Last night.. I dreamt. I hardly remember; it just popped into my head. High up, overlooking the wildest beach. Overgrown everything. So wild and natural and free. Nobody had touched this one. It was all mine. That was a nice dream.

I wish I was back at midge point. I hated camping there. I hated spending that whole week being eaten alive by insects, and being separated from my computer, and sharing a caravan park with however many others. the one thing that stands out to me about it was the time spent on the beach at night. I can’t forget it. I don’t exactly know why it stays in my memory – but as you walked out in that darkness under the trees, as the grass turned to sand beneath your bare feet – and they could be bare, because there was no threat of glass or discomfort – and you passed the fires of other campers that still burned so late although the people had long since gone to bed (I do not know how they could do that, and waste the night. Everything happens at night. Everything is at its peak, thrilling with life and cold air and tingling blood flowing and every sense so wide awake, picking up everything around you and turning it into the most sensational feeling). And you still walk, coming closer with every step to your destination. You are in no hurry – the journey is as beautiful as its end, and you are inhaling the very trees and sky and ground with every breath. And you pass the campfires, and it is dark but for the occasional view of the moon above. It doesn’t penetrate the leaves and branches to stroke the ground where you are now. You are in full night for a brief moment, surrounded now by sound and feeling. Perfectly content to be so. The slightest glimpse of fear is shown to you – you do not know what is around you. You are trusting nature, which is not to be trusted. You are trusting everything to be safe and right for you. But it is a delicious fear and you are soon through it, because you know that you have only to keep walking straight ahead. And then you see the glint of light on water in the distance, and you know that you are there. The trees spread out to your sides but in front is clear, wide space, made just for you, made specially for you. It’s all for you and you are all for it. You give yourself up to this night and let it take you. Emerging from the trees and your blindly followed path near the sign that in daylight warns visitors that only people staying at the park may go that way, you stare at what you’ve got. It holds you and does not press you. You are welcome there and you may come and go as you please. The sand stretches in front of you for a short distance, and to your left and your right as you step out, all that you see and all that there is is that stretch of beach. And then in front, where sand stops and meets water, is the ocean. So wide, so far-reaching – your eyes follow it out and out and out until finally it touches the edge of the sky. The sky is a beautiful thing this night. There are no clouds, there is just this dome above you and surrounding you and coming down to touch the land and the water. In this dome are stars that show you that it goes on and on. And then there is the moon in the middle, sending a bright trail across the water from where you are to the horizon. This trail is so long that you can hardly comprehend such distance, but it is all in your sight. How far do these eyes stretch! How much do they take in, all at once! The privilege awes you, and you stand silent, accepting this beautiful peace in a quiet, invisible bow. The light is so bright that you can hold your hand in front of you and see every line and mark. This is Real Moonlight. This is Real Life. It is enough to send you to your knees immediately with bowed head if this surrounding were to ask it of you. The air is so cold, but it is as cold may be imagined in a heaven. So purely cold that it is not at all uncomfortable. You don’t go numb as you might back on earth, or shiver, or break into goose bumps. That belongs to an imperfect life with an imperfect body. Here you are allowed to feel, and you realise that you have never before known real cold. It’s a beautiful thing. You are still walking, and now you have reached the water. It does not get deep for a long time – you know that because when the tide is released the sand goes out flatly for miles. You don’t walk any further out tonight. Standing at the edge of the beginning of everything, your feet on the sand and your ankles in the even colder water, you are quiet, and feel. You are surrounded by this light – it would seem unnatural if you did not know that this was Real Nature. Everything behind you is a copy, a half-life. Something that you once thought was all there was. In the water are tiny electric blue creatures, sparkling around your feet and swirling with the water. They belong to this world and it belongs to them, so fully that it is incredible.
You tilt your head back and stare at the breathtaking heavens above, and as you breathe them in you feel as if you are a part of them. You are a part of all of this for now, and you couldn’t speak even if you had anything to say. This is beyond speech. It is beyond much thought at all. It is just for experiencing and living and feeling and knowing. This is the world’s end and the world’s beginning, here. This is where you find the moon. Perhaps you would feel jealous of those electric shrimps if you were to worry about it – the fact that they can stay here forever, while for you, the night will end and you will leave, and you may not return for the next. You are drinking as deeply as you can so that you might never forget until you do come back, and things that you never knew and can’t describe are pulsing through your entire body. This is Living.
This feels as if it continues for hours, and indeed you feel you could remain there forever without needing food or drink or anything but what you have now – but at last the end comes and you must return to your part. The shrimps do not notice you leave, nor would they be bothered if they did. What do they care?
You turn your back to this incredible existence, and don’t look back as you walk back up the way you came. You can see every footprint you left in the sand on your way out, and you have a silent shadow cast by the moon to keep you company – a last gift. You leave behind you the roaring of distant waves, and step back into the darkness of the trees. There is that fear again, and you walk faster, keeping an eye on every shape lest it turn an ugly eye to your quiet pace and torment you. You come out of the trees and the grass is under your feet – the campfires are still glowing, and occasionally you pass somebody sitting near one, existing quietly. They know the night as you do. Strangely you do not miss the beach or the things that you felt out there. You were made to live in this world for now, and while you may visit that other place from time to time, you must live out your life here. It is not such a bad thing, overall.
 

I belong there, I left half of my being there and the rest of me is straining to return. Please come back, please come back, please come. Thus runs the cry.

You know where you belong, for now. You still know, you still know, you know. Don’t forget, don’t forget, oh please don’t forget. Thus I beg.

