I open my eyes slowly, wincing as the searing morning light hits my unclouded gaze full on. Blinking several times to adjust to the brilliance of what slants from my window, I allow a sense of relief to wash over me. My neck slowly slumps to the left as I lie sideways, resting on the edge of my bed.
For a brief moment, I wonder, have I been dreaming? Did someone actually come into my room in the middle of the night?
This seemed to be a question that still lingered on my mind even now. I didn't remember having spent a night this sleepless. It was a long time since I had slept through four in the morning. That was not part of my nature.
Dreaming? I wondered again.
It's strange. I reflected. Shivers had run through my body, not of the cold, but of a kind of pleasure I could not explain.
My mind cast a long shadow over the day. I had been thinking about all the events that had unfolded in the previous day, ever since dawn.
I had started it off with a grimace. Bleary eyed, I crawled out of bed about six, too early even for me. Despite my disillusionment with the beginning of each day, it seemed to be a recurring dream of mine and appeared to have, throughout my life, somehow helped shape me. It was, I had always found, the part in each day where nothing had really happened, but everything had loomed largest.
In truth, those had been the most important moments in ancient Egypt. Each was a marker in time. Some defined a beginning, others, an end. For better or worse, a continuity of events played themselves out on the page of history into the present day. It was those times where the foundations were laid which defined the next steps.
I came back to my room, completely convinced that a large part of that history was actually blacked out by the written records I had surrendered over the years. I knew what had happened in those days, but I could not remember them. Why? The answer to this question was lost. I was beginning to suspect it would take a very long time for me to uncover its meaning. It was foggy and indistinct. And I didn't care, at least not at that point.
My hair was a mess. Just like the way I felt. Like the usual morning guy, I had almost fallen asleep in the kitchen again. In my room, I was comfortably warm, but in the kitchen, I had to toss a cold blanket around my shoulders to preserve some sort of feeling in my body.
Mornings were the worst.
Mornings were…
were…
were…
I had been here before. Familiarity had rubbed off on me for a brief while. It seemed like someone had been calling my name, murmuring, a gentle buzz in the air. Had someone really been saying my name? Was someone here?
I lazily raised my head towards the window, staring off, trying to decipher the memory fondled in my mind.
Murmurs of a voice, hardly even present, seemed to melt into the thick blanket of winter silence. It was all around me. And it … called me. But I was not calling back.
And then something hit me.
I knew this place. I had been here before. It was weird. There was a part of me that I felt like I had been meeting here for years. Had I been sharing my dreams with someone every morning?
All my life, I had been doing that. And then I had just blocked a whole segment of it out. I wondered if it was a deliberate choice on my part or something else.
The memories of the night came flooding back into my mind. Then I realized that everything else that happened to me yesterday was a continuation of my dream. I could not be sure.
Still half-asleep, I groped at the air in front of me and swiveled my hand around in front of my face.