Post 9

Peter sat at the computer with the keyboard in his lap while Laura scribbled notes in a notebook. They talked about possible search terms. At first, he focused on the sensation of electricity flowing through his body, which led to a few unrelated stories including their favorite about a Darwin award winner who electrocuted himself spectacularly. Next, he tried to describe the sensation differently and ended up reading an article about phantom cell phone vibrations. Entertaining though it was, it really didn’t give him any answers, though it did prompt Peter to take his cell phone out of his pocket and set it on the desk. This made Laura laugh.

The most promising story they found was about a college football kicker who was walking from the locker room to the field when he noticed a strange electric-type energy in the back of his leg where his butt and his leg came together. He decided to let the backup kicker start that day and had the trainers check him out. They took him for some tests and discovered a benign tumor growing on his back side, which they removed in an operation the following week. The kicker was able to continue playing after surgery and made it to the pros.

“So great, we’ve learned that I might electrocute myself, I might be crazy, or it could be a tumor. I don’t think this is good news,” Peter told Laura sarcastically.

“Well, is there anything else about what happened that you can think of?” she asked.

“I did have a strange dream last night before my face melted. Wait a minute.” He connected something. “Last night in my dream, I was surrounded by light. Today at the sushi place, my eyes were really sensitive to light,” he explained.

“What does it say when you search on light in your dream?”

Peter typed, and scanned the links returned by the search engine. “Here’s one.” He clicked on an entry. “Light in your dream symbolizes consciousness according to this site. What does that mean?”

“Is that the consciousness in you rising to the surface? Like, are you being conscious in the dream?” she speculated. “It did happen again while you were awake, so that could mean something.”

“Yeah, you may be on to something there. And speaking of dreams, I had a dream about climbing, too. That was a couple nights ago.” He plugged that into the search engine. “Here we go. Climbing in your dream could mean that you need to climb up to get a more detached view of yourself in order to put things in perspective. That sounds about right.”

“Detached consciousness, huh? Are you going to have an out-of-body experience on me, Pete?” Laura nudged Peter playfully. The look he gave her in reply made her eyebrows arch.

“That may be, Laura,” he said. “Have you ever known anyone who had one?” His attention returned to the computer where he typed “out of body experience” in the search field. It returned hundreds of millions of results. Upon seeing how many web pages were referenced, Peter’s shoulders sagged. “Maybe we’re just chasing rabbits here,” he said, referring to Alice in Wonderland.

“Maybe,” Laura answered.

Peter turned off the monitor and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his face with his hands. He wasn’t sure what to do next. Just then, the doorbell rang. Peter got up and went to the door to see who it was, and saw Dan standing outside. He unlocked and opened the door and invited Dan in.

“Mom and dad aren’t back from shopping yet?” asked Dan as he walked in. Peter shrugged as Dan walked past him and saw Laura. “Oh-ho! I see why the door was locked now.” Dan looked back at Peter before talking with Laura. “Having a good time, are we?”

“Nothing’s going on, Dan,” Peter said. “We were just doing some research.”

“I thought school was done for you guys. You don’t have any more homework,” Dan said.

“No, it’s for something else,” Peter said.

“Uh huh.” Dan didn’t press the issue any more. “Did you guys see an envelope for me? Dad said there was mail here for me.”

Peter looked around and noticed a stack of letters on the counter in the kitchen, which he picked up and handed to Dan, saying, “Here they are. Haven’t you changed your address yet?”

“Well, I don’t know if I’m going to be staying that that apartment or not, so no, not yet. I will soon, though. Alright, I better be going. I have to go back to work tomorrow. No more vacation for me.” Dan took his mail and walked towards the door. “Have fun, kids,” he said as he opened the door and walked out.

Peter called after him. “Don’t worry, we will!” When he thought about what he said, though, he turned bright red and turned to Laura saying, “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, I hate to say it, but I need to get going, too. Mom wanted me home tonight.”

Peter was disappointed. He was having fun spending time with her trying to figure out what had happened to him.

“Promise you’ll call me if anything else weird happens?”

“What if it’s the middle of the night?”

“Even in the middle of the night,” she said. “I expect a call.”

“Okay, I promise. I’ll see you tomorrow at rehearsal?”

“Yeah, that’ll be fun. Are you going to the party afterwards?”

Peter hadn’t heard about a party, but he said, “Only if I get to go with you.”

“Of course!”

They kissed good-bye, and Laura left for home, leaving Peter to his own devices until his parents got home and got on with the usual evening ritual of dinner, TV and bed. That night was pretty well normal. Peter went to bed a little early and slept well, all things considered.