Listen to the Trees and Other Curious Tales

A small shiver caught me out, I wasn’t quite expecting that. The day had been pleasantly warm, the ground was dry and I was comfortable as possible laid here on the grassy embankment of this gently flowing stream.

It was a cold clear night even though I was well wrapped up with a thick woollen jumper beneath my heavy duffel coat. Thick socks, my boots, a pair of corduroy trousers and my woolly hat should be keeping me warm enough, but I was still caught out by that shiver; on second thought perhaps it was more of a shudder.

Laid here on the grassy bank by this gently flowing stream, I felt at home more than I might otherwise do. I was an outdoor sort of guy that enjoyed the clean air, the smell of grass, trees, herbs and everything that grew on this wonderful planet.

I looked again at the starry sky which for some reason this cool night was attracting my attention more than it otherwise might. My eyes were fixed at the magnificent spectacle of a clear starry night with a million or more points of light spread out before me. The moon was barely into its first phase so viewing the heavens was almost as good as it could be. I found the sight to be truly impressive and immersed myself in the experience. The feeling of being about to fall off some giant mountain top but upwards towards the stars was breathtaking.

The urge to come to this spot tonight had been overwhelming which hadn’t made that much sense but here I was capitulating to an unexplainable urge They usually turned out to be OK and I guess it was those outcomes after the many years together, that always calmed her inner self, at least I hoped it did; she was good at concealing her real feelings at times; which woman couldn’t. 

Here I was satisfying an urge that had been building inside me for the last few days or so, and tonight was the night, it had been telling me.

I hadn’t crept or rushed out but calmly told Jane that something inside was calling me to look at the stars tonight. She had just shrugged her shoulders, giving up on me in her usual way these days and responded with another daft smile. That told me what she was thinking and I responded with a quick kiss and returned a smile of my own.

As I had left this wonderful cottage through the rose-edged front door to start walking up the wooded valley in which we lived, she called after me with an equally as wonderful, “Take care you daft sod.”

I replied with a resigned wave and mouthed, “I will, I love you.”

Here I was after some forty minutes later, or more perhaps, laid on a grassy slope that fell to the stream running down this valley I felt certain had chosen me, not the other way round. There seemed to be something special about this particular place and even now after I had arrived, it had something about it I couldn’t find an explanation for. I just had this feeling inside, without any sort of reason, and now here I was; I was told that I had arrived.

I stopped being concerned about the ‘why’ to simply continue my stare at the sky recognising some of the constellations, mostly not. However or wherever I looked, something kept bringing my attention back to the unique pattern of the stars of Orion, or rather more specifically to the star known as Sirius. This was more or less on a straight line down from the imaginary belt and quite the brightest star in the sky. I was pleased with myself that I could recognise a little about the pattern of the stars but somewhat disappointed that my knowledge was so limited; I should have spent more time as a young lad learning instead of enjoying myself.

Wherever I looked at the amazing view, my attention was being forced to direct its stare at the one star Sirius; one of the very few I could recognise and name. I didn’t know why I was fixated on this; I couldn’t explain it to myself. It was if my movements were being controlled; this was becoming weird.

I knew something about this star Sirius but from where I gleaned the little information I possessed was anyone’s guess. It was one of the closest stars to Earth and was really a double star; two stars in a dance with each other. But a voice within me was trying to tell me something and in words or a language I didn’t understand, or did I? It didn’t make sense, yet it did, but no, again it didn’t. Now I was hearing voices, I really was, someone was speaking to me;, that’s how it felt I guess. I really was hearing voices.

“Good grief man, get a grip,” I spoke out loud and firmly to myself just to break the silence of the night and to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming.. I repeated to myself, “Get a grip.” Did it work? I wasn’t so sure

I pulled my eyes away from their focus on this single entity. THey were almost forced back to the image of this star; it felt as though someone had taken a hold of my head and forcibly turned it back to where it had just been. I was unable to control my movements; this was disturbing. I was only laid here on the grass innocently looking at the night sky; what was going on?

