I’m at school, but everything moves quickly and I can’t keep up. It gets dark and the night guard finds me and takes me to the police station. I don’t speak so they think that something is wrong with me. They send me to my grandmas place far away so I can get better. My grandma shows me the garden, then she feeds me some peas. I ask if they are magic and will grow inside me.
She replies ‘well this is a dream so make it whatever you want’. Confused I go to the bathroom. On the edge of the bathtub is a porcelain duck with a gold beak and feet. All of a sudden it comes to life and jumps into the water. It starts drowning, I rush forward but it goes under and the water turns black.
I reach in but only find marbles at the bottom of the tub. I pull some up. There are heaps of white marbles and a few golden ones.
I put them into my pocket, once there they make me float. I struggle to hold onto something. There is nothing I can reach so I float out of the window and into the sky. I land on an alien planet, the aliens take me to a jail full of humans. I become friends with an old guy in the cell next to me. He tells me made up stories, although sometimes they remind me of my own memories on earth, it’s hard to remember exactly how it was.
After a while I realize that I no longer know the difference between my own memories and his made up stories. I contemplate this and look down at my hands. I have turned into the old man, only now I sit in an empty jail.
Part 2 - Chemistry Lecture
I’m at uni and after my first lecture I go up to the lecturer and ask him some questions about the lecture. We get talking and he teaches me the whole chemistry syllabus in 10 minutes. He’s very impressed, but I have to go to my next lecture so I apologize and rush out.
At lunch I go to the food hall, I could go sit with the people I met in the lecture but instead I go and sit with an Afghani girl who sits alone. Everyone makes fun of her headscarf behind her back but we can still hear them.
We start talking, I look down at her stuff and see that on her book is the same name as mine. I realize that she is the same girl who I made friends with at after school care when I was a kid. She remembers me too. We become great friends, after lunch she comes up to my dorm room. She frowns when I close the door, so I tell her it’s only because Tom across the hall plays the trumpet and always practices at 2.
The next day I get put into advanced Chemistry. After the lecture it’s my turn to take out the bin, as I’m emptying it into the big garbage can a mini octopus falls out. I pick it up and it smiles at me shyly. I bring it to the pool that is hidden under my bed.
The octopus grows and one day the police and army come. I yell at them that the octopus is friendly but they just tell me it’s the kraken. At the mention of the kraken some of the men look scared. They barge in but when they find the pool, it’s empty.
So they take me to a secret police station. They interrogate me, but then decide I’m innocent. Once I’m released my childhood friend calls me and says I can come and stay at her house in the country. I agree and drive there in my cool convertible.
Once I get there she’s in the garden picking apples, I help her and later we make apple friands.
She goes to change and I wander around outside. I find a big Greek style bath/pool. Inside it is the kraken. Turns out my friend knew I had it all along and so saved it when she heard the police were coming. I’m really happy. The 3 of us live on the farm and we teach the kraken to talk. He in turn teaches us how to hold out breath underwater.