The moment

The Moment (an awakening)

When I woke up, was in a comfy rustic, wooden framed bed. It was a strange bed, but the reddish patchwork quilt gave me a security that let me know I was okay to lie on. Nevertheless I was compelled to get up. It wasn’t guilt I was feeling as was with any other time I’d awakened in a strange bed, no empty bottles or beer cans; nor was looming dread of ‘What did I do last night’? The walls of the small room were white painted stone, and the room was plain, with only a few other pieces of matching furniture and a small landscape painting on the wall to my left. The day outside didn’t seem sunny, but through the windows it seemed fresh and inviting.

I got up with no need to dress, what I had on would do me just fine. Walking across the dark wooden floor towards the small door that led outside was a short experience, but I had felt it, not on my feet or my body, but deep within my soul. That door drew me out stronger than a moth to the flame, I couldn’t stop it even if I had known it was going to kill me. When I walked through the door I was met with a heavenly beauty I had never experienced before. I was standing in a gravel yard, which like the room that I had just left was quaint. It was bordered by a half built boulder wall. This was not to keep people out, but to keep the gravel in the yard, or maybe it was just ornamental. Beyond this was a magnificent beach, not deep, but stretched as far as my periphery could make out. The sound of the waves lapping and whooshing was faint for the closeness of the beach, but the wind howled and whistled a sweet tune around me.

I noticed there was an elderly lady hanging out white sheets on a line held up by two wooden posts. The sheets danced and billowed in the breeze, filling up like sails of a boat that had not yet set sail against the beachscape background. Beyond the wall on the beach was a grey horse whinnying and bucking from its front legs, then rearing up on its back. It was so animated that in another situation I might have thought it to be in distress, but it wasn’t, it was happy, with a freedom that filled every inch of this place. The sea breeze hit me as I stood motionless taking in the splendor of it all that was around me. I took a deep breath of fresh air, when I breathed out I awoke.

I tried hard to get back to sleep so hard that morning; I held a pillow over my eyes, to block out the morning light, but it was no good, it was gone, like so many dreams before. Things left unsaid, so many questions unanswered.


I don’t see this as a piece of fiction, or even a dream; it was more real than many of my memories, I just wish I had just one more moment, or the rest of my life…

Who was that old lady? Was I an old man and her my wife? What would she say to me? If I was next to her, what would I ask?

Has my obsession with the technology, the future, and understanding the universe all been for nothing? Had I reached my destination in my own wonderment? Was this going to be all I ever needed in life?

This moment changed my life, and on all accounts ‘An Awakening’…

Raymond Mc Cambridge (14/4/2013)