“Daddy! Daddy! Wake up!”

 

I did not want to wake up, but my kids would not let me sleep. I opened my eyes and on my stomach sat my four year old son. His yellow hair and yellow eyes, broad nose and thin lips, all resembled mine. As I kept on looking at my son’s face, my seven year old daughter poked her finger at my cheek. She was the prettiest girl ever, even more than Jessica. She resembled Jessica in all aspects, may it be her scarlet hair or scarlet eyes, her long and slender nose or her thick glossy lips.I lifted my son, placed him beside my daughter and hugged them both.

 

“Daddy, come quick. Mommy is calling you for breakfast. We need to go for a picnic today!”

 

“I am coming. Go get seated, both of you.”

 

I went to the bathroom, stood in front of the sink, looking at myself in the mirror. What a handsome man! I washed my face and went straight towards the dining table. Everyone else was already seated. We started eating our breakfast.

 

“How is the food?” Asked Jessica.

 

“Really tasty, Mommy!” Replied the kids.

 

“It is as good as it was before our marriage!” I said.

 

I had always urged Jessica that we should have hired a five-star cook, but she denied the proposal saying that there was no one better than her at cooking. She certainly lives up to that expectation.

 

“Have you done all the preparations for the picnic, Jessica?”

 

“Yes Dear, everything is done. We all are ready, you are the only one left.”

 

“I will make haste.”

 

I ate my breakfast, rushed to the bathroom and took a quick steam bath. I hurriedly came out of the bathroom, wearing my dazzling shirt and pants. I rushed to the main room to find my wife and my children seated at the sofa.

 

As we all gathered our items, we approached the door. I took my keys, we left our home, and headed towards the basement of our apartment building. It took a while for the lift to descend from the forty second floor to the basement. We headed towards our cars, and today I decided to drive my lamborghini. We all sat inside and drove outside our apartment building onto the main road. During the drive, my son was busy playing with his toy plane while my daughter was reading a book. The side views were always the same, that is, tall buildings everywhere. We traveled for a few hours, and finally reached the destination of our picnic: the Misty Garden.

 

“Daddy, why isn't anyone else here? Isn't this place supposed to be super crowded?” My daughter asked me.

 

“Firstly, super crowded is not correct. You should say, very crowded. And as to why this place is not crowded, it is because I had it booked for ourselves for the day.”

 

My daughter nodded, and we headed inside. As soon as we entered, one of the staff members came out and greeted us.

 

“Welcome, Mr. Roberto.This place is booked by Roberto Robotics Technologies today, and I hope we can provide you with the best service available.”

 

“All we want is an authentic experience of a picnic.” Which is really difficult to get in these times, as all the parks and fields have been cleared out and huge buildings have been built everywhere.

 

“Sure, sir. Let me take you to your seating area.”

 

The staff member took us out to the artificial grass field. He led us to a good spot under a tree, where a blanket had already been laid out. We sat on the blanket and made ourselves comfortable. We opened the lunch box that Jessica had packed, and started eating the delicious food. I had achieved everything in life. I have a loving and beautiful wife, two beautiful children, one of the biggest companies in the world, fine health, money, and everything else. There was nothing that I lacked, it wasn’t anything short of heaven. My happiness was indeed beyond measure.

 

I was looking at Jessica and the kids when the lights around us started flickering. No one else seemed to notice this or care about it, but my head quickly started to hurt because of it. It was an intense pain. My vision became hazy and everything started to fade away. The sky turned cloudy and dark, the ground fell underneath my feet, my wife and my children began drifting away from me. The light was disappearing and my head was spinning. I started running towards the light, but it just got distant. My arm reached out to hold them. Everything was fading right in front of me.

 

“Jessica!” I screamed

 

Everything around me was in a haze. I felt like I was in a different world. Soon my vision cleared up, and I could see an arm stretched out towards a fluorescent light above me. I opened and closed my hand a few times to be sure, but this thin arm was really mine. I tilted my head and could see a small room. I was laying on a bed and there was saline raised on my other arm. My body felt weak. I looked down to my body and was shocked to see a long white beard. I quickly held my other arm up to my hair and pulled on it. They were long, thin and white. I could not believe my eyes. What had happened? Did I faint? How many years has it been since the picnic? Where are Jessica and my children? I wanted to run out of the room, but my body would not listen. I was frustrated. Suddenly the door opened and a doctor, wearing a white coat, walked in.

