Wednesday Afternoon, or Expired Sea Salt
I can't remember how it started. Anyway, the moment I opened my eyes, I was standing in a rather dilapidated underpass. The walls were plastered with those brightly colored advertisements, but on closer inspection, the images printed on them were actually all the erasers I had lost as a child.
I walked forward. At the corner stood one of those old-fashioned vending machines, its fluorescent tubes flickering. I wanted to buy a bottle of water, but the coin slot spat out a limp paper banknote with a drawing of my neighbor's cat on it. Just then, the vending machine spoke. Its voice sounded exactly like my high school math teacher. It asked me, "Do you want to buy 'Wednesday Afternoon' or 'Expired Sea Salt'?"
Inexplicably, I chose "Expired Sea Salt."
With a clunk, a transparent plastic bag dropped out. Inside, there was actually a small puddle of seawater, and on the surface of the water, a miniature lighthouse was glowing. Just as I was about to tear it open, the lighthouse suddenly started sounding an alarm. The noise was deafening, shaking the entire underpass until it wobbled like jelly.
Next, the floor tiles beneath my feet turned into rows of black and white piano keys. With every step I took, a very muffled piano note rang out. The erasers in the advertising posters along the way all came to life, rolling wildly all over the ground, trying to rub out my footprints. I panicked hard right then, possessed by the feeling that if my footprints were completely erased, I would become a "person not found" and cease to exist.
Then came the most absurd part. I ran out of the underpass, and outside was not a street at all, but a vast, pinkish-purple desert. There were three moons in the sky, arranged in an isosceles triangle. The middle moon was like a monitor, scrolling the lyrics of the song I had been humming in the shower yesterday, but it was all gibberish.
I looked down at that bag of "sea salt" and saw a miniature me walking out of the lighthouse inside, holding an even smaller plastic bag, looking right back at me.
And then I woke up from thirst.
