The food was bland but bearable. That was Norman’s review of it, at least. Pail fell asleep at the table, his face narrowly missing the bowl of soup in front of him. Carrying the boy upstairs was quite the ordeal. He wasn’t heavy, far from it, but the wings made him very awkward to hold. After a lot of struggling, Norman threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Pail’s feathers tickled his nose this way, and he had to spend all his willpower not to sneeze and wake the kid up.

  He finally put the boy down on the bed before stretching his back. Norman hadn’t carried anything other than his suitcase in a good while. He’d spent 1 Lapis to buy some extra dried meat from the inn, and he threw it at Pretty’s feet. He had no idea what spirit foxes ate, but it was probably meat, judging by the way Pretty happily dug into the jerky.

  Norman flopped down on his own bed, knocking the air out of his lungs as he forgot that the bad was basically nothing more than a plank of wood. Being the orderly man he was, he had an extensive bedtime routine back on earth, one he couldn’t care less about right now. Norman let sleep overtake him as he fell into a deep slumber.

  As soon as his eyes shut, Norman found himself in another place entirely. A flat, snowy plain surrounded him for as far as he could see. The sky was pitch black, only contrasted by the falling snow. Norman worried that he was transported into yet another, much less livable, world somehow, but when he looked down to find his body gone, he realized he was dreaming. Norman hadn’t dreamt in years, not with all the melatonin he took.

  Norman began walking forward. No matter how far he walked, everything looked the same: a black sky above and white ground below. It was snowing, but he didn’t feel cold at all, probably because this was a dream. As he kept walking, he spotted something in the distance and started power-walking towards it. He could win awards for his immaculate power-walking, honed from years rushing to meetings and catching trains.

  After a good round of power-walking, he came face to face with whatever the figure was. It was a man sitting at an old box computer, the kind they had back in the 80s. The man had light gray skin, dark gray hair, and round glasses so thick that they obscured his eyes. He looked human for the most part—if one ignored the sharp teeth and third eye on his forehead.

  His desk was littered with canned coffee and paperwork, a familiar sight for Norman. The man looked dumbfounded as he leaned sideways to look at Norman. He looked him up and down before quickly typing something on the computer. A loud clacking sound filled the silence for a while until the man took a quick glance at the framed photo on his desk, then back at Norman again.

  “They never told me about this. I would’ve cleaned up if I knew you were coming.” The man said awkwardly. He seemed like the shy type, much like Norman himself.

  “Forgive me for my unannounced visit. I didn’t know I would be coming either.” Norman nodded politely. It was better to be polite, even in dreams. It set a precedent, or so he told himself.

  “Well, you’re here now. Make yourself comfortable, or don’t, I don’t mind.” The man responded, gesturing to something behind Norman.

  When he turned around to see what he was gesturing at, he saw a nice leather couch and coffee table where there once was nothing. Norman took a seat as instructed, keeping his hands folded neatly on his lap and his back straight. That was the way he had been taught to sit when at someone else's house. That was the polite way to sit.

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  The two of them spent a long time in silence, with only the sound of the man’s keyboard filling the air. It was awkward, very awkward, yet strangely comfortable. It felt like staying at a distant family member’s house, or maybe a new lover’s. Norman didn’t have a romantic bone in his body (it was removed alongside his funny bone), but he could still imagine what it would be like. Comfortable, strange, and awkward was his guess. Just like this was. Actually, it probably involved a lot more kissing.

  “Would you like to kiss me?” The man piped up as if reading his thoughts. He probably could, since this was a dream.

  “No thank you,” Norman responded almost instantly. Having his first kiss in a dream felt a bit too pathetic, even for him.

  Most men would’ve been more upset that they were offered a kiss by another man instead of being upset about looking pathetic for kissing a dream. Norman wasn’t like most men. He didn’t see much difference between men and women. He found both genders just as unremarkable as each other. All his life, he’d been told that he should like women; he should find their bodies sexy and their faces attractive, but he didn’t. Not for a lack of trying, of course. Long ago, spent some of his allowance on an adult magazine he saw a boy at school read behind the gym, but all he got out of that experience was the knowledge that some people are much hairier than others.

  He was glad that his supposed soulmate was a genderless block of text. It was easier that way. Having to engage in all the things a human relationship requires seemed both exhausting and uncomfortable. It was supposedly one of the three basic human needs and one of the greatest feelings in the world, but he didn’t buy it. The greatest feeling in the world to Norman was seeing the final sheet of a yearly budget report being printed.

  “You are perfect the way you are, Norman.” The man at the computer chimed in, breaking Norman out of his train of thought.

  “Thank you. I must have a lot of subconscious insecurities if they come out in a dream like this,” Norman mused as he looked around the snowy plain. He thought he felt content with himself, and he was, for the most part. It made him wonder why he would have a dream like this.

  Sure, he sometimes wondered what it would be like to be a regular person, but they were nothing more than fleeting thoughts. Most of the things regular people did on a regular basis seemed inefficient and annoying to Norman. From asking about how everyone’s day is going every day, to going to weddings or New Year parties. No, normal people were loud, inefficient, and uninteresting. Norman was perfectly fine with not being like them.

  “I wonder if I was really transported into another world or if I’ll wake up in my apartment tomorrow,” Norman asked himself. Everything he had experienced so far was so improbable that it might as well be impossible. He didn’t even know why he believed it in the first place.

  “Sorry, you’re still in Hardwood Village in Silvae,” The man at the computer responded with a slight chuckle. He looked entertained by Norman’s wandering mind. Norman wasn’t very good at facial expressions, but he was pretty sure the one that the computer man wore was one of amusement.

  “Is that so,” Norman sighed, “What am I meant to do here, then? I keep waiting for a grand mission to appear and make my life inconvenient. I wish it would come soon so I can firmly decline it as soon as possible.”

  The man laughed endearingly at that, and his eyes were filled with fondness. “There’s not going to be any mission, Norman. If you want one, then I’ll give you one.” He did some magic-like waving with his hands (that did absolutely nothing) as he spoke. “Norman Persson, your grand quest in Silvae is to live however you want. Emphasis on the living part.”

  Was there really no great purpose he had to fulfill, or was this just his subconscious telling him stuff he wanted to hear? Either way, it was comforting. He wouldn’t mind dreaming more if all dreams were this insightful. The last dream he remembered having was a stressful fever dream about waiting in a long line to get into a bunker while the world filled with lava.

  “You should probably wake up right about now. You’re about to die of suffocation, you know.” Those were the man's parting words as Norman woke up.