The Breakfast Table

I woke up groggy and confused, yawning and shuffling through the rooms of a stranger’s house. I came to the kitchen, and there on the table I saw that someone had been working on a diorama. There was a shoebox lying on its side surrounded by brushes and acrylics and glues and scraps of newspaper folded into different objects, the newsprint still showing through in the spots that hadn't been painted all the way. I picked up the box to have a look inside, and I saw the scene of a back yard. The sun was beginning to rise from behind a hedge in the background and there was a folding lawn chair sitting in the open in the middle of a long expanse of trimmed green grass. The chair's long shadow stretched out in front of it, and the grass had a bit of a shine to it, like dew. As I stared at the little scene in the box, admiring all the intricate attention to detail, the sun rose up over the hedge in bright needle-pricks of light, and I squinted my eyes and looked away.