Ann/Kim

I feel almost weightless as I lay in here..

Why am I smelling my mother's perfume?

Everything goes dark for a moment.. Then it's all too bright..

I open my eyes slowly, as if worried I'll be blinded by the light..

I have never been in this room before in my life, in fact, I don't have a clue as to where this room is. I'm dreaming. That has to be it. This is one of those weird dream that feels extremely real. I ate a large grilled cheese sandwich before going to sleep, will never do that again.

I get out of bed and leave the room to find myself in a narrow corridor ending with an open kitchen and a living room. A woman wearing a purple cotton nightgown is standing in the kitchen making food. Eggs and something else. Two girls are sitting on the table in the corner looking at a magazine.

No one seems alarmed by my presence.

Good morning. Says the woman.

Good morning. I say back.

This is a really weird dream.

Time seems to be going by so slowly.

That makes no sense. 

I suddenly realize that I don't have my phone on me. It's the first thing I check when I wake up. I return to the room and look for it. But it's nowhere to be found. A magazine is lying on the floor by the bed. I pick it up. A kid in black and green outfit and a mask is featured on the front page.

August 1995. That's really old.

Something doesn't feel right. This dream has gone on for too long. I need to wake up. Maybe if I close my eyes really hard and count backwards. 

Nope, that didn't do it. 

Maybe if I scream? 

I scream at the top of my lungs and hear running footsteps coming towards me, I'm still trapped in the dream. The woman and the two girls from earlier open the door and ask what's wrong. They seem genuinely worried. Okay, I'm scared now. I don't understand what's going on. I don't understand anything anymore. What kind of a dream is this?

I'm fine I say. I just wanted to try out screaming.

They seem puzzled and somewhat frustrated with me.

*What's today's date? I ask. 

**September 1st, the younger girl answers. 

*What year? 

**The two girls look at each other and smirk, 1995 of course! 

The older woman had already left.

I sit on the bed and ask the girls a few questions. 

*Where are we? 

**Home. 

*Where's that? 

**Amman City. 

*How old am I? 

**18.

*How old are you? 

**13 and 14.

*You're my sisters?

**Yes silly!

*What's my name?

**Ann.

*No, no, I don't know what is going on here but my name isn't Ann, my name is Kim, with an I..

The two girls look a bit concerned. They look at each other and back at me.

**She's gone crazy.

**It was bound to happen.

They giggle and leave the room.

A week goes by. I am living with these people who are supposed to be my family. I tried to explain to them that I don't belong here and I'm trying my best not to freak out and that's how we ended up in a psychiatrist office.

Getting here felt like breaking into a maximum security prison. The lady who is supposedly my mother wanted by no means for anyone to find out we are going to the crazies doctor.

Okay.. My name is Kim. I live in Amman and the last thing I remember was going to bed on the night of August 31st, 2020. I am an only child. I live with my parents and within a couple of weeks I was scheduled to move to Germany to study medicine there.

My fake mother had an expression combining fear and sarcasm on her face. The doctor kept taking notes and asked more questions, have I been having trouble sleeping, has my appetite changes, have I taken any drugs, etc.

I was then asked to wait outside while the doctor and my fake mother talked. This doesn't look like it's going to end well.

The doctor asked me to come back into his office and said that I will be taking 300mg of something for 2 weeks and will come back for another assessment.

I couldn't help but to tear up and look at the woman and beg her not to do this. I'm not crazy, I just don't belong here.

I was forced to take a pill that made me really dizzy and disoriented. The next thing I knew was waking up at 9am the next day in the same room.

After realizing that I had no way out of this, I decided to make the best of the situation. These people seem really nice.

Their dad passed away suddenly ten years ago. They are, well, we are our mother's whole world.

It's not like I have much to miss back home.. I didn't have many friends.. I had felt so lost most of the time...

The truth is, I never wanted to study medicine, I felt I had to because both of my parents were doctors. I now get a chance to do something I love. I want to become a linguistics researcher. I have always been fascinated with language and history and literature.

It's been four years since that day. I graduated with honors and was hired by my university as a teaching assistant.

It was now 1999. Less than a year after Google was launched. I went ahead and invested in it.

A year after, I got married to my husband and we moved to Canada.

For the next twenty years, I will live in Vancouver, have 2 children, teach at Simon Fraser University, continue to collect investment revenue from Google shares and start up a small animal shelter.

And I never brought up coming from the future again.

I tried looking me up over the years, I tried searching for my real parents and childhood friends, but with no luck. It's like they have never existed.

It's now January 2020 and the world is clueless to the pandemic lurking around the corner. I have been sending alerts to the CDC since 2004 after the SARS outbreak without a response.

I repurposed one of our rooms into a quarantine room full with Oxygen bottles, which my children have laughed at.

I made sure we had a fully stocked pantry, a security system and the best health insurance out there.

I have sent money to my fake family in Amman and asked them to do the same.

As of March, my family and I secluded ourselves in our little villa and I waited to see what will happen this time over.

Nothing changed and the world seemed to be wobbling again around June. Some countries were recovering and some we relapsing. I started giving online lectures again while spending as much time as possible with my loved ones, you know, in case the world ended this time.

On the night of August 31st, 2020 I had had dinner with a friend 200 kilometers away from home and decided I would stay over instead of driving back. We stayed up talking and watching Friends. Again.

I went into her guest room, changed into her Pyjamas and slid into bed. As my eyelids were getting heavier and heavier.. I couldn't help but notice a new smell coming in with the breeze..

Is that my mother's perfume?

I feel so weightless.. The world darkens.. Then brightens up all at once.. Is this happening all over again?!!!