Thinking back to why I came to be here, I realised that it had not been completely voluntary, again something else or someone else had been pushing me to get out of the house and walk to this particular spot to then lay down to stare at the skies. I had to admit it, staring at the night sky was always a wonderful experience and I had simply gone along with what I took to be some sort of urge to that end. I had started off enjoying my night time viewing but now with hindsight, I felt certain something else was going on.; something out of my control.

The sound of the voice was there again, clearly in my mind but an unintelligible voice speaking in a language I did not understand. Then the sounds stopped, the voice fell silent. Was I having a mental aberration of sorts?

My attention was brought back immediately to what my eyes were seeing. There was something very strange happening for definite; that single star was much larger than it had been five minutes ago. It was reaching out to me, it really was and it filled my vision; was I losing the plot or was it my marbles?

It felt as though my whole world was going crazy, all that was there before me was this one giant spot of light.

I forced my head away to look at the earth and grass beneath me and matters now took a frightening turn. There beneath me was the blue globe, half in darkness, of the Earth. I was suddenly quite frightened; I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

I blinked but nothing changed. I closed my eyes and the fear subsided a little. When I opened them again and there was still the nervousness but somehow the bare fear had subsided and I found myself accepting of the situation.

The Earth looked as many of the photographs from the ISS did, or perhaps might do if it was in a much higher orbit.

The sphere stood there floating it seemed in a hard darkness, the impenetrable darkness of the void, of outer space. As my eyes adjusted, the darkness was penetrated only by the infinite number of bright non-sparkling dots of light, many, many times more than I had just been witnessing back on the damp grass.

My head spun as the impression of height, a great height sank home. The absence of anything solid beneath my feet once more became frightening, much as it had many years ago when I first experienced parachuting. But this height was much greater and the fear equally so; the thought of dropping back to the ground was unnerving and what’s more, I had no parachute.

I had to close my eyes, count to ten and then look again. I was sure that I was in some sort of terrible dream and the neutral stability of shut-eyes might just do the trick; it didn’t. In fact it felt worse, sort of, as I was now even further away into space. “Oh my dizzy-aunt,” I found myself crying out some old stage phrase from goodness knows where. “What is going on?” I wanted to say something stronger, I usually did, but again something was controlling my thoughts and this now included my words.

Then another part of this alarming view hit me. I was not wearing my boots, corduroy trousers or any clothes, come to that. Well I guessed that I was not wearing any clothes because I could not see me; I felt solid but there was nothing to feel. I trembled but I did not. I shivered but that was me forcing the shiver out of a body that was not there.

The Earth was receding fast, I was in ‘deep space’ but not gasping for air; I had nothing to breathe with. Had I died, was I going into that mystical eternity as the ancient Egyptians may have believed in?

I try to concentrate on the direction I believed I was travelling in and looked forward towards the star that had started this nightmare. It was stationary but all the other points of light were moving away from it and their ‘escaping’ speed was increasing; the further away they were from Sirius the faster they seemed to be moving away. I was travelling through space at some incredible speed and I was getting faster by the moment; how could I be, how was it possible.

Was it me travelling this way or was it someone else that I was somehow in communication with; was it me picking up on another’s experience?

“No Steve, it is you, but I am with you and have been from the start of your journey many years before the damp grass.”

Who was talking to me, how I could hear anything, how was anything possible? I again didn’t know the answer. I wanted to let my head spin but it didn’t, it was accepting this crazy situation.

I had to be dreaming.

“No Steve you are not dreaming. I am not only with you but I am you. I tried to talk to you back on Earth but that proved very difficult for me. Your liberation on leaving the planet has made this possible.”

He was me, but I was me!

Was this some sort of split personality syndrome superimposed upon a hallucination? Had I been breathing in some sort of hallucinatory plant while I was laid on the grass?

“No Steve, you and I are as one; I am you and always have been. You are me and always have been except that we could never come together to realise each other until starting this journey.”

With this I somehow felt calmed and relaxed but how could I be?

