floating instruments again

"I am sorry for clicking on those instruments, I didn't know they would 'float' like that."

It took us hours to "unfloat" them. By the time we were finished the sun had set and the owls were hunting mice outside.  We sipped our drinks and washed our hands, the long process was over and we could look at each other again. "Diligence and being awake are the best way to steer clear". "I will try to stay awake". Morning began to worry us, a tension, first on the clocks then in the distant glow of the sky.

Absent mindedly one of us clicked on one of the instruments and they began to "float" again. We felt reduced somehow and instead of "unfloating" them we cowered under their shapes. They cast shadows across the floor and onto our skin. I hated the feeling of one of their shadows on my skin. It rippled over me and made my eyes roll... made me feel weak and it began devolving me. I forgot how to do math. My hands were scraping against my shadowed skin as I crawled away, seeking cover from them. The shadows slowly moved through the room, it was only a matter of time before I felt them on my skin again.

"I will unfloat them..." I mumbled, "just as soon as I take some Tylenol". I had such a splitting headache. My skull's veins throbbed with each heartbeat. I crawled for the medicine cabinet in the washroom. My stretched out arm was trembling. Cold and sweaty. There was no medicine in the cabinet. Such despair! Empty for how long? All I could see now in my brain were the floating instruments in all their awfulness. And their shadows were on me again. I dry heaved and said that I would unfloat them. I pulled myself up and looked into the bathroom mirror. The shadows pulled away from their reflections like cockroaches to dark pockets in a lit room.

After I had broke the mirror and covered us in its shards we began to "unfloat" them. It took longer this time. We waited for hours to make sure that we were succesful.

The sun was gone again and we safely emerged from our mirror shards.