Canal City: The Journey Beyond My Dreams
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It wasn’t just a vague memory. It wasn’t just a dream.
I had been to Canal City.
How I’d gotten there, I’m still not sure. Where its location was on a map, I wasn’t sure either. I had spent hours searching, googling Canal City but all I could find were photos of Venice and other old cities that had been built around a large body of water.
They were nothing like the Canal City I seemed to know so much about. Their water didn’t look as clean and turquoise-toned. Their buildings didn’t look as high and modern, and they didn’t reflect the light of the sun that shone upon their full-glassed windows, which occupied the whole floor from top to bottom. They weren’t filled with people in white garments with a smile on their faces. They didn’t have animals hopping around, playing, and tricking their owners to chase them.
There was nothing like Canal City in the web world.
My eyes stare at the fan ceiling that spins slowly above me, so slowly I think I’ll have run out of power for a few seconds. My mind spins much faster than the fan. My alarm is about to ring in a few seconds. I can see it coming. Ten. Nine. Eight.
Two. One.
I hit the stop button right at 6:59:59, and I raise myself. Unwillingly, of course. I look around and the dark room doesn’t seem real to me anymore. It doesn’t feel like mine. I don’t belong in this place anymore. I walk slowly to the bathroom and I shower. I’m supposed to shower quickly, but the deadness of my body makes it hard. I finally manage to get dressed after a while and leave the room, making sure I don’t wear any shoes or I’d wake up Tara, my roommate.
I’m glad it’s Friday. Not that I give a damn about the weekend in general, but it’s been exactly a week since it all started. I have tried to stay occupied between my internship and my finals at college. But nothing stops me from reflecting upon my nightly journeys. That’s what I have started calling them.
It may sound difficult to believe, but I have no intention of making it all up.
My name is Beatrice Simmons, and I can travel into foreign, distant realms while I am sleeping.
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