As the implications of my situation sank home, the two personalities, the two individuals that I seemed to be, slowly and inexorably became as one. I was still Steve but with a memory that went back to a period thousands, no tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years ago. Not everything would come to me, but perhaps there was some sort of control that was preventing a total overload of my faculties. I hoped so if the hints I was giving myself were anything to go by.

I was ‘flying’ through space, an ethereal entity with a history of two lives many, many generations or indeed aeons apart. I realised that there was some sort of gap on the continuity between the two people I had been, or was now, most definitely or something like that. I continued to confuse myself, I thought, or did I.

I received a hint, sort of, that the interregnum between my first life and this one would only be explained at the termination of the current one. I was confirming to myself that there was ‘another place’ between existences; the belief of some religions that this is so. I was aware; this was most certainly the truth, the real reality. And if this was so then what about the time before my previous existence of which I was now aware?

I tried to examine my former self and found little. I was not speaking to myself with some split personality, I was whole, as one, but the memories of that former person would not come, not fully and not yet.

I had the sensation, a hint, that as time progressed I would gain access to my hidden, former self.

That this journey through the ether was not making sense was surely disappearing. I was ‘going home’, to see my former home of many, many aeons ago, the place from which the ‘exodus’ had first set off.

What was this ‘exodus’ that I had just told myself of? Am I dreaming or are these odd thoughts that seem to be are entering my consciousness, genuine or am I fabricating strange ideas to suit my current predicament?

I looked in the direction of Sirius yet again, I had never looked away but my eyes had been looking internally, at my two selves. The star was increasing in size as the millions of others in my field of view were shooting out and away because of the speed of travel.

It was becoming large and its colour was surprising; it was both red and white. The white was passing in front of the red at regular intervals. Even from this great distance, possibly that of looking at Venus from the Earth, I could see that with the naked eye.

“Whoa sunshine, what do mean eyes, how can you have eyes?” I was asking myself.

I was now talking to myself, I really was, not my other self, but me, yet my other self was me. I just hadn’t gained access to the full extent and memories of my other me, but little bit by little bit, a drip feed was occurring. The closer I came to this spectacle the greater the realisation that it was my other self that was considering the view.

Then the journey came to a halt. I hadn’t stopped, I didn’t think so anyway, but something had stopped us.

“Not ‘us’ Steve, just ‘me’, get used to it.”

This giant red sphere before me, or was it ‘us’, looked about the size of the Earth as viewed from the Moon; I knew that because I had seen those famous photographs in the journals and on the web. But at the back of my thoughts, I also knew that I had seen the Earth directly from standing on the Moon. This wasn’t a false memory, but very much a real one, or so I thought or felt. If I was accepting of the current situation, a disembodied but a real personality, even two personalities, then why not be accepting of distant memories from somewhere coming to the fore of my reality?

I closed my eyes and saw myself standing on the top of a very high building within a giant, bluish dome, looking at the beautiful Earth not too far away. This odd memory was remarkably solid and very real. Who was I then, another existence perhaps, yet a third personality? Something was saying, “YES,” but without an explanation or clarity. I had to keep this in mind, but no I didn’t, because it was from somewhere within my mind that it had arrived into my consciousness. I was on the verge of really confusing myself and losing any semblance of self control.

“Leave it for now, Steve, it will reveal itself in due course,” came into my thoughts or was it that other voice speaking to me. That other voice was me, wasn’t it

“Now you’re becoming flippant you nutter. You don’t have anything to speak with you fool, it’s all in the mind, isn’t it?”

But then I realised that if I had no physical voice then why should I have a physical brain or mind?

“Go with it sunshine, play it for real or you really will lose it,” passed through my thoughts, but who was speaking, which me was it?

I again looked at the focus of my journey, the star Sirius. I was stationary and it was now moving at ‘real time’ speed; a giant red ball that was in a dance with a much smaller bright white neighbour. These were the partners of a twin star system but where were the planets and why were we here?

The former memory that had been talking to me, until we merged as one, came to the fore and I realised both who I was and why I was here.

