I was surprisingly well rested, from what had certainly been the most restful sleep of my life.However when I woke up, there was something out of place about my surroundings, at the same time familiar and different. Something strange had happened, I was sure of it. But what ? Atsecond glance around me, I realized that everything was older that what I was used to. Not in the meaning that it had been replaced by older equivalent objects, but that things had aged. Modern applicances no longer worked and only the more robust staples of life and furnituresremained unchanged.


    To understand what was going on, if maybe I was dreaming and there was just a power outage, I decided to venture out. The strangeness of thevicinity was even more obvious. The streets were the same, and the infrastructure may have been moved about, but remained essentially identical.


    What gave me pause were two out of place elements, the appearance of the cars and the fashion sense of the people. Everyone around me was in baggy clothing, like something taken right out of the nineties. But the cars! That was the real surprise. Each was more silent than the other, more streamined that I was used to, and while squinting I saw lines of water drops instead of four wheeled drives going around.


    I was gawking like a country bumpkin in the city for the first time, to the point that someone stopped before me and offered his help. I was gobsmacked. An honest to God good Samaritan! In the city! Where had the world gone to?


    I mumbled to myself "Toto, you''re not in Kansas anymore".


    "Yip gee! All''s copathetic ''n yo''r groove?" said the man, rather nondescript except for his large sweatshirt which stole all the attention about him, black with an incredibly lifelike scintillating red dragon breathing fire on its centre.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    The link between us caused by a common cultural subtext was apparently next to inexistant, so even if I understood the words, I only had a vague idea of what he meant.


    "No, everything isn''t cool, I think I am going crazy."


    "How you speaks shows, cuz''! Hospital this way!"


    He indicated the direction with his arm then continued on his walk, turning his head to glance at me regularly, as if I could begin to foam at the mouth anytime. Well, it could have gone better, even if I still gained someinformation. From this pretty limited sample, people looked more health-conscious than ever around here. At least the idea was familiar.


    This encounter encouraged me to observe more attentively thefine specimen of mankindaround me. I noticed that nobody had any device in their hands fighting for attention with their environment. On the other hand, the stares of most passersby were empty, or they were rapidly blinking their eyes.


    Had the time come for retina implants? Neural interfaces? Was I not in a weird version of reality but in a science-fiction story? Or had I underestimated the time that seemed to have passed, and this was a distant future from my period, when not so much had changed in terms of appearance, but the underworking of society had significantely evolved?


    Wanting answers to my questions, I approached another person - after all the previous one had begun more helpful than normal for someone in the streets. I chose anelderly woman, for our common points could be more numerous if my first hypothesis (that a few decades had passed without my knowledge) was correct, and asked her for the date.


    She wasamongst the people zoning out, and gave a start when I talked to her. She answered: "We''re on the --------------, you''re even more out of whack than me young man. As you''re, it won''t hurt - want a toke?"


    Well, thatresolved a lot of my questions at once! Futuristic technologies or drugs? Occam''s razor had answered.