You fell asleep just for an instant sometimes; that sudden nod and jerk awake again, lasting a moment. Or you had short naps, often self-timed, limited by knowing you had a few minutes or a half-hour or whatever.
Of course you had your classic Good Night’s Sleep, however much things like shift systems and all-night facilities and drugs and city lighting might sometimes interfere.
Then there was the deeper unconsciousness of being knocked out, put carefully under for some medical procedure, or randomly banging your head and briefly not even knowing your own name. Also, people still lapsed into comas, and came out of those very gradually; that must be an odd feeling. And for a while there, for the last few centuries, though not so often these days because things had moved on, there was the sub-sleep of deep space travel, when you were put into a sort of deep, long-term hibernation for years or decades at a time, kept frigidly cold and barely alive, to be revived when your destination approached. Some people had been kept like this back at home, too, awaiting medical advances. Waking up from something like that must be quite a strange thing, she thought.
She felt an urge to turn over, as though she was nestled in a fabulously comfortable bed but now had spent enough time on this side and needed to shift to lie the other way. She felt very light, she realised, though even as she thought this she seemed to feel very slightly, reassuringly heavier.
She felt herself take a deep, satisfying breath, and duly turned over, eyes still tightly closed. She had a vague feeling that she didn’t entirely know where she was, but it didn’t bother her. Usually that was a slightly disturbing sensation, occasionally even a very disturbing, frightening experience, but not this time. Somehow she knew that wherever she was she was safe, cared for, and in no danger.
She felt good. Really good, in fact.
When she thought about it, she realised that she couldn’t remember ever having felt so good, so secure, so happy. She felt a tiny frown form on her face. Oh, come on, she told herself. She must have felt like this before. To her slight but undeniable irritation, she had only a vague memory of when she had last felt anything like this untroubled and happy. Probably in her mother’s arms, as a little girl.
She knew that if she woke up fully she would remember properly, but – much as a part of her wanted to be completely awake, to answer this question and sort all this out – another part of her was too happy just lying here, wherever she was, drowsy, secure and happy.
She knew this feeling. This was often the best bit of any day, before she had to wake and fully face the realities of the world and the responsibilities she had fallen heir to. If you were lucky, you really did sleep like a baby; completely, soundly and without care. Then it would be only as you awoke that you were reminded of all the things you had to worry about, all the resentments you harboured, all the injustices and cruelties you were subject to. Still, even the thought of that grim process somehow couldn’t destroy her mood of ease and happiness.
She sighed; a long, deep, satisfying sigh, though still with an element of regret as she felt her sleepiness drift away like mist under a gentle breeze.
The sheets covering her felt outrageously fine, almost liquidly soft. They moved about her naked body as she completed the sigh and stirred a little under the warm material. She was not sure that even Himself possessed such fine—
She felt herself spasm and jerk. A terrifying image, the face of someone hateful, started to form before her, then – as though some other part of her mind came to soothe her fears – the fear subsided and the anxiety seemed to be brushed away, like dust.
Whatever she had once feared, she didn’t need to fear it now. Well, that was nice, she supposed.
She supposed, too, that she really ought to wake up.
She opened her eyes. She had the vague impression of a wide bed, pale sheets and a large, high-ceilinged room with tall open windows from which gauzy, softly billowing white curtains waved out. A warm, flower-scented breeze stirred around her. Sunlight leant in golden shafts against the window apertures.
She noticed that there was some sort of fuzzy glow at the foot of the bed. It swam into focus and spelled out the word SIMULATION.
Simulation? she thought, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. The room swam properly into focus when she re-opened them. The place looked perfectly, entirely real, but she was no longer really paying attention to the room. Her jaw had dropped and her mouth hung open as she took in what she had glimpsed as she’d casually raised her arms and hands to her eyes a moment earlier.
She dropped her head very slowly and brought her hands up in front of her face again, staring at the backs, then at the palms of her hands, then at her forearms, then down at what she could see of her chest and breasts. She leapt back, upwards to the headboard of the bed, throwing the sheet off her as she did so, and stared down at her naked body.