“I have journeyed to my home as the opportunity presented itself. The universe has aligned for me in some mysterious way to give me this opportunity. This was the same alignment that the ancient Egyptians knew a great deal about. I have employed the same ‘whatever it is’ for my own purposes, to see home just once more, but how did I? Did the Egyptians know how or why; I still don’t?”

But I wondered where the planets were that I knew had once circled my ‘normal’ star so many, many aeons ago.

“There, there,” I called out in my thoughts as the giant red sun was no more, just a normal size bright yellow one, whatever ‘normal’ was. In orbit round it there before me a most beautiful sphere that could so easily be the Earth that I had just left behind me.

Then the view changed with a sort of mistiness, a blurring of one image into another. At once I was laid on the grassy bank of a riverside listening to the gurgling of the water as it rushed on by. The sun was warm, it was a most pleasant afternoon and I was thoroughly relaxed on this, my last day before departing forever in the exodus.

The reality disappeared, the grass and water were gone, the warm day replaced by the total darkness of space and the sight of my sun, the red giant greatly expanded to engulf and destroy what had been such a beautiful place.

Even the inner neighbouring planets were subsumed into that fiery glowing sphere and worse, not a single outer planet was left.

This had to be the result of the diminutive white dwarf that came into view past the edge of the red sphere. This was the white blur across the face of the redness that I had seen when approaching from way out. My sun had become entrapped by this dense wanderer at the same time as it started to expand but it should not have grown so large. Was it the interaction as they joined in some ‘Danse Macabre’ that had accelerated the expansion?

We, that is, those selected for the great exploratory mission and myself, had left our planet in the knowledge that the sun was on the path to grow so large that it would eventually burn our home to a cinder.

It had been hoped that an interstellar ark, much greater in capacity than the one we had left in, would be developed in the thousands of years left before the fate of those having to remain was sealed. Maybe they had succeeded in constructing such a craft and journeyed away in the opposite direction to ourselves. It had been intended that we were trailblazing the route for them to follow. It could only be hoped that they saw the white intruder coming, realised the significance of what might happen and had escaped away with plenty of time to spare.

Where were my people, where had they gone? I had not expected to hear from them unless they were following the path we had trod for them. I had to hope that they were long since gone, perhaps in some direction that I would never be aware of now. And what of my once beautiful planet, now just a distant memory; those lovely cool meadows, the babbling streams, the gentle warmth of a summer sun which was now all gone?

My heart sank. I had made this journey a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as the universe aligned itself once again, but now clearly to no avail. I was truly saddened not to be able to see, if not visit, just for one more additional time, the beauty I had once called home.

But I had been given the opportunity in some sort of reality or an illusory dream. I had been presented with one last look. My heart was heavy and I felt truly saddened.

There was but one more place I wished to see as the imagery changed and faded from my view; perhaps, just perhaps. I was being urged to go but by whom; was there more of this strange experience?

The light beaming upon my face was too bright as it came through the gap in the curtains. I had to turn away, rolling into the comfort of a soft pillow.

For a long moment I lay stunned. I knew without a doubt where I had travelled to, what I had witnessed and the sadness of the experience. It had taken quite a period of time to travel through the heavens to the encounter with what had been my former home, but in an instant I was back here on Earth. I had to assume that it was the Earth; this was definitely my bed in the cottage in which I was now laid.

“Are you feeling any better, my old son?” came the booming voice of my old friend Harry who otherwise lived a mile or two away and in another woodland cottage similar to this one.

I rolled back to see that it was definitely him. It was.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Where’s Jane?”

“Not to panic Steve, take it easy mate,” Harry tried to calm me.

“We found you by the river bank, or should we say an angler found you this morning quite unconscious. He thought you might have been drinking but couldn’t stir you or smell alcohol. Going through your pockets he determined who you were and telephoned us. You’re one lucky guy.”

“We, that is he and I, managed to sort-of carry you back here with one arm over each shoulder. I got your coat off and put you into bed.”

I looked at Harry and realised that I was seeing him with the knowledge of two existences, possibly three.

“You’ve got a strange look in your eyes Steve,” Harry continued.

