Today is Different

So let's say that today is different.  You wake and find yourself lying on the top of an autumn hill.  The grey grass is long and still. The air is thin, but not cold.  You stand.

Before you a silent land drifts by.  You realize you are watching time pass.  A thousand times faster and yet somehow in slow motion.  You shudder.  You watch as a man with a bow glides across the plains.  He beckons to his fellows.  They begin work on a building.  More building flower up around it and people flock to the new city.  The world around it cracks and begins to fall apart.  More people run to the city of safety.  But the man, now very old, uses his dying breaths to construct a massive wall around and over the city.  The people left outside perish.  The people inside forget.  Insanity sets in.  The dead world watches as the city destroys itself from the inside out.

You turn away.  It is too much to watch.  Your forehead feels very hot.  You put up your hand and when you touch it, it is scorched.  A voice whispers to you. "Save the city." But you are very tired.  As it dashes towards it's own peril, you realize it is in miniature.  The people are only about as big as your thumbnail.

As you lean over the city you see that their rage and terror is caused by the wall. They cannot breath.  It wouldn't be hard to knock it down.  It's about as big as a popcorn bowl to you, but you really are pretty tired, and your begin to think this is a dream.  Perhaps if you go back to sleep, you'll wake up in you bed.  But the choice seems more serious than that that. 

You decide you must save the people, but now your arms hang at your sides, and your feet begin to give way.  With a desperate jerk you manage to knock the wall down as you fall.  Black.

When you open your eyes, three large heads look down at you.  "It's a miracle." one says.  "I've never seen the like..." The rest of the room comes into focus and you see it's a hospital room.