Synopsis: A man finds himself stranded among the collective unconsciousness of the universe when he's suddenly thrust back into a reality neither he nor others are prepared for.

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The Longest Dream

by K9Lupus

It was peaceful floating here. Surrounded by millions of shining stars, and even more memories, I could safely contemplate the bliss of my inherent nothingness. Most people think that during Passing your memories play like a movie, nice and neat from one end to the other, but that isn't true. They are planets and galaxies, all influencing one another in the orbits they take within your consciousness. Again and again they spiral, twisting and turning more kin to writhing cosmic beasts fighting for control. They separate and crash back together in awe-inducing splendor, and in the shards that ricochet off their heaving masses we find the mirrors of our identities.

Time's grasp over me had waned since I first arrived; now it breezed through my being with the implied intensity of a hushed whisper. They say it is the great anchor and motivator of life, and I am inclined to agree with this fact. Only in my separation from it could I come to know what burden I had carried in times before. I had a sense of others here too, but it was in much the way of looking down at your own hand and recognizing it as part of your greater whole. Where they ended, I began. Where I began, they connected.

I sailed this way until I came upon a Great Convergence; a single point of radiant light daring any and all who stumbled across its amorphous features. I hesitated at the sight of its curious, grinning face. I would miss the end of my oblivion. Here, I had dreamed the longest dream, and I was glad to find that it was with a smile I blazed forward into the prospects of a new future amid the rubble of my uncertain present and the mourning to come for my obliterated past.

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Coming to, my mind was hazy and sluggish to respond to the heavy glow of the twin lighting bars hanging from the ceiling. Somewhere behind me I could hear the quiet thrum of an air conditioning unit, and out past my room I could make out the patter of feet and quiet chatter. A woman of robust stature and even kinder grace greeted me with a smile.

“It's good to have you back Wendell,” she said before pouring a small glass of water and setting it aside on a wooden desk beside my bed.

A name. My name. The familiar sounds were murky and fleeting in my head. Other sensations across my entire body were off too. Then a question came to mind.

“How long have I been away?” I asked with a voice that was deep, gravelly, and dry.

The kind woman paused, her lower lip pursing as she shook her head from side to side, her broad smile weakened.

“Sixty years. The accident took your old body. It will take time to adjust to this new one, so please take it easy. Mrs. Grannis...Faith...just so you know, she would not let you go. It's because of her that all of this is even possible for our patients. She would have loved to have been the one to see you now.”

The kind woman squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed a clump of dry spit caught in her thought.

“Please excuse me. You can look whenever you're ready. I'll be back in a few minutes.”
The kind woman set aside a small mirror on the desk beside the water. Its pale-blue handle matched the washed-out pastel of the ceiling. My hand jittered as it traveled the short distance to the mirror, and it was with near Herculean effort that I was successful in resting it upon my chest.

I tilted the mirror up and came to know my new reality. Her words had been true. My old body, the old Wendell was gone. I stared blankly, unbelieving, at the array of strange features I now possessed. I was covered from head to toe in a soft covering of chocolate and cream colored feathers that shifted from the whirling air of the fan seated at the nearby window. A prominent, curved beak protruded from my face, surrounded by a peppering of black and framed by two, large mahogany eyes. Even my hands and feet were hopelessly lost in the void between avian and man. A pair of new, mighty limbs at my back twitched hard, sliding away the loose bed cover and revealing a hint of the broad expanse of my wings.

And as I looked over myself, my senses beginning to return to me, I I wondered if I had been truly floating that entire time, or if I had been flying instead. I smiled, a strange sight with this new face of mine, and felt a familiar warmth creep back into my heart.

The hawks had always been Faith's favorites.

END

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Flash Fiction reward made for  AviEnfield as part of my 50K deviantArt page view giveaway! They requested a prompt for a transformation following an instance of an individual in a coma! Went a little cosmic there for a while, but we made it back eventually. ;)

Huge thanks to all of you who've helped me reach this awesome milestone. <3 Looking forward to the next 50K at your sides. ^^

~Lupus

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K9 Lupus Commission Info

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