Who is he, this man who has appeared at the periphery of my consciousness, who arrived in the short, almost undefinable period between wakefulness and sleep?
I am sure that I know him, and yet he looks like no one, and reminds me of nobody in particular.
He comes speaking words I do not understand, that steadfastly refuse to form into sentences; I can neither hear him nor read his lips, and yet somehow I know that I am meant to listen and watch intently.
He talks incessantly, constantly, a non-stop torrent, and yet says nothing of any meaning, reciting empty, silent sentences as his full lips move like those of a fish only slightly out of water; the indecipherable shapes and sounds mean nothing to my mind as it drifts in and around that space between conscious and not.
He takes me to a place I recognise from somewhere in the depths of my memory, yet it is somewhere I can not place in either the past or the present or the possible future. I wrack my slumbering mind to decipher a meaning, to find a link, to pick out some defining feature that will give me an answer, and I soon realise that I cannot and that the point is not to try.
He leads, he cajoles, he encourages, his metaphorical hand placed weightlessly in the space between my shoulder-blades, calming, placating, it’s all right, it’s fine to just explore this small, shallow lake.
The leaves of the overhanging trees that surround this place dip into the water like that first tentative step into a suddenly warmer sea as spring arrives, or lazy fingers that gently swill water around a bowl to make patterns for no discernable reason. A moss-covered, weather-beaten ramp leads me to the water’s edge, and I do not know if I am supposed to follow its invitation or stay right here where I am.
The place I know competes with the one that I do not.
But there, while dark and shrouded in something, looks just as peaceful, and I find that although unwilling, I am not as scared as I should be – or could be.
His frustration is tangible, and then he is gone; pushed away by another, speaking more indecipherables and this time, showing me nothing.
I am faintly aware that by allowing him to leave, to be forced away, I am condemning him to a non-existence. The guilt now a stabbing sensation where the soothing hand once was, I wonder: when he drifts away, where will he go?
Will he fly from my conscience like an angel, or sink like a stone through the water, into which I am too afraid to dip my toe?