Your eyes, they sparkled. Where? Why? Bring it back, please bring it back. That smile, that ran across your face and into your soul and you knew that it was good – bring it back, please bring it back. It came from there, you came from there. Why did you leave? Were you forced? Pulled? Enticed?

The breeze is tugging at your hair. Go back there, please go back there. Feel it call? You feel it call. Please listen, oh please listen.

It’s so high above you. And it’s nothing but more of this, but you cling to it. Don’t let go, even if it is a lie don’t let go. Please don’t let go. It can turn into something if you let it. Hold it, don’t let go.

They slip your mind sometimes – and you know that once they’re gone, they’re gone. Don’t lose them.

Sit in the rain and know that you’re here. There. Where you should be and where you’re happy. Please, oh please, know.

I feel utterly disoriented, and so exhausted. I'm typing clumsily and quite slowly, and my fingers are dragging like weights across the keyboard. I hate waking up when I was in a deep and much-wanted sleep.

I’m not going to write the first part of the nightmare. It feels kind of personal, and it’s difficult to remember anyway. All I’ll say is that I was in a house, and things were feeling increasingly uneasy.

I left the house of madness - stumbled down those terrible stairs and found myself leaning against the door briefly, my forehead on what would have been cold glass but for another of those plastic sheets. They were strangely shutting-out: making me feel as if I was not a part of this scene, and certainly not wanted. And yet they were confining at the same time – I was trapped, even though I knew that the front door would easily open to my hands – I was trapped, and I did not know why I felt so. It never occurred to me that there might be some worse horror outside, between me and a world  where nothing was safe or free. The plastic made that noise, again - all else was  muffled to my ears. The sound of guests in that room – carpeted, white, and filled with some feeling of menace which you would not think should be there – was a mere mumble, and a dull contrast to that sharp rat-a-tat-tat every time I touched what should have been glass but instead was a clear, fixed protective covering of plastic. The guests were aware of my presence, but they were ignoring it with all their might. I was only too happy.

This takes time to describe, when in a nightmare’s reality it all happened in a few seconds – I lifted my hand heavily, and set it on the gold-plated door-knob. It seemed to me as if everything around me slowed down – including myself. The knob turned against its creamy background, and the door opened smoothly. I stepped out of the house.

It was far, far worse, and it hit me like an unexpected wave at the beach, which sucks you under and tumbles you over in what becomes a tiny world where you are at its mercy. The air was thick. I looked up and around me – down a long, neat driveway with green and perfectly cut grass at the sides, though I was sure nobody ever mowed it. The only sign of life came from the place I least expected it to be.

Across the silent, rather small street were more houses, brick houses, looking much like the one I had just left. They too had long driveways, neat, lush lawns, and there were a few big, heavy trees shading both the yard I was standing in and those around me. I looked to my left. All was tidy. I was feeling a mounting sense of terror and dread, a feeling that had started long ago at the top of the stairway in the house, after all familiar people had left me and it became a nightmare, and which had steadily grown ever since.

I looked to my right. And looked again.

A box, a plain lunchbox. At times red, at times black, but that was not why I stared. The box should not have been there, and it was completely out of place. It was a child’s ordinary, plastic school lunchbox, and it was sitting on the grass of the next house, about two meters away from me.

And then I stared some more, because it moved. I stood frozen. It was so unlike any dream. In a dream, when you see something you are afraid of, you cannot move. I could have run, and did shortly, because the box began to move in circles, ever-increasing in size, and coming towards me. It was quite fast, and I remember asking myself if there could be a string on it. My terror was almost complete, and I let out a scream and turned from the place and ran down the driveway.

Instantly the box opened, and a foul little black demon leapt out. It was a black kitten, but its eyes and claws were enough to convince me that it did not wish to play. I saw all this still running, twisting my head around (it happened far, far quicker than it takes to tell. The driveway was not THAT long, and both I and the kitten were moving fast. I never reached the end of the driveway).

I got the distinct impression that it would not take much for it to catch me. I could never hope to outrun such a creature. It was racing now, but I knew it could move far, far faster. I thought at first that if I could leave it behind I would be safe, but I soon felt that there was only worse waiting for me in the rest of that neighbourhood – and that the area went on forever. This was all there was, and again, I felt trapped. It mattered not at all how much room I had. I was still trapped, and there was nothing good in this world any longer. It wasn’t the world I had grown up in – it was a copy, with familiar objects like houses and trees, but all of that was a mask for something I did not recognize.

It leapt at me, landed on my back. I felt it there like a weight – a dead black thing clawing at my side. Shaking it off, I found myself a meter or two above the driveway now. It seems that was the last attempt of a desperate, puzzled and terrified mind to pull myself to safety. I felt for a very brief second that at last I was safe, and that I had managed to outwit this little world of fear. I realized immediately how wrong I was.

The kitten obviously decided it was finished messing around. I saw at last how fast this thing could really get around. No matter how I tried, I could not get away this time. It came at me again, even in the air, and it shot up from the ground straight at me. Terror was complete.

I felt it there again, tearing at my back, digging itself in, and I wondered to myself in absolute desperation just why it should not be there. I could not feel pain, but somehow I knew it was present. But maybe it did not mean harm? Maybe all was well, and I should become used to its presence, and there were people I knew and loved nearby if I would just control myself and stop being so afraid.

But I couldn’t, and I screamed and writhed for a few seconds more before I woke with a huge jolt and lay there very stiff, heart beating insanely.

It took quite a while for me to be willing to get out of bed.