Jeff woke up violently
into a bed sputtering and flailing for purchase. It was the bed he
had fallen asleep in the night before. Wiping saliva off his mouth,
he inspected the bed with great care, paying special attention to the
grain of the wooden posts. He was astonished that they were the same,
but gradually came to accept their verisimilitude, though if they
remained identical to their previous state much longer he would be
venturing into known territory. On the other hand, he noted that the
toaster had satisfactorily evaporated, though the kitchen remained
ominously intact. Opening the refrigerator, he took out a can of
orange soda, emptied it onto his face and rubbed it into his skin. He
went to the door and opened it to find four conscious decisions
waiting for him on the doorstep. The first was only a sapling,
but as soon as he ignored it, it grew out-of-control all over the
landscape until soon it had sprouted a platoon of angry policemen, so
right then and there he went back into the house to gather up any
contraband that had generated in the night. He found whistling
kettles full of boiling venison corroding the grout in the bathroom
and eggplants growing in the marijuana. He put them all in a big box
and mailed them to the post office. When he checked outside again the
coppers had withered on the vine, falling where they stood into the
flower beds to begin rotting slowly in the heat, their nightsticks
jutting out to cast shadows you could set your watch by.
