The Consciousness

I was flying. It wasn’t the first time. I’ve done this over and over again every night for the past 2 years. It was different when it first started. It was new. Now the experience of wind rushing around my face and body were familiar. Each cloud I passed through felt cold but comforting. I would look down and see the whole world lit up from the streetlights and buildings. My cord was still attached so I knew I was still okay. I tried to get high enough to break the atmosphere but the harder I would try the faster I would fall. Falling wasn’t scary though, not here at least. It felt like a release. Like everything I worried about in day to day life would slip off of me, would fall with me. Once I reached the ground I woke up.

The California Anomaly

A few days after his father died at an early age, sixteen-year-old Andrew meets his mother for the first time. While wallowing in self-pity in the comforts of his bedroom, Andrew accidentally finds a brass key with the same initials he had seen engraved to a hidden door in their old house. Andrew finds himself in an old study where lies a mysterious book with indecipherable phrases and some pieces of antique furniture. After reciting the Latin phrases, Andrew finds himself transported to a familiar place at a different time, where he finds his parents—young, carefree, and totally in love with each other. Andrew also discovers that someone from the present world was there to serve as a guide to his time-traveling adventure in Santa Cruz, California, where the monarch butterflies take refuge from the cold.