Stories of a Surreal Nature by Graeme Winton - HTML preview

Make of it What You Will

The musty smell woke me up, or at least I think I woke up. Gazing upward the ceiling was black... dingy black. Short stalactites of darkness hung from nowhere. A morbid feeling overwhelmed me. I tried to brush my hands over my chest, but I could feel nothing. I looked down and could see my body lying on I know not what. Raising a hand I gazed as I spread my fingers, but when I touched the hand with the fingers of my other hand, I could feel... nothing!

I looked up again and realized that there were patches of light amid the dark. Whether I was in an under-ground cavern and these were holes in the ceiling which allowed light in or not... I don't know.

Suddenly I was back in an art gallery in Dundee gazing at a painting of broad black brush strokes interspersed with light areas. The more I looked into the black the more I was engulfed by it. After peering into the dark for some time it sucked me into an abyss. Down, down I sank trying to clutch on to something... anything!

Time switched, and I was walking through the ancient Howff graveyard on a sunny day. The place was empty save for a figure in a green coat strolling through the forest of headstones. I felt light and airy as if I could just float away.

I stopped to admire a blooming magnolia tree, and when I resumed my walk the person in the green coat appeared to be heading for the gate. Halting for a moment I read an inscription on a headstone and when I raised my head, the figure was heading toward me.

The lady with blond/grey hair smiled as she approached, and as our eyes met, I realised I knew her, not physically but spiritually. I looked back after passing, but she kept on strolling past the gravestones.

Later I was in a book shop where a book on the Spirit World drew me toward it in the Mind and Spirit section.

That night I lay on my bed, put my head on the pillow and opened my eyes!

But it can't be a dream because these things actually happened one sunny Sunday afternoon!