Night, day-dreaming.

I'm at home, in bed - under the duvet. It's blackness all around. I'm here - it's my space I know I am here, because I am thinking this. I am, therefore I think - to do otherwise would be a grave mistake. I'm hot - I'm melting away like wax. There is heat coming from a fire. There is a fire burning from within. I can smell the space in my cosy cave. It smells of me. I'm invisible here in my nocturnal nest. The shadows outside can't reach me. I mustn't let my feet give me away; I must keep them covered. The shadows might smell them - I've walked a long way today. To the desert and back. The desert burned me dry. I've never known such thirst. Each oasis was a mirage. Palm trees waved at me before they disappeared. Sand gets everywhere in the desert. It gets cold at night. During the night you want the day to come. When day comes you dream of night. I am here dreaming of night. If I look out from my cave I will see my room; it will remind me of what is real. I want the reality to go away; I want to be in my dream world. I don't want the shadows to come in. They are menacing shadows. Light hides behind what is there. What is there cannot be hidden, but neither can it be seen. I lift the duvet and let some air into my cave. Sweat is running down both sides of my body. I am wet; I am floating in a sea. I don't have to swim. It is the Dead Sea; I can float forever. It is my forever. It doesn't have to last for long. Someone has switched a radio on. There is music in the air. Is it very late, or very early? The music has stopped, but the radio plays on. The background hiss on black is too intrusive, like a snake in the grass. The lawn that surrounds my dream house needs cutting. Something could be hiding there. I used to remember my dreams. I used to walk on the pavement, on my way to somewhere, anywhere - only I never got there, where ever it was. The pavement curled like an old slice of bread. Curved like the crest of a wave. Under the wave I was swallowed up. Dry stone, and swallowing surf - the desert and the sea. The wind soon blows sand over a footprint in the desert. Jump into the sea and the ripples soon disappear. Either way it is impossible to make an impression that lasts. We have a past, present, and future - one increases, one decreases, and one stays the same, but it is so fleeting we hardly notice it. Cry me a river, isn't that how the song goes? Don't all rivers flow to the sea? It's lonely in the sea of life: I'm not waving'; I'm drowning. "What an odd way to swim," said Miss Smith the sunbather, as she put on her sun tan lotion. The boy making a sandcastle in the air makes waves in the sand. "He's stopped waving now", says his mother. At such moments all your past rushes by in an instant, that is what they say isn't it?- Past, present and future, all in one. 'Make a wish' an inner voice whispers. "I wish I wasn't here." "Another, that one was inadmissible." There's a gasp from somewhere - from nowhere. Too late, not even a footnote. I could see all this from my cave; I didn't have to put my head outside.
Copyright 2002 by Terry Miles.