He was eating a spam and mustard sandwich when it happened.
He was sitting on the wall that circled the village fountain. The day was pleasant enough. He was just watching people going about their daily business when something totally unexpected happened. It was snowing. He couldn’t believe it. It was actually snowing!
As the cold began to bite, he wrapped his arms around himself as he took in the surroundings, along with his new situation. He was no longer sitting on a wall, but on a park bench, looking out across an open play park, with empty, snow-laden play equipment. Naturally, there was nobody around. He was taking all this in when, with a single blink of an eye, it all changed again.
He was now sitting in a comfortable window seat looking down through the clouds at the land below. His ears began to pop as he listened to the drone of the aircraft. He barely had time to look around at the other passengers when it happened again.
He was perched on a fence looking at cows grazing contentedly in a field. In the far distance he made out a tractor, buzzing its way across the field. Looking down he saw a ditch that ran along the boundary. Then, in a moment it became something else.
It was hard to see. It was night time and the wind made him shiver. Peering down, he saw that it was a road, a city road with traffic moving along slowly. He became aware of the fact that he was sitting on the top rail of a balcony, several floors up, dangling his feet. With another blink it all changed again.
It was a deckchair, he was sure it was a comfortably padded deckchair, on the sun deck of what seemed to be a very large cruise ship. The weather was beautiful and he could smell the sun cream on his chest. He could hear children running around and laughing. Now, with the luxury of his new surroundings he found himself becoming completely relaxed for the first time. It was while he was in this peaceful state of mind that it came to him. He realised that it was the blinking that caused the changing. Knowing this, he sat perfectly still, determined to keep his eyes wide open, but after a while the inevitable happened, and he blinked.
Now, instead of sitting anywhere, he was lying. Lying in a bed in what had to be a ward, and in a hospital, no doubt. This turn of events bothered him. He certainly didn’t like the thought that he had ended up in a hospital. It gave him the uncomfortable feeling that something might be wrong with him… so he blinked. Then, he blinked again. Nothing happened.
He was repeatedly blinking like this when he became aware of the others. There were several white coats milling around in the room.
Then, he was listening to a doctor saying, “Well, I must say you have us all very curious. What’s your story?”
“I don’t know. I was eating a spam and mustard sandwich when it happened.”
