One cold, dark night, I went to bed while I wasn’t sleepy. I lay there bored, doing nothing. I started to wonder what I could do. For more than an hour, I roamed around my room and walked on my bed. Finally, a weird idea struck me. I thought about inventing a super gadget, and I believed that I was smart enough to make it. I could visualize the whole thing that I wanted to invent, and it looked perfect and amazing in my imagination. It was an awesome machine that could change your pillow into an electrical one able to memorize all of your dreams, and then when you wake up, you could plug its HDMI into your laptop and watch all your dreams. I was completely overtaken by this idea, and I was anxiously looking forward to making such a machine.

I checked the time, and it was very late, 2:00 AM. First, I crept slowly out of my room and got all the tools that I needed: pieces of metal, wires, batteries, a knife, some tools, and my gloves. I turned on my laptop and Googled “how to build a machine.” I found a whole page that gave me all the steps. Second, I got some long copper wires and started connecting them to the batteries to make the electrical part of the machine that memorizes the dreams. When I was done with this essential part, I started to make the outside of the machine: a compact box to surround the small inner part. The outside part was heavy, and it had a lot of rusty metal that made the machine look ugly, so I decided to decorate it with colorful paint, sparkling sprays, and plenty of shiny glitter and stickers. Eventually, my invention turned into an amazing and glamorous pillow.

The next morning was sunny and bright, and I woke up very happy and proud of the amazing invention that I had created. Yet, I didn’t want anyone to see it because I didn’t want my parents to know. I first called my best friend to come over to my house. When she arrived, I took her straightaway to my room, opened the door carefully and told her: “Get ready for the big surprise!” She was anxious to see it. I showed her my fantasy pillow, told her what it did, how it worked, and how I had made it. My friend was astonished and couldn’t believe her eyes. Even though the machine wasn’t very big, she liked it a lot and decided to sleep over at my house so that she could try it out.

That evening we both wanted to sleep early so that we could test my invention. The next morning we woke up with great hopes. We wanted to watch our dreams. We turned the lights off, opened the windows, and closed the curtains. We plugged in the pillow and got ourselves ready as if we were about to watch a scary and creepy movie. Strangely enough, both of us had had the same dream because we had slept on the same pillow, and my pillow managed to replay the whole dream in detail.

When my friend left my house that day, she was sad because she didn’t want to leave “the incredible machine”. One week later, I called her again to come over so we could have more fun with my pillow. That evening, my friend and I had a great time in my room. All of a sudden, however, my friend told me that there was a bad smell coming out of the machine. I told her not to worry at all. She said okay, but she was still not feeling fine. Finally, it was time to sleep.

At night, I woke up suddenly shrieking out loud. My friend calmed me down so that my parents wouldn’t hear. I had had an electric shock from the machine, and I felt so dizzy that I forgot everything. I didn’t know where I was or who I was. My friend didn’t know what to do. She was totally puzzled. Then she had an idea. She tried to remember what I had told her about making the machine. She brought some tools and tried to fix it while I sat next to her asking questions about myself. She couldn’t concentrate because she was so confused. She tried her best to fix it.

When she had finally fixed the machine, she didn’t know which different button to push. There was a “back” button on one of the corners. She was scared, but she decided to click it. Then a very bright and blinding light came out of nowhere. We both felt extremely dizzy and passed out.

The next morning, I woke up and I knew that the machine had taken us both back three days in time. I quickly called my friend and thanked her. She was really a genius at the right time. She had managed to save my life.

My friend apologized because she believed that she had damaged the machine. I wasn’t sad because I had learned a lesson, which was that I should not make anything dangerous or electrical without telling my parents because this could cause disasters and even death.

Thank God, my machine didn’t harm anyone and didn’t cause any serious problems.

Sandra Khaled El-Danaf,

Jeddah