He had to be still dreaming! That was the only thing which made sense!
John rose to his feet and staggered back into the hotel room and fell back into the bed, wrapping himself in the sheet and blanket. Pulling the covers over his head he tried to go back to sleep.
Instead he felt hyper-awake and hyper-aware. He felt like a lost little boy. What if his dream had caused this? What if he fell asleep like this? What sort of dream or dreams would he have?
"Aw, nuts!" he announced (he couldn't bring himself to swear, not with this voice and body!), sitting up. He had to do something, and getting dressed seemed to be the first step.
Going over to the closet, he searched through the clothes, trying to find something which fit. He finally settled on a blue polo shirt, a pair of dark blue boxer shorts, a pair of khaki cargo pants, white athletic socks, and expensive looking tennis shoes. He'd look like some sort of pre-teen prep school kid, but what could he do about it? That was the best looking outfit he could scrounge.
He got dressed. At first the outfit didn't seem to fit quite right, but after a moment it began to feel okay, natural in fact.
Feeling better, John headed down to the lobby, intending to see if the night clerk could shed any light on his sudden transformation. Only there was a new clerk behind the desk, and the clock behind the new clerk read 10:00 in the morning.
"Well good morning, sleepy head!" the new clerk, a woman with straight black hair, pale face, black dress and nails, greeted him.
"Yeah, well, I--" John began, suddenly feeling unsure of how to proceed with his questioning.
"THERE you are, John!" a woman exclaimed, entering the lobby through a wooden archway. Beyond the arch seemed to be a small dining room. "We were beginning to wonder if you would ever wake up! We are almost out of time to take you back to the boarding school before we leave for Europe!"
John stared speechless at the woman, who appeared to be about the age John had gone to bed as-- early 30s. She had a figure which seemed to have been crafted in a health club, hair crafted in a salon, and an outfit crafted by some expensive shop downtown.
A well to do looking man joined her. He was wearing a subtly expensive suit, and looked to be slightly older than the woman.
Something nagged at the back of John's brain. It was like trying to remember something from a dream he'd just woken up from-- or like trying to recall something while in a dream. He thought that he should know who these people were...
THAT was it! Now he recalled-- they were supposed to be his parents. He was nine years old, and they were taking him off to some private school while they left to spend the winter in Europe...
...or was he still asleep, dreaming that these people he'd never seen before in his life were his parents? And he was still an adult?