Adi was not having a good day.
Just before he was scheduled to wake up to his 7 A.M. alarm (as usual) before getting ready for school, his mother had barged into his room without so much as a rap on the door and nagged incessantly at him to wake up. He tossed and turned as his mother started to lightly shake Adi to force him out of the sweet comfort of his bed. Slowly and groggily Adi started to shift out of bed and stared at the alarm next to him. Placed precariously on the nightstand next to his small wooden bed sat his alarm. It was made of cheap plastic casing, a cheap easily broken screen, and out of it extended a cheaply made wire. And like most things with wires, it was electrical and unfortunately Adi noticed as he looked down at his wall.
Also unplugged.
Slowly a sense of dread washed over Adi. He plugged the hole ridden wire back into the socket and noticed that the screen read something sure to make his day as dreadful as he feared it might be.
10:47 A.M.
The stuff of nightmares. Adi’s face scrunched like he ate concentrated lemon juice and turned to his mother. “Yeah,” she said. “Now hurry up before you end up suspended sleepyhead.”
He rushed out of his room, backpack in hand, hair like an eagles nest. He dashed from room to room.
Toothpaste, get!
Brush get!
New buff “Minty fresh” acquired!
Boom! This was gonna be easy! He was like a force of nature. Quick as a lightning bolt, precise as a laser beam. He power washed in his bathroom before sprinting to the kitchen, grabbing his cold buttered toast, and making a break for his bike.
Out in the cool bite of autumn air, Adi dashed on his bike to school. His jacket trailing in the wind as he pedaled like a madman.
As Adi raced down the streets of his hometown he had not been paying attention to his surroundings. If he had been he would have noticed a neon yellow sign with big black words saying ROAD CONSTRUCTION AHEAD as he zoomed around the corner.
He pulled up and over the curb too see a mix of yellow and orange dozers and cement rollers marching their way over the dirt road. And two big orange and white portable barriers sitting in front of him prompted an audible groan of despair.
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He would have to go around.
He kicked up and back onto the bike and started racing back and around. Searching for any sideroads to take.
He was frantically searching when a small dirt trail peeked out from behind the houses of some of the richer residents in his neighborhood.
It was shabby. And he had no idea where it went. But he was in a rush, so screw it.
Adi struggled up the dirt path with his bike. It was not a bike meant for trails or rough surfaces.
It was a bike MEANT for his cousin Mehka, who had the bright idea of asking 14 family members for a bike all on the same goddamn christmas.
He got more than one bike. Who would have guessed?
And being the pity person of the family, everyone decided.
“Why don’t we give the bike as a hand me down to poor little Adi? Poor little Adi and his poor little family in their poor little neighborhood and poverty stricken school. I pity that boy. If only his parents knew how to run a business.”
Adi shook his head like a dog and snapped out of it. The hell was he thinking about? He needed to be speeding up or he would be la-
Snap!
His bike went into a half frontal flip as he tried to regain his balance. He looked down and saw that in his jungle-like landscape he had run over a particularly thick tree root that he had failed to notice while he was daydreaming.
He fumbled for his bike and stood up. Dusting himself off he looked next to the tree branch and noticed an apple on the trail.
Wait. An apple?
Since when do apples grow here?
He looked up for where it might have fallen down from and gasped in bafflement.
In front of Adi was a blooming japanese cherry tree. Petals and all. And on the tree sat unnaturally large honeycrisp apples. Apples that mind you, wouldn’t and shouldn’t be anywhere near a cherry tree.
The sight was so odd that Adi felt captivated by the scene. The red apples were large and plump as they swayed slowly. The cherry blossoms danced as they fell over the green grass and underbrush. The seemingly infinite wisdom and age the trunk magically conveyed simply through existing awed him.
All of it spirited Adi away, into what he felt was his own little piece of Eden.
Once again, Adi shook his head like a dog and snapped out of it. It was weird but, it could just be some rich guy's personal tree. After all he is next to the rich part of the neighborhood.
Whatever, he needed to get going…
Though it might not be too much to take a snack along for the ride right?
He reached up, plucked one of the apples off of the branch, and took a bite.
Suddenly the whole world turned inside out. A race of color and texture assaulted Adi’s senses and mind.
He struggled against the feeling for a while, the pain gradually getting worse with the nausea.
He didn’t know what freaky LSD shit he just ate, but he wasn’t feeling so good. Eventually he dropped on all fours and started to retch. He went at it until he dry heaved, and his shoulders shook from the intensity.
And then nothing.
He had blacked out.
Some hikers had hiked the trail to skip construction similarly to Adi and found him lying on the trail.
They took him over to a nearby hospital where the doctors informed his parents and the school.
Seeing that the symptoms included heavy nausea and pain, the most likely cause would be an overdose. Though, when they checked his blood, the doctors couldn’t find any traces of anything unusual.
Fearing that the student needed time to recover his school gave him a month's absence.
His mother watched over him as he drifted around in dreamland.
“Or whatever the hell this place is.” Adi thought as he drifted in the black space. All that surrounded him was darkness and desolate silence.
And oddly, he noticed that there was also a large cherry tree sat right next to him. No earth, no sky. Nothing to keep it from drifting off like him. And yet the tree seemed mysteriously grounded in space. Always pointing up.