John drove home from his job, trying to keep his yawns at bay. Yawning made his eyes water, and that made it hard to see the road in the dark. Seeing the road was hard enough in the dim beams of light offered by his beat-up, old car's weak headlamps.

John prayed he wouldn't hit a deer on his way home. As a college student trying to earn his own way through school, he couldn't afford any major repair bills. After paying for tuition, books and lab fees, John barely had enough in each meager paycheck to pay his rent and utilities, feed himself and put gas in his ancient economy car.

That rusting out, historic artifact of a conveyance was well overdue for a change of oil as it was, but John hadn't been able to squeeze enough money from his budget to afford the oil and filter in order to do it. He wouldn't even need to pay to have it done, aside from the five-dollar lab fee that the college charged for using their garage. As a mechanics and repair major, John had access to the school's considerable equipment. He just couldn't work up enough room in his budget for the parts.

After a nearly-uneventful drive home, John pulled up alongside his college dorm and parked with relief. The day was nearly over; his car hadn't quit on him and he would be able to cover the week's expenses with his paycheck; a good day, indeed. It was 11:45 at night, almost ten minutes earlier than usual for John to arrive. John would use these extra minutes well, but he didn't waste time trying to decide how he would use them.

Inside of his apartment, John took off his work boots by the door and left them there. His boots made too much noise when he walked and his roommates were all in bed, if the number of cars parked outside were any indication. John figured they were sleeping off whatever they'd found for entertainment on a Friday night.

He padded over to the kitchenette, eased open the creaky old refrigerator door and swigged a drink of milk from the carton in place of a meal. He was hungry, but too tired to eat, too tired even for the social niceties of using a drinking glass for his milk. After several long swallows, John replaced the carton and let the refrigerator door swing shut of its own accord. It always creaked when it opened but for some reason, usually shut quietly.

He would use his extra ten minutes for a shower, he decided as he stumbled toward the bathroom he shared with his roommates. They'd left it a mess and there were no clean towels, but John was too tired to care. He was only grateful to wash the oily residue of fryer grease off from where it splattered his body and hair.

When he felt his extra time was used up, John toweled off with the only clean linen available, a wash cloth. Mentally, he promised to do his laundry 'later' as he headed to his bed and the promise of a few hours of sleep. It was ten minutes after midnight and his alarm would ring in just six hours.

His stack of books on the tray table by his bed reminded John why he'd need to get up at six when he didn't need to leave for class before 7:45. His homework still needed to be done. John knew he'd work better after some sleep. With as much as it was costing for his education, John wanted to earn as high of grades as possible, which wouldn't happen if he tried to do his homework just then. Making sure his alarm was set, John plugged in his phone and curled up in bed. He was asleep before the screen on his phone went dark.

John awoke to the sound of shouting men. The room was brightly lit by harsh, florescent lighting. Instead of his futon and tray table full of homework beside it though, John's gaze rested on an old-fashioned jail cell. The bottom of a top bunk now greeted John's upward gaze. In one corner, a sink/toilet combo promised that John would need to flush the toilet in order to wash his face or brush his teeth.

A jumpsuit-clad prisoner threw a blaze orange duplicate of his garment at John. "Hey Homie, you want breakfast, you better hurry," advised the other man.

Assuming himself to be in a dream, John sat up and got dressed. Homie? he wondered. What is this, the 1990's? Nobody's used that word in thirty years! My parents don't even use it anymore!

"Say," the man remarked jovially. "you musta' come in las' night, man. I must've been OUT! I didn' even hear you come in."

"Something like that," John agreed, wondering how he had gotten there.

"Watchoo info?"

It took a moment before John figured out that he'd been asked why he was in jail. John shrugged. "The usual," he offered lamely.

"Drugs?" guessed his inquisitor with disbelief. "Nah, that ain't it! You clean, man."

"I'm clean," nodded John, not sure what else to say.

The cell door opened, so the other man used it. John followed suit. He assumed that, because the other man had done so, he would be expected to, as well.

"I'm Reggie," offered the other guy. "This yer first time?"

John figured it would only be polite to reciprocate. "John, and yeah, I guess. You?"

"Move it, you two!" barked a guard. "You can chat over chow."

"Man! This be a day fo' new faces!" Reggie exclaimed, entirely unfazed by the guard's curt order. "You transfer in last night too, Boss?"

"First day here, not my first day ever," the guard growled. "Step it up!"

When John took a good look at the guard, he decided he was dreaming. Clearly, his mind was using a customer from late in his last shift, for the guard's face. He would have been unremarkable in the late crowd, except that John remembered the burger that the guy had ordered; heavy lettuce, heavy tomato, light onion, mayonnaise and catsup. Of medium build, average height, and fairly even features, the only thing that really stood out was his auburn hair and matching stubbly beard. Even his eyes, a blue-grey color, didn't really draw much attention.

