day. After what seemed like minutes, the day turned dark and it was already evening. Rosh decided to go spend time with his girlfriend Ruhi. While talking to her, he told Ruhi about the entire incident. She brought up the point that, "It could be sleep walking."

      As she began to explain typical sleepwalking behaviors, he was immediately taken back to when he was ten years old. He had a strange dream that he was climbing trees and he had awakened in the tree in his front yard. After that his grandmother had built him a tree fort. Rosh began listening again as Ruhi continued explaining, "...For instance there are people who wake up in front of their fridge, having eaten almost everything in it!" Rosh chuckled absentmindedly, his thoughts far from the conversation now.

     There were other strange dreams that he just could never forget. As a lot of children do, he dreamt of flying. He hasn't flown in a long time in his dreams but long ago is was almost nightly. He thought about that the entire day. hopefully his theory was right, and his dreams could control reality. What if I could fly? He thought.

       Ruhi noticed that his thoughts were far from her, and reached over to take his hand, asking him what he was thinking and why was he so lost. Rosh narrated his experiences to her.

         She laughed."Maybe you are going mad, just like your grandmother," Ruhi joked. "Things like sleepwalking do happen, but actually changing reality? Maybe you just blanked out for a moment."

       Taken aback at his girlfriend's rudeness, the mood had immediately turned sour. Rosh's grandmother was a sore spot for his whole family. All of the town believed her madder than a hatter and scarier than a hag. He couldn't believe that Ruhi had listened to some of the rumors. With the mood so poor, he decided to just leave. He had too much on his mind to keep talking about the mindless things with his girlfriend that usually made him so happy.

Ruhi  reached out and tried to stop his leaving, but Rosh was not keen to stay. He went home and started writing about his strange experiences on a ragged piece of notebook paper he found lying around. He simply felt the need to write it down on paper for his own piece of mind.

Once his thoughts were organized, he plopped down on his chair, determined to play DotA again and see if it would happen once more. The game again lulled him to sleep. He let the waves of exhaustion take over him and slept. Roshe realized that he was asleep and tried the experiment of playing the game in his head. In his dream, he could see all the detail of the room around him, and see his hands on the controls as he completed the round he had fallen asleep in. Again the computer screen flashed victory. He became more curious about it, and began to realise there was something powerful about his dream state.