Sick

When I was about eight, I had a very surreal experience while rather ill.

I had contracted some sort of virus, as I often did (and still do, albeit less frequently) and was miserable for much of a day and evening. At long last, around dusk, I finally fell asleep. When I woke, I noted that a) my fever had broken, and b) the dawn was just breaking. How odd, I thought, to have slept only until dawn.

I went out into the kitchen, feeling hungry for the first time since I fell ill, and was surprised to find my entire family dressed and at the table. "Family breakfast?" I asked. My family stared at me, apparently not having heard me get up. They took in the nightgown and the question, and finally my mother said, "No, it's dinnertime."

I had slept a full 24 hours and not even noticed.