“Just lay back, take it easy and don’t worry; the paramedics will be here shortly,” he said. “We’ve only just got you home and you’ve woken up straight away as your head hit the pillow; it’s normally the other way round,” he laughed trying to make light of what he saw as very serious situation.

“Where’s Jane,” I asked again.

“Down at the end of the track waiting to bring in the paramedics, they’ll never find this place on their own. Even the Sat-nav’s have problems with this neck of the woods.”  

Harry was right.

“Do you fancy something to drink, sunshine,” he enquired.

“Yes, thanks mate, a cup of tea would go down nicely,” I responded knowing that he would be away in the kitchen giving me enough time to disappear out the window.

Off he went and as soon as he was out of the door, I pulled on my trousers and tee-shirt and with my boots stuffed with socks and my jacket all in-hand I pulled the curtains aside to be out of the window in a flash. Barefoot I hurried round the back of the house to dive into the dark of the nearby woods, far enough away to not be found while my socks and boots were put on.

Jacket still in hand, I headed back to the same spot that I had been to previously; that was yesterday I hoped. I had to be back there to satisfy the urgency in the feeling rising again within and threatening to overwhelm me.

The feeling of another great experience, as yesterdays, grew stronger the closer I got to that spot where it had all started previously. It was not just me but the bigger ‘me’, my knowledge and some memory of experiencing two previous existences, or again a hint of possibly three. The ‘greater me’ was stirring yet again and wanted to be off and away. There was definitely something else, a somewhere else also I had once called home and yet another persona, of which I was unaware but trying hard to reach me, to show me.

I laid low for the afternoon, keeping out of sight and resisting the tension building up inside. . Tonight that urgency would be relieved. I would be journeying again. For now I must stay hidden. I missed that cup of tea Harry was making for me and something to eat. The half eaten bar of chocolate in my jacket would suffice I was sure and there was always the stream for cool refreshing water.

I knew that Jane would be beside herself finding that I had done a ‘runner’ but I was driven. The ‘greater me’ was pushing for a repeat experience but not to the ‘old home’ now long since gone. It was somewhere closer, but where; this further persona was hinting, even demanding to be somewhere to see something. This was the same urge that I experienced yesterday but with a different persona doing the urging and much more strongly; I could hardly stay still in my hideaway.

How many times had I existed in this physical world, how many times could my former existence reveal itself, how many journeys was I destined to make? I had no answers, not yet anyway; perhaps tonight I might have some. I was hoping that any search by a distraught Jane (sorry my love – I will explain later when I hope you will forgive me) and an upset Harry to locate me, would look first at the river bank where they had found me. I would not be there and I hoped they would leave that spot alone as darkness fell or that they searched elsewhere before last light.

Darkness came at last and the sounds of the search parties dimmed as they surely gave up for the night. I could just about make out the lights of the cottage from where I was in the woods, telling me they had all given up any search for today. (“Sorry again my love, please don’t be upset with me. I will explain as soon as I return when these urges let me, however many ‘me’s’ there are, come to a rest.”)

I found myself with little effort at the same spot once again and instantly felt the pull of whatever it was that had transported the ‘inner me’ out into space. Tonight was not to be as clear as the previous occasion, clouds were rolling slowly across the sky, but the feel of the pull was most tangible, almost physical.

I laid down where I had before and stared at the darkened cloudy sky; I hoped that tonight that it would not rain as I didn’t want the ‘physical me’ to be placed in danger. The urge was great and the risks I had to accept. An odd thought crossed my mind, “I had never had this problem in the dryness of Egypt.”

I had brief fleeting flashes of memories of being under the sun of a clear, bright blue Egyptian sky, my toes feeling the hot sand between my toes in a sort of straw sandal. I had been to the pyramids on a holiday years ago and recalled a strange sense of awareness that had come over me when I stood before one of the smaller pyramids next to the great one.

“My life is starting to be explained to me, or is it lives - but only in short episodes; why?” I was starting to think clearly to myself again.

Something else was now starting to show itself, edging into my consciousness. I had to let my mind wander; think randomly or nothing it all; let the ‘urge’ subsume everything else.

