WILL I KNOW WHEN IT’S TOMORROW?

I’ve lost my mind. Really lost it. And everything in it. I sit here bathed in the warmth of a spring sun, feeling its rays caress my very soul, but my mind is engulfed in inky blackness. If it is there at all. Why I’m here, I don’t know. Where I am, I don’t know. What I do next, I’m at a loss to fathom out. Oh, I can see the choices, the footpaths, the roads, criss-crossing down the valley. A curl of smoke from a distant chimney. The allure of sparkling water on a lake. The majesty of sweeping green swards, dotted with white, and the deeper greens of woodland, above which soar fork-tailed birds of massive wingspan. But what they are I can’t call to mind. I have no mind. Just my mindless stare across an unrecognised landscape, locked to one spot, next to a trickling stream that carries away my every thought before I can even form it.

Once, I was someone. Who? I can’t recall any name. Of what age? I no longer remember. Despite what my eyes embrace, this world is a void. I have no place in it that I can place myself. Gone. Everything. Yet a soft hand takes mine, encourages me to stand, leads me down towards a grey-stone cottage with a familiar tilt to its slate roof. Was that once mine? Is it still mine? No. We walk on by and through a sagging wooden gate. Along a gravel path, I sense a change in the air. Something cooking? Then three metal steps in front of me, up to a caravan. A gentle voice. Teatime, Dad. Our last one here, we go home tomorrow. I’m someone’s Dad? But whose? And where is home? Will I even know when it’s tomorrow?

The story can be found, with a kaleidoscope of others, in “Hints of Darkness".