 

“Doctor! Where am I? Are you a doctor? Is this a hospital? Where is Jessica? Where are my children? Answer me Doctor!” I shouted at him at the top of my lungs.

 

“Calm down, Roberto. It’s been a long while since you were in a coma. I will explain everything to you. Just calm down…”

 

“How can I calm down? Coma? Why and how long? Where is my family? Answer me doctor, where is my family? Call my family!”

 

“What family? You were found in the middle of the road and were carried here by some people. You did not own a mobile, and no missing complaints were placed in the whole city. I don’t know what you are talking about, but when you were found, you were around the age of twenty and it’s been forty-seven years since you have been in a coma. In those forty-seven years of convalescence, no one ever came to visit or check up on you.”

 

“Forty-seven years?!” This is not real. This is all just a bad dream.

 

I pinched myself. I needed to wake up from this nightmare. The picnic never really happened. I should wake up and get ready to take my family for the picnic. I needed to wake up. I needed to wake up!

 

The doctor pulled my arm, and asked me to calm down. He called a nurse and a nurse came inside to help the doctor hold my arms and legs. My mind was blank. I needed to see my family. They needed me. The very next moment, I could feel something stinging my arm. I looked down at my arm and saw the doctor injecting me with something. Soon I felt dizzy and everything turned black.

 

I regained consciousness, but I did not open my eyes. I was scared. I wanted to go back to my room. I wanted everything that happened in the hospital room to be a nightmare and be back with my family. I slowly opened my eyes to my horror. I was back in the same hospital room. I tried to pinch myself again, but this time my hand wouldn’t rise. I looked at my arms and saw that they were tied to the bed. My legs were in the same condition. The doctor was sitting beside me.

 

“I had to tie your limbs, so that you don’t try something stupid. Now, let me explain everything to you.”

 

The doctor explained how I had been found on a road and brought to this hospital. Everyone assumed my name to be Roberto by the tattoo on my right shoulder. I had been in a coma for the past forty seven years. There was no company named Roberto Robotics Technology and I was someone with no family. I did not have a house and on inspection by the police, it was found that I used to live in a hut made out of straws and mud and have been looking for a job. He also told me that everything that I thought was real and experienced was all just a dream.

 

I could not handle it. My whole life had been a dream. I believed I had everything, but in reality I had nothing. I could not handle this. I wanted to go back. I wanted to go back to my dreams again. I wanted everything back. This was not fair. How could this ever happen to me? Why did this happen to me? Maybe this is all still a dream, and all I need to do is wakeup. That must be the case. This doctor must also be a part of my dreams.

I was lost in thought for a whole week. I did not eat my food for a whole three days, waiting for this nightmare to end. The next four days, all I did was wait for good news, that maybe I was rich, maybe I had a loving family. The doctor thought that I was losing my mind, but now I knew that this was reality. It took a lot of courage to believe the doctor’s words. I asked the doctor if I could leave, and he reluctantly allowed me the permission to leave. He was my third doctor while I was in a coma and had only recently been assigned to me. I walked out of the hospital, with my weak body, without paying anything. The hospital knew I couldn’t pay them and they let me go. I looked up at the blue sky. I knew I could never survive in this world.

 

I wanted to go back to the coma. I wanted to spend more time with my family, I wanted to spend more money on luxurious items and I wanted to be happy. Then, I looked at the road in front of me. Cars were zooming past me at incredible speeds. I knew what I had to do. I could either go back to my family or I could just be gone forever, but I had to do it. Either of the two would do. I walked straight into the road from the footpath and when people realised what I was up to, it was too late. A car approached me at great speeds and I looked up at the sky hoping to meet my family again.

 

The driver could not do anything at such high speeds and drove into Roberto. People arrived at the scene and the doctors from the hospital were called. They came outside to see the body. They took him inside the hospital, as his condition looked critical. He opened his eyes during the operation. Instead of seeing the doctors, he could see his family present there. He wanted to lift himself up and hug his family, but he could not even speak. He believed that he had come out of the nightmare and smiled.

 

Twenty minutes after his accident, his heart stopped and Roberto was pronounced dead. His body was sent to the morgue, and the doctors went to treat other patients. Outside, the people that gathered around the scene were long gone, with the exception of a single driver waiting on the phone to talk with their insurance company. No one was there to mourn Roberto after his death, but the old man had a smile on his bloodied face anyway. He smiled, because he was able to escape the nightmare and see his family one last time.