I woke up today with my eyes closed. I had been dreaming.
I was still dreaming, actually, but I could feel the covers, hear the ceiling fans, smell the sharp, cold air.
And I was dreaming. Still. I could see the blue bird-people attacking Al Pacino.
I got up out of bed. Putting my feet in my slippers was easy, but standing up wasn’t.
Pops and cracks and stretching ligaments spoke of my sleep, but all my senses were alive and awake.
Except my eyes, closed and focused on Iron Man as he blasted the bird-people out of the sky.
The cognitive dissidence was becoming unpleasant, so I opened my eyelids. Yes, I could see, but only halfway. The dream remained as a watermark on my sight. I was a television with bad reception, getting two channels at once. I was a pair of headphones, with one song in the left ear, another song in the right. It was all rather jarring.
Hellboy was dueling Iron Man to the death as my room swam in my vision.
I put my head in my hands, and sighed.

“Not again.”