Having been feeling slightly panicked about not having his phone, John relaxed. As long as it was just a dream, he might as well go with it. After all, if he was dreaming, then at least he was asleep, right?

"Dude, chill out," John heard another guard offer in quiet undertones. "This is a county lockup, not prison. Reggie didn't do nothing wrong."

Aside from the unusually terrible grammar, nothing seemed amiss. John settled in to enjoy the dream. Reggie grinned. "I got a couple months left on a public intox. I ain't never washing down an oxy with a beer again, that's fo' sure!"

"Yeah, about that," the second guard asked, "how's that doing, Reggie?"

"It's tolerable," Reggie replied slowly, as if thinking about it. "That new doc give me some exercises to do? Shoulder's great, Man! As soon as I get out, I'mma get right back to work; and here, I thought I'd be months laid up!"

The guard chuckled. "That's great, Reg. Just don't overdo it, huh? You don't want more surgery on that shoulder, do ya'?"

"Nah, Man; I can't afford no more of that! Garbage company's holding my job 'til I get out, but I got six months after I get back 'fore health insurance kicks in again."

Reggie turned his attention back to John. "Whatchoo do fer the dough?"

John pointed to one of the newer burns on his arm. "Fry cook," he answered. "That grease is murder until you get used to it." He chuckled, remembering an incident at work the day before. "We joke that the fries are salted with the tears of the cooks."

At Reggie's blank look, John shrugged. "You ever get salt on a burn?"

Reggie only shook his head, but the guard- the hamburger one- winced appreciatively. "That's gotta' hurt," he sympathized. "How'd you get that one?"

John saw an opportunity. "Flipping a burger into a puddle of grease on the grill," he replied, trying to catch the guard's eye. "Heavy lettuce, heavy tomato, light onion . . ."

"Must have been a good burger," commented the other guard. "I'll have to try that." He opened a gate, allowing John and Reggie into the dining area.

John's stomach growled at the smell of the food. He frowned thoughtfully. He'd never been hungry in a dream before, and he'd slept on only a glass of milk lots of times before. As long as no one screwed up and bought two-percent or skim, John slept okay.

Breakfast wasn't overly delicious, but it wasn't terrible, either. Reggie made room for John, seeming to have taken a protective stance toward him. "They got this old folks' home across the way," he explained of the food, "Same kitchen makes food for both sides."

John thought of the college and the nursing home adjacent to it. Didn't someone say one time, that the college had been a jail? Something about how the county needed a bigger one? It was an odd though, an impossible idea.

When did he ever actually eat in dreams? Not only that, but he could taste the food! Not wanting to draw the impossible conclusion and desperate to prove it was just a dream John picked at the scabbed-over burn on his arm. It hurt.

To distract himself from the inescapable conclusion, John grinned at Reggie. "Isn't it wild that the year 2000 is coming up?" he asked, hoping they would mock him because the millennium had changed two decades before.

"Wild, Man!" Reggie answered readily. "The end of a decade, a thousand . . it's crazy! You know what's even worse? I'mma be forty years old, Man! Almost elderly!"

"Why? How old are you now?" John kept his voice light, even though he was ready to run a furious, mental calculation.

"A'most thirty; in my prime, and here I sit." Reggie moped into his coffee.

1989 or 90. Oh, God! What's going on here? John sighed, then had to cover for his emotional outburst. "Ain't we all?" he commiserated, trying to sound casual.

Everyone around the table burst out laughing. John wasn't long in being introduced by gregarious Reggie. The rest of the meal passed in a light-hearted camaraderie that surprised John by the family atmosphere and jovial attitudes of the other inmates.

For the rest of the day, John felt as if he were in some kind of surreal vacation. He and Reggie worked out in the gym, chose library books to read in their cell, ate a hearty dinner and watched television afterward. The only television was an enormous set that was located on a stand in one corner of the dining area. Everyone had to vote on which of the four channels they were going to watch, for every show. John thought it was kind of fun, even though he lost the vote more than he won.

After several hours of television, it was time to return to respective cells. No one gave the guards more than a passing complaint. Everyone filed back to their cells in order to ready themselves for bed. John found one in his cell that wasn't Reggie's, and seemed brand new. He brushed his teeth with it, washed his face and readied himself to climb into his bunk to read a few pages of his chosen library book. At lights-out, John went to bed and found himself thanking God for the blessing of the day.

Reggie was truly a nice guy, a friend to all; John wanted to emulate him- at least, in that respect! In fact, none of the inmates John had met were anything he'd expected. Most of them were normal people, from everyday life, that happened to have been caught doing something dumb. Being the local, county lockup, nobody expected to be in there much over a few months.

The fact remained though, that for some reason, he'd woken up that morning over a decade before he'd even been born! "Why, God?" he asked in a whisper that was nearly drowned out by Reggie's snores.

Trust Me.

John fell asleep with those two words in the back of his mind.