Read Time Flying for Free Online

hands slicing through the water, making way for my head, then shoulders followed by the rest of my body. The water seemed to be the same temperature as the air, so the sudden impact and resistance let me know the descent had almost come to an end, my body slowing down almost to the point of stopping, though everything remained dark.
    The water disappeared, and as sleep overwhelmed me, so did everything else.
     
    Music again, this time, a tune and words, something about a cane, a hat, and a rubber band.
    I knew the song. The Spinners was my first guess, or maybe The Four Tops . I definitely recognized the era as mid 70s, at any rate. Again, the grogginess, as if I’d taken a two-cap dose of NyQuil, and awakened in the middle of a dream. The sound, loud enough to be slightly irritating, came from just above my head. I was in bed, covered up and comfortable, but the music seemed insistent, trying to wake me up.
    I no longer needed alarm clocks to wake up, so figured the maid must have accidentally set it. I reached out to hit the snooze bar, but my left hand hit empty air. I couldn’t make out the glowing lights of the clock face in the dark, and as my eyes fully opened and adjusted, I realized nothing seemed to be in its place. I jerked awake and sat up, my left arm whacking the wall next to me with a loud thump. Damn! I glanced around. A desk sat at the foot of the bed, a dresser and mirror next it. Nothing was reflected, only darkness outside the area of the floor illuminated by light leaking through the crack underneath the door. I sat on a small twin bed, music coming from not a modern digital alarm clock, but an old beige Emerson analog model. My hand went instantly to the knob on the right, or the stem part, since the larger bit had long ago slipped off and disappeared. After turning the volume down I froze. Holy shit. This was the bedroom I inhabited during my high school years.
    Memory of "Hawaii" and the spectacular dive for the moment forgotten, I laughed, realizing I was in the middle of a lucid dream. I’d had a couple in the past and found them a lot of fun. If you can stay in the dream state, you can make anything happen, all the while knowing you’re dreaming. It’s fun to be standing on a street corner one-second, flying or shooting hoops with Michael Jordan the next, all driven by thought. But before changing the scene, I thought I’d explore my old room for a minute. I walked the 3 steps over to the chest of drawers and flipped the light switch. Wow. Just like I remembered it. My desk, with three or four stacks of books on it, dresser with TV, lamp and portable 8-track stereo player sitting on top. That HAS to be my Chicago 10 tape, I thought, and reached out to examine it. I laughed, reading the text on the back of the cartridge. 
    I opened the closet to the right of the dresser, my reflection now in the mirror. For an instant, I didn’t recognize my seventeen year old self, the kid who considered himself ugly and fat. I had broken my leg in two places the winter before, and the period of inactivity had packed an additional twenty pounds on me, but compared to the normal course of adulthood and what aging does to most people, I hardly noticed the extra weight. Someone once told me they never pass up an opportunity be photographed, because she knew she’d never again look as good as she did at that moment. Youth and vigor radiated from the image in the mirror, and seeing myself without all the adolescent insecurities raging was warm and comforting. I began to be aware of my leg, as I remembered my past. The old pain and weakness eased its way back in, after being gone for so long. Think it away, I said to myself. This is a lucid dream. Nothing’s here I don’t want to be here.
    Except the pain didn’t go away, and grew a little, now that I had become aware of its existence, creeping in, from just above the knee almost to my hip. A dull ache which at its worse, made me whimper at the unrelenting