Black Out - Part 1

Ted was on his way home when he saw the sign for Cindy’s; two burgers for the price of one. He made the stop.

A few blocks until he would reach his house and he had already eaten the first one. The second burger stayed in the passenger seat until he parked his car. He placed it in the fridge, and sat to watch TV until he got sleepy.

The next morning his alarm went off. Morning, but dawn's early light was late. He looked at the window at the far side of the room, and all that was on the other side was black.
         
He checked his cellphone.
         
7:30 am. He looked out of the window again.
         
Black.
         
He sat down on the edge of his bed. He didn't feel rested. He had the foggy mind of a person who had been woken just after having fallen asleep. Something was wrong, however, and his sleeping mind couldn't pin it down. He kept turning his phone's screen on and off, but had forgotten why he'd started doing that.
         
Oh yeah, the time.           
         
7:30 am.
         
7:30 am.
         
He flicked on his light and thought for a second. He was disoriented. His mind was waking up, and the thought that the phone company may be having issues crossed his mind. Yeah, thats it. Except, his clock had rang it's alarm. He looked at it, now 7:31, and tried to imagine a reason both his phone and clock would tell him the wrong time. Or why 7:30 was pitch black.
         
It was something wrong with the clocks. Technology can lie, but the sun couldn't.
         
Accepting that he had been mistakenly roused with extreme coincidence, he decided he would watch a bit of TV and get a snack. The second burger he bought was still in the fridge. The grease was a solid film on the outside of the bun, but the microwave fixed that.  He sat in his underwear and clicked the power button on the remote.
         
He stopped half way through a bite. The morning news was on.
         
Confused again, he looked out of the front windows of his living room. Still night time.
         
Nope. That's not right.
         
Solar eclipse? He kept watching the news, waiting for a report. Must be something like that. A solar eclipse had blotted out the sun for awhile, and in a minute the light would come back and his confusion would leave along with this false night.
         
No eclipse was ever mentioned. The news was typical for the time of day that they said it was. His mind reeled. He had to keep looking out of the windows to convince himself that what he had seen was real..
         
He stood to get a better look. The black was a bit blacker than he remembered it should be, but nothing spectacular if it were actually nighttime. He strained to see his mailbox, but couldn't.
         
Not only was it much too dark for it to be morning, but it was so dark he couldn't see the light from his neighbors house. In fact, directly across the street from his front door stood a light pole, and the orange light would usually flood his foyer at night. That light pole wasn't there now.
         
Just black.
         
He opened his front door and stood on his lawn. He looked up and down where his street used to be and saw only more darkness. Nothing continued passed the edge of his lawn. The world around his property had been erased from the chalkboard, except without the dust to hint at what had been there before. His house stood alone in all of space, as far as he was concerned.
         
He wasn't sure how to react. What does one do in this situation?
         
What was this situation?
         
He was certainly a bit scared, but how scared should he be? His life didn't seem to be in danger. He decided not to panic, and tried to reason why this was happening.
         
What was happening, again?
         
He looked up to see stars.
         
Black.
         
He knew he should be much more frightened than he was. The sudden urge to scream out for help came over him. Not out of fear, but to see what would happen. He knew something was so wrong that his sanity may have been in question. He couldn't feel very scared when he didn't know what it was he should be scared of. He was surprised to find himself so analytical.
         
He inched closer to the edge of the lawn and leaned over. The road should have been right there, three inches from the tip of his foot.
         
His eyes, however, told him his foot would fall, with him attached, for a very long time.
         
Would I fall? Is there gravity in space?
         
Am I in space?
         
There was nothing there, except perfect dark. He picked up a stone and threw it onto where the asphalt should be.
         
Silence.
         
He went back inside and sat for a long time. It was almost 9 o'clock when he decided to try and call his boss.          
         
“G'Morning Ted. Whatcha needin'?” his boss said. The sound of his voice had actually startled him. He didn't think anybody was going to answer.
         
“Um, I may be late into work this morning. I woke up...” he paused. He hadn't thought of what to say, and lost his train of thought. “ I woke up a bit sick today. I just need to get some medicine in me and I'll be good to go.” he said.
         
“That's fine, there, buddy. You seemed a little under the weather when you left yesterday,” his boss said.
         
“Say, Frank, what time do you have?” Ted asked. He knew the answer.
         
“Almost 9!” he chirped. Ted thanked him and hung up.
         
What the fuck was happening?
         
Ted suddenly knew he was dreaming. The world doesn't go black. The world doesn't end at the front of his yard.
         
Ted closed his eyes. He thought (much clearer than he would have thought he'd be able to in a dream) about a few articles he had read on lucid dreaming, but he had never thought it could be so vivid. Even when I wake up, he thought, I'm gonna have a hard time believing this wasn't real.
         
Ted sat on his couch for a moment, trying use his dream as a playground. He tried his damnedest to conjure things out of thin air, or change his surroundings, or fly.
         
Nothing worked. As far as he was concerned, lucid dreaming was just like real life, except he could only experience his own home. 
         
He gave this up, and just sat on his couch, watching TV.
         
The local news became the national news. The national news became a morning talk show. The morning talk show into a game show hosted by a washed up TV personality. The shows all seemed current, and Ted found it easy to watch and be entertained.
         
He had sat for so long he had forgotten that he was dreaming. He finally decided to move when his stomach began to grumble.
         
He made himself a sandwich and sat down in the same spot as before. He took a couple of bites, and then remembered.
         
His windows were still black. That's right. This was a dream. A long one, but a dream none the less. He didn't have to eat. So why did he feel so hungry?
         
The TV shows had become soap operas, then a daytime talk show, and then the evening news. Ted watched it all, waiting for the dream to fade away and his mind to be put back in the real world.
         
How long do lucid dreams last?
         
A shower sounded nice, even though he supposed he didn't exactly need one. He started the hot water and fetched a towel while the faucet heated up. Goosebumps spread over his arm as he pulled back from the ice cold stream. He went to check the water heater, but remembered he didn't know enough about water heaters to fix the problem. He tried briefly to imagine the water heater being fixed, but that solved problems just as well as it would have in the real world.
         
So, no shower. He decided a new set of clothes would feel nice, though, and put on a fresh set from his dresser.
         
He sat back on the couch. Checking his phone, he saw it was almost 7 o'clock in the evening. He grabbed the remote, clicked the button, and was greeted by blackness.
         
The TV stayed off. The cable box was also shut off, and he thumbed the button for both of them with no consequences.
         
Great, my own dream, and I can't leave my house, and my power gets cut.
         
But...the lights are still on?
         
His phone rang.
         
“Hello?” he said. His boss was on the other end of the line.
         
“Hey Ted you feeling okay? You never made it into work, so I figured that ill got the best of ya.”
         
Ted congratulated his imagination for making up such a convincing copy of Frank. He thought about it, and answered.
         
“Fuck You.” There was silence on the other end, followed by a shocked, inquisitive non-word.
         
“Yeah, fuck you,” and hung up.