You wake up lying on your back on a hard surface. White void fills your vision. You blink to clear the fog. No, not empty. Just a featureless ceiling with light that has no source. You sit up. From your spot on the floor, you can see two features to the large room. A wide white table with a single chair in the center, and on the far side from you a wall with row after row of colored circles.

Deciding between panic and curiosity you move closer and see the table is bare. The circles gain definition as you approach and soon you realize you are in front of bin after bin of building block pieces of every imaginable shape and color.

You look for a door. There isn't one. You yell for help. There is no response. Freaking out is winning. You breathe comes quicker and you feel along the wall that you can barely even see because it's just… “WHITE!” you say. The sound of your voice brings an anchor of normalcy. You sit down in the chair. It's padded and comfortable. The table is a smooth, almost satin texture beneath your hands as you breath in and out. In. and Out.

From the corner of the table a shadow moves across the surface. It swirls and forms a word

Build

You reach to touch the letters but the shadows wriggle around and avoid you, skittering across the table to form the word again.

Build

Dreaming. You must be dreaming. Or finally going mad.

“Fine,” you say and the words vanish into a flat smoke to the edge of the table. You stand up and move to the bins. You grab a handful of long brown pieces. Several fall to the ground with little plinks.

You sit down. You are angry and frustrated by this unknown. You build a wall.  Letters form.

Build

Please

Possibly as a guard against losing it, you return to the wall. You gather some greens and blues, and add a field of grass and water under your wall.

Build

A cycle forms over the next hours. You build and the table asks you to build more. Your wall becomes a house and then a village. A hill rises into a mountain with a waterfall streaming down into a lake where cows drink.

You faintly register that you aren't getting thirsty or hungry as the hours go by. Block by block your mind weaves a tiny world into reality. With a shock you are finished. The table is covered from edge to edge with your creation. You lean back in the cozy chair and your eyes close.

You jerk up. Typing, talking, ringing, and a car horn from the street outside assault your brain after the quiet of the last… day? You feel rested. Great, actually. In quick succession your brain registers the picture of your wife and kids, the inbox tray where you keep your handwritten project notes, a pop up on your computer screen with Jon asking for help, and the sun coming in from the window. From the corner of your oak desktop a shadow forms the word...

Build

...and vanishes into smoke.