When Green Goes Whites

She opened her eyes with the peculiar feeling that she was waking up in a different place than where she fell asleep. She pushed off the white sheets, knowing they should be green. She got off the bed, all the while swearing hers should be lower to the ground. She blinked. She blinked again. The sheets remained white. And what about her pajamas? She remembered putting on her new set right before bed, the canary-yellow ones with tropical birds embroidered on the fabric. The ones her mother bought her as a birthday present. But when she looked down and fingered the cloth, she saw only plain, coarse white.

She stumbled out of her room, and stopped. Shook her head, continued into the kitchen—what happened to her staircase?—and decided coffee sounded like a good idea. A really, really good idea. Something was stuck in her throat. It itched. She thought to herself, Maybe I’m just drowsy. Maybe I’m sleepwalking. Maybe I’ve been abducted and am held hostage by some evil serial killer.

She decided it didn’t matter. Her right eye twitched. The coffee was in a different place than normal, and it was decaf instead of her normal extra-dark. There was only synthetic sugar instead of brown, and she could not find her favorite mug. Again, she dismissed these things as inconsequential. After all, her new goal of the week was to “become less attached to her personal, material things.” It said it right there, on the inspirational calendar glued to the fridge. Strange, how that remained in place. Who cared if she could not find her favorite mug, or tropical pajama set, or green sheets?

She gave up on looking for her coffee and instead drank the other one. It burned on the way down, clearing her throat slightly. She felt herself waking up, synapses in her brain snapping to attention. Breathed in, then out. “Okay. Okay.” She said, and felt better hearing her voice fill the space around her.

Whenever the world acted in a way she could not understand, she made a list. She’d always loved them—loved their uniformity, the sanitized way they organized thoughts. Sometimes, she would write lists of things she had already accomplished, just for the satisfaction of crossing the tasks off. So she sat down on a strange couch, awkwardly clutching her unfamiliar mug, and made one. First, she needed to buy new sheets—green sheets, satin, $300 at Bed Bath & Beyond. Next, new pajamas. She must remember to phone her mother, ask where she had bought the original pair. Then, an appointment with her doctor about the pain in her chest, her throat, her head. There, easy. She smiled, and the pressure eased.

A cat squirmed its way onto her lap, nuzzled its white head against her chest, large green eyes unblinking. She stroked its fur, felt it purr. The cat was almost more comfort than the list, until she remembered—

She didn’t own a cat.

She squinted, and the cat became a hand, slapping her, hitting her. She blinked again, and saw the cat. Her head hurt. Her eye twitched. She could not explain this with a list.

She decided to take a nap, green sheets or no. She hurried back to the bedroom—so unsettling to have one’s house rudely change from two stories to one—and furled up under the scratchy sheets. She felt dirty. She felt like a guest, unwelcome and unbidden. She felt as though the walls were shifting and resettling around her, like the bones in her body. Even her breathing was wrong. Too fast, too shallow, too soon. Someone was breathing for her but got the timing wrong. She tried to match it to her heartbeat, to slow down, but it didn’t work. The cat was sitting on her chest, its weight too much. The sheets flickered between white and green. A voice screamed. A cat purred.

She closed her eyes, with the peculiar feeling that she was gone.