Bathroom Monologue: Miracle of Bed

He goes to bed at 8:30 every evening. It’s early, but he tells himself he isn’t a spring chicken anymore and there’s a long commute waiting on the other side of dawn.

By 8:45 he’s curled up on his side, knees tucked into his gut. He’s got two quilts, which form a peculiar pocket of warmth at once familiar and desirably alien to anyone who’s ever enjoyed them. By 9:00, he’s pulled the covers over his head, regardless of whether he’s awake or asleep.

Sometimes it takes an hour. Sometimes it’s quick. There’s no manipulating its speed. But every night by 10:00, if he’s gotten to bed on time, the umbilical cord emerges. It’s hidden amongst the box spring. It worms up along his side and reattaches. The point isn’t to feed him, though his co-workers would gasp and nod if they saw it, finally understanding why he never eats lunch.

The purpose is to control his state. It makes him dream a certain thing and puts him in a certain state. These beds are rare and expensive, technically not out of alpha testing yet. He was lucky to know a guy on the inside.

By midnight the pocket of warmth under his covers reaches a certain humidity. No, his sheets don’t excrete amniotic fluid. That would be sick and the FDA would never allow it. They manufacturers set it to get as tropical under there as possible, though, and the brain’s smell sensors are temporarily reset with some suggestions in the dreams. The result? You smell the first things you ever smelled, those things you forgot after they spanked you and stuck you in the hospital nursery. It’s an inexact science, aided by the dreams the bed makes you have.

The dreams are the mostly wildly successful feature. They’re the reason for the bed, really. Everything else are luxury features. With the umbilical cord port and sealed environment that smells of womb, the bed gives you one very vivid dream every night. It’s the same premise each time, and your choice as to how you’ll live it out, at least insofar as anyone chooses their dreams.

The dream is that you have your whole life ahead of you.