And then I was no longer on the Earth. Whatever or perhaps whoever it was, had taken me again. I was back into space above the Earth looking back, quite unperturbed and accepting of the experience.

This third persona took a hold of me and directed the journey, yet it was me that seemed to be the driving force; but of course it was me. I realised and I believed I was being told, that the memory of my former selves was no less than the ‘total me’ simply coming to a recognition of what I had been, was now and perhaps might ultimately become somehow. I wasn’t sure but was more than willing to go with the flow.

I was moving away from the Earth at a great speed, looking back it was receding rapidly. I knew where I was heading but strangely could not put a name to it, except that I was going ‘home’ yet again.

The sun, my sun, the sun of the solar system that was definitely the one that the Earth orbited, was staying in the same place; I was also travelling in an orbital path. Not for long did this journey take, as I saw and had it confirmed by an internal sensation, that I, or was it ‘we’, were approaching our destination, the planet Mars.

At a distance its redness was striking, its many features seemingly familiar from the photos I had seen on the web but not quite so. And then before we came close an odd thing occurred; in some sort of morphing process, it became a green and blue planet with land, seas and clouds. This was like looking at the Earth except the shape of the continents of Earth were not there; these land masses had different shapes, yet they were familiar.

My entire consciousness was absorbed by the image before me; it seemed that nothing else could pull my attention away. But something did, a large lump of rock, a satellite of Mars, a moon; one of the two moons that I was aware orbited this planet. I knew instinctively that the one taking my attention was much more than a moon, it was something else, something that would not come clearly to mind. It was an important facet of my understanding, I knew that, but the full recognition would not come.

Then I was there; by a stream once again, laid upon a delightful grassy bank in the sunshine of a pleasant afternoon. This was nice, relaxing and a break from the concentrated work I had been engaged on; the one and only project that the entire planet was concerned with. Another ‘exodus’ away from this green and pleasant land to a new home before the catastrophe struck.

What this impending catastrophe was to be, was something else that would not come to mind but the feeling of a great urgency swamped by very being, . The reality of yet another persona, while still aware of me and indeed the former me that had travelled the great distance to Sirius, could not rationalise the situation. This new ‘me’ seemed more related to and familiar with the ‘Sirius me’ but what sort of connection was I being made aware of

“That smells nice,” I thought. “The strange sweetness of the fresh grass is most pleasing. Am I really to leave all this behind; is it all to be destroyed?”

I relaxed back into the sweet smelling grass and listened to the babbling of the stream as it coursed over the rocks. The birds were singing in the trees, the warmth of the sun was most pleasant and perhaps just closing my eyes might help.

It did help, but not to understand the knowledge that I sought, rather to no more than to relax and enjoy the pleasure of home. A home that I was aware was not to last much longer; a great catastrophe was to occur in the near future, a catastrophe of cosmic scale. But now, this relaxation was sweet, an investment in my inner self, a pleasure that I did not want to end. I opened my eyes and turned to look at the stream

It was not there, nor were the trees, nor was the grass I thought I was laid upon, the sun was not shining through a clear thin sky; all was dusty rock, pebble strewn wastes beneath that thin, dark sky. I was alone, shocked and saddened. I felt the tears well up at the loss of my home and the lives of so many people, those who could not leave and had to suffer the fate of the meteoric catastrophe.

To my eternal shame, I had escaped and was thankful for that but therein lay my shame and my sadness. My former self became as me and I it; we melded our minds, our personalities and experience. I was now aware of three great lives that I had lived and had surely died at their physical end.

Why was I experiencing what had happened to me, what opening in the fabric of life and the continuum had occurred to allow me to know of whom I had been, where I had lived and moreover thought of as my home?

Perhaps I was I experiencing what the ancient dynastic Egyptians believed in. The belief and an experience maybe, from which their philosophy of life was sourced, including a return to the stars upon death, to their place of origin, to a ‘home’?

“Well of course you are,” an inner voice spoke to me, a voice that I had not heard before although of course I had, for a lifetime. “Try to remember your inner beliefs, try, it’s all to be found there,” the voice went on.

