Excerpt of The Play's The Thing by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

Sunlight beat against the middle of the window, the room filled with hot, stuffy air, as thick and appealing as fiberglass insulation. Will had thrown an arm around me and was snoring into my side. But my stomach had calmed down, the beat in my head only background noise.

I pushed him away and sat up to survey my surroundings. The room was bigger than I’d thought the night before, maybe three hundred square feet, with an alcove by the large window, the perfect spot for the desk. Diamonds of wavery sun flicked through the glass, illuminating his writing area, though it was clear his work hadn’t been going smoothly, scraps of much written on and tattered paper strewn on the floor. There was a dresser with a basin and a table as disorganized as the desk. Plates, mugs, knobs of animal bones, crusts of bread, empty bottles, one of which was ours from the night before. One long red hair ribbon. A nosegay, all the flowers wilted. A blouse that looked decidedly feminine. A small pipe tipped on its side (what had he been smoking?). The floor was littered with clothing (Breeches? Doublets?) books and straw. I scanned the corners for the creature that had been scrabbling about last night, but it was not in sight. Nocturnal. A rat. Rats.

Will snored, sunk deep into his hangover, his mouth open, his brown hair a whorl on top of his head. I wasn’t dreaming. Not one dream in thirty-two years had ever reached this apex of clarity. In my dreams, time was disjointed, disconnected, and odd. People didn’t act according to type. But now, even with all the impossibility of my being here, not to mention the heavy drinking, time moved in solid clicks of the wheel. And besides, after a dream, one usually wakes up in one’s own bed. But here I was in bed with a corporeal man. A hungover man who spoke in Elizabethan English. A man with a desperate need for a bath and a trip to the washerwoman with every stitch of his clothing and bedding. A man who seemed to accept the fact that Jessicas appeared in his room on a regular basis.

Every indication led to the truth that he was indeed William Shakespeare, and not my indigestion, imagination, or hangover.

My whole body slowed. I stared out the window until the light seemed fuzzy. Then I snapped to, plan in mind. I needed to get out of bed and make sure this was real. I needed to use my research skills. First things first.

One jittery limb at a time, I slipped off the lumpy mattress, my feet on the rushes. Without waking Will, I lurched to standing and moved toward the wardrobe I’d arrived in. Standing in front of it, I placed one hand on the wood, slowly, as if expecting to see it disappear, hand in one world, wrist in another. But no, my palm was there on the all-too solid door.

I pulled the knob, opened the door, breathing in the wet wool. Pushing aside the coats, I stepped in, turned, and closed the door, a slit of sunlight in my eyes. So I closed them, thought of last night at the play, how I’d run out of one door and time and into another. It was just that simple, right?

One, two, three. Without opening my eyes, I waited. For a moment, I conjured forth Shylock pacing across the stage as he plotted Antonino’s debt. But after a few clenched moments, I hadn’t gone anywhere but inside a closet. The air. The smell. The ache in my head. And yes, as I opened my eyes and pushed open the cupboard door, there was Will in his bed, snoring.

What next? Maybe the portal was somewhere else, down the hall, as it had been at the theater. To get there, I would have to brave potential Gumble wrath and certain humiliation. So before grabbing the door handle, I smoothed my nightgown, my hair. There was nothing to do about my 150-proof breath. Toothpaste was likely a hundred years away from being even a glimmer of an idea.

A quick glance back at Will now starfished on the bed, one arm dangling off the side, I pulled the door open with a creak and then slipped out into the dark hall. My nightgown flapped. Cold air wrapped around my ankles, slipped up my shins, my skin a river of gooseflesh. I gritted my teeth as I closed the door behind me and looked around. I was on the second or third floor of a large building, a boarding house probably, a small window at either end of the hall. I tiptoed to the first window, the view nothing but sky and clouds swirled with grey, rain imminent. No surprise there. This was London, after all. I had no clothes, no umbrella, no boots. But hopefully, before I stepped out onto the muddy street, I’d have already magically popped back home.

My head spinning like a child’s toy, my knees shaking, I walked toward the stairwell, desiring stealth, and the least amount of contact with the wooden planks under my pale feet. As I moved past every door, I hoped there would be a sign, a direction:

This Way Out!

Or California, 5351 Miles.

Or Drink Me!

Or best yet, Home: four hundred Years from Now!

All I had to do was take the correct turn, and I’d be back to what I understood. Things hadn’t really met my childhood dreams and expectations—I was clearly not lecturing at Oxford—but I was able to read and write for a living. But all this mess? The dirt, the smells, the yelling? I needed out, no matter how appealing it might be to spend a couple more hours talking with Will.