Why am I sleepy? I shouldn’t be feeling this sleepy. I had a good night’s rest, had a good breakfast from whatever's edible I could find. I got the class into space and talked to a historical figure, punished a brat, reinsured a friend, so why am I sleepy? Especially when the class is reading a story here?
No, stay awake, everyone knows it’s not good for the teacher in another universe to fall asleep in front of his class.
Don’t you dare close your eyes.
Don’t you-
SLAM!
I jolted upright.
“Tisk tisk. Falling asleep during class, how rude.” It was him. It was the other me. He was in a black graduate’s gown complete with the hat. In his hands was a ruler and behind him was a chalkboard. I looked around me, I was no longer in the schoolhouse but I was confined to a tiny desk in the middle of Nowhere and Lostville.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“Weren’t you paying attention? You are in Chaos 101. And we’re learning the difference between sanity and the freedom of creativity.”
Oh great, just what I need, a hallucination during class.
I need to get my pills.
The other me turned his back to face the chalkboard. “So,” he said. “We’ve covered that the key to great creativity is a good dose of insanity.” I tried wiggling out of the desk to get ahold of my meds with no luck.
“What do you want?”
“Please raise your hand when giving a question or a comment please.” He said, of course, both of my wrists are caught in this tiny desk.
“You know I can’t do that!” I protested. He turned around with a cross look on my face.
“Are you going to let me teach you or are do you want me to give you detention?”
“I’m Fifty-six!”
“And your point being?”
I took a deep breath, “Look, why am I here really?”
“Ah good,” the other me said with a wicked grin. “You’re finally asking the right questions. You see, dear other me from a magicless universe, I’m actually worried about you.”
“Define ‘worried’.”
“Alright, it’s all about those sanity pills your taking that’s gotten me concerned about you.”
“Why would you be concerned about me?”
“Even in a different universe, you sir, are still me.” He snapped his claw hand and now we’re reenacting the mad tea party scene from “Alice in Wonderland”.
“Judging from yesterday,” he said picking up a cup of tea. “There is a difference between us, I have given into the madness a very long time ago, but you, on the other hand, are still fighting it.”
“And I have a good reason. Madness was the very thing that had gotten me into deep trouble the last time.”
“Same with me, but you don’t see me taking any of those pills. Besides, do you really take all those pills in a single day?”
“Well… no.”
“Ah! Why?”
I reached into my pocket to grab out the bottle. “While it does help, if I take all of them, I’m not exactly me.”
“And that’s why I’m going to help you with that.” He grinned, the other me snapped his lion’s paw, but nothing seemed to happen.
“What did you do?”
“Look down.”
I looked, but to my horror, all the pills in the bottle are gone!
“What did you do?!” I demanded.
“Don’t go tying your tail into a square knot. Your pills are perfectly safe. But I want to talk to you about something.”
“I need those pills!”
“Listen first, I have been keeping an eye on your teaching skills and I must say I’m quite impressed. But I think that without taking another of those pills, you could do so much better.”
“What are ya talking about?”
“Think about it, that zero gravity thing and talking to old crusty was good, but imagine what ideas you’ll be able to come up with if you withhold another few hours from sanity.”
“But can I have them back?”
“How about I make a deal with you?” He put down his cup, “If you can go on for, say, twelve hours just fine, I’ll give the pills back to you.”
“Do I have any choice in the matter?”
“Of course not.”
I sighed in defeat.
“Fine.”
“Excellent! Now then, I believe you need to get back to class.”
And just like that, I woke up.
“Huh?”
“Mr. D.” I found that the voice was coming from Rumble. “You just fell asleep on us.”
“Oh, sorry about that, didn't know what come over me.” Even in my daze, I reached down in my pocket to grab the bottle. “Everything’s fine, really.” I took it out and give it a shake.
There was no sound.
“Just… fine.”