His father’s colleagues usually took their families with them on long business trips, so Trevor found plenty of friends. On this day, however, he received all the attention. He was given sweets and gifts wrapped in colorful boxes. His father gave him the best present – a model kit of a huge white aircraft. The color image on the lid astounded Trevor, and he couldn’t wait to open the box and start putting it together.
After the party, his parents had decided on the gondola ride along the canals of Bangkok. Trevor held the model kit tightly against his chest, leaning against his father and quietly falling asleep. Trevor heard the casual banter of his parents, splashing of the water and rocking of the boat, the salty smell of algae and fried rice filled his nostrils, and then suddenly everything disappeared, and he found himself on the roof of a barn, like in a fairytale. Everything went still, but the picture was too realistic and clear. The roof of the barn was made of rusty tin. Trevor was squatting barefoot and staring at the clouds.
Shocked by the abrupt transition, Trevor stood up and looked around. Next to him was a boy he didn’t know chatting in a strange language. Trevor looked at the boy with undisguised fear and astonishment, trying to figure out who he was and what was happening to him.
Not far from the barn stood an old log house with a red tile roof. The cracks in its walls were visible. Chickens were scampering around a yard and a big shaggy dog was sleeping, chained to a wooden fence.
The barn looked over a series of vegetable gardens, small houses with red roofs and farther – the mountain slopes densely covered by green forests. The day was very hot and smelled like burning bitumen, like at his father’s construction sites.
In contrast with bustling Bangkok, everything seemed to have stopped here. There wasn’t even a perceptible gust of wind; the total silence accentuated the tranquility of the place.
“Where is the boat, mom? Where has everything gone?” Trevor asked, terrified, not able to grasp what had happened and how he ended up here.
Trevor looked down at his clothes. He was dressed in blue woolen joggers that bagged oddly at the knees and a white t-shirt with the letter 'R' embroidered in black near the hem. Both the t-shirt and the joggers were too big for him, as if they belonged to somebody else.
Everything around him looked vividly realistic. That terrified Trevor. He tried to pinch himself, but nothing happened. Trevor squeezed his eyes shut, held his breath and clenched his hands. Then he cautiously opened one eye, then the other, but it all remained unchanged – the barn, the red roofs and the stranger.
Trevor decided he needed to leave this place quickly and took a step. The red-hot tin of the roof scorched his heels. He shuddered from the sharp pain… and opened his eyes.
“Get the lamp, now!” Trevor heard his father yelling. He grabbed the lamp and quickly passed it forward.
A shot of pain jolted Trevor awake. His heel had touched the glass of the kerosene lamp while he was sleeping, which then fell and nearly broke.
“Are you burned?” his mother asked, inspecting the heel. “Thank God, he seems fine. You scared us. Wake up, honey, we're about to get off.”
The odd dream and strange transition haunted him, but something was about to happen that made him forget about everything.