The belief and experience maybe, from which theirs and my philosophy of life was sourced, including a return to the stars upon death, to their place of origin; to a home?

“You’re getting there, relax and it will come to you.”

I had some knowledge now of the reality of life, a previous life, a continuation of life via some other place, a place that all physical life must inhabit when it is concluded.

I had a yearning for a home yet a terrible sadness permeated my emotions at the visits to two of the many homes and living shells that surely had once inhabited, been a guest in, a resident of.

I turned to look one more time at the desolation and a shaft of light coming through between the curtains hit me squarely in the face once more. My eyes were blinded by the brightness and I looked away to check the time on my alarm clock. It was seven thirty, time to rise to face a new day.

Something bothered me, a thought at the back of my mind in among the mists of early morning as consciousness crept in, that spoke of an adventure, a visit to someone’s ‘home’, my home surely, but what was this and to where had I travelled? I shook the cobwebs from my mind and tried hard to wake up.

A glimmer, a peek at the images of my inner vision told me of something but this was but the remnants of a dream surely, it certainly seemed like that.

I was at home, in my bed undressed and with Jane, laid soft, warm and inviting alongside of me. Strange memories wanted to surface in my mind but somehow they couldn’t; they were not being suppressed but just laying dormant for later on today perhaps. This was like coming out of a dream that couldn’t quite be remembered

And I knew I had never been away, wherever it was, of course I did. This odd feeling had to be the remnants of whatever strange dream I had been in and that would no longer come properly into my consciousness; of course it was.

I most definitely had the feeling that I had returned from somewhere; that wasn’t a dream surely. There again this was quite possibly the remnants of whatever dream I had experienced, I tried to convinced myself. Of course it was and I knew I had never been away, to wherever it was that was attempting to surface into my wakening thoughts; of course I knew this, I surely did. This odd feeling most certainly had to be the remnants of whatever strange dream I had been in and that would no longer come properly into my consciousness, of course it was. I was repeating myself and was aware that I needed to convince myself of it.

“Settle down old son, clear your mind and start the day as you normally would.”

I felt most satisfied with my lot in life, especially today as I would have the chance to fulfil an urge that had been lingering in me for the last few weeks. An urge that involved viewing the plethora of the stars that made up the impenetrable universe on a clear night; a magnificent scene that could take the breath away.

I knew just the spot about a mile or so away from here; a place that I had surely passed not so long ago, a grassy bank by the stream that wound its way through the woods in which this cottage, my home, sat.

I was impatient to be up and away but the normalities of the day would have to run their course first; night-time was still a long way off, after all.

“A cup of hot tea would be nice,” passed through my thoughts.

I rolled out of bed, without disturbing Jane to find the kettle and make a start, and almost tripped over my boots with my socks tucked loosely inside.

“Now that’s odd,” I thought, glancing at my boots, “they’re covered in a fine sandy dust. Where have I been, where has that come from?” 

“Don’t think too long son, come on get that kettle on,” I voiced quietly so as not to disturb Jane. I crept away towards the kitchen to find it.

~ o ~

Author’s Note.   

This is a story that I ‘dreamed’ over a period of several nights quite a few years ago.

I have no idea where it came from and the detailed descriptions of some events have been added to for the purpose of producing, I hope, a readable story.

The main sequence of events and the general detail are as I recalled again and again and have been ‘fine tuned’ only for the purpose of story telling.

I have lain on a grassy bank at night and felt a strange compelling urge to fly up into the sky towards the myriad of stars. Of course I didn’t but in my dream I did and many other things as well.

The last time I had this dream was the night before I decided to write down all that I could recall. After I had completed that exercise the dream no longer repeated and I felt somehow at ease and still continue to do so.

Perhaps I was passing on a story from ‘another place’ that had been given to me deliberately to narrate to many others, albeit in a story telling medium.

Or does the story include a lot of events that I only think were dreams when in reality they took place in some sort of out-of-body experiences I was not consciously aware of.

Who can tell,

~ o ~