All too quickly, it was time for breakfast. His sleep had been mostly comfortable, yet confusing and disturbing at times. In his dreams, there were images he did not understand: Planes crashing, snakes coming out of everywhere, falling. They did not make sense to him. They only made his sleep that much more disturbed and restless.
Could it have been the dramatic episode of the day or days before which started his brain to churn out all these strange images? Maybe. All he knew is that he hoped this was a temporary condition. This could certainly not be a healthy condition to experience night after night.
His feeling of something feeling ‘off’ was still bothering him for some reason that he did not understand. After attempting to shower, he got dressed. Everything was a struggle. Thinking was difficult. Moving was difficult. Even his eyes, even though they had improved since the shower, were still not seeing clearly. He started off feeling fine, enjoying what he had read, and what he saw out his window with the sunrise, but this ‘weight’ became demanding, constant, unbearable.
Breakfast? Maybe some of that lettuce coffee will help.
He went to the door to his room and found the young lady with the cute smile sitting next to the door, waiting for him.
As she jumped to her feet when he exited his room, she asked, “Are you feeling okay?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? Of course I am fine.”
He was most disturbed to be asked this. His answer was a lie and he knew it. He wasn’t going to let on, however. To have someone ask out of sincere concern seemed an ‘alien’ concept.
“What you went through yesterday was very traumatic. It is stressful on the central nervous system as well as a couple of hundred different bodily functions.” She paused. “I was concerned.”
“Thanks for caring. Your heart is most kind. Here I am, a relative stranger, and you care like this? I feel honored.”
“I remember when I first ‘outgrew’ my old skin, so to speak. I was sick to my stomach for three days. It was only after that time I was able to eat or drink anything more than a broth. That, and allowing myself to go through it, instead of fighting it.”
“I’m happy you survived!” Again, he paused.
“I have been meaning to ask you something. How is it, even though you are so young, you know so much, not only about me, but about life in general?”
They walked toward the dining room, silently. She smiled, blushing ever so slightly. After a few moments, she said to him, “What does physical or chronological age have to do with anything? Isn’t it our experiences that determine what we learn and what we know? Some people, after all, never learn about living until they are on their deathbed. Look what they have to look forward to! That sudden realization they receive, that they had wasted so much of their lives, or so they think. The funny thing is that, even at that time, they have lost nothing. They still lived their lives as they wanted, as they saw was right for themselves at the time. Enough about them. How about some breakfast?”
“I will join you for something to drink. Maybe something light to eat.”
“Decide when you get there. I understand breakfast is exceptional today.”
They walked slowly, down the hall toward the dining room. As always, the halls were echoing the slight sounds of conversation, activities being accomplished, and even someone humming some song he did not recognize.
Entering the dining room, all but a few were gone. Maybe it was later than he thought. The aroma of fresh baked bread seemed to fill the room, mixed with other fragrances of flowers and foods. Getting toward the serving area, he picked out two slices of freshly made toast, looked at the salad and decided that might actually be good, then a small bowl of mixed fruit.
Moving to an empty table, he found someone following him with the carafe of coffee. He turned over a cup sitting at his place setting and, without hesitating, said,
“Yes, please!” Oh, how the brew smelled good. Better than he had ever smelled.
A few moments later, his new-found friend, the cute lady with the mystical smile who had escorted him to the dining room this morning, joined him. She sat across from him.
“Have you any plans for the day?” he asked, really curious about whether she had.
“I am going to work on painting a new portrait of Wendy. I think the one over the fireplace needs to have a copy for my room. She’s quite the young lady, you know.”
“It seems as if she has quite the influence with people around here,” he replied, not knowing what to say about this teddy bear ‘cult’. Still confused how the writings of this mystical bear could be so profound, it threw him still. Even with his numerous experiences with this mysterious book, and how, when he opened it, it always seemed to be speaking about what he was thinking. Such a large number of coincidences seem to happen here, he thought to himself.
As breakfast seemed to wind up in silence, he asked his young friend with the beautiful smile about her plans for the day. Then, he remembered, he had already found out. Keep the mouth closed until you have something to say!