The Writers' Circle

I

Have you ever.
	.Woken from a dream, a state of consciousness so similar to reality as to render the two realms practically indiscernible. As the world conjured within the confines of your skull expands at incomprehensible pace into the world beyond your eyes, you flicker between what stands before you, and the lingering reverie of your sub-conscious imaginings: grasping at the edges of soft thin memories in the hope of clinging on to some solid sensible image. Your sensory reconnaissance faculties; scouring the concrete world for sense data and relaying it to your mind, conjuring fleeting images from the blooming, buzzing confusion around. The mind slowly awakens to its responsibilities, shaking off the settled night dust and stretching its languorous cognitive limbs, in preparation for its perpetual task of interpreting the phenomenal world. 
Underneath your body your skin presses against the soft green grass; the sweet, smell of early morning dew, washing the pungent aromas of natures morning into one intoxicating miasma and permeating your olfactory consciousness. Vibrant oranges and yellows bear down upon your sensitive eyes, forcing them open to a squint as the morning sun, slowly revealing itself to the slumbering half of the world, scorches your fragile, confused eyes: eyes accustomed to darkness, shocked by the pain of mornings brightness. You roll your head to one side to hide your sensitive face from the intensity of the sun; the dew-laden grass beneath you brushes against your lips, wetting the dry splits. Running your tongue around the bone-dry, cracked lips, you recognise the taste of blood: salty, dry, metallic. The sun, slowly progressing to its midday resting place, makes you evermore aware of the cold damp earth beneath you and a chilling paroxysm grips your fragile, confused body.

Out in a field, sunlight slowly tripping and spilling over the tufty hillocks of moss and sporadic patches of scrubland grass, lay a body. It had lain for maybe two or three of the sun's glorious arcs, so the skin was parched and cracked. Dust, grass and shingle, the body's bed: the hard earth, a most unwelcome resting place, an unpleasant waking would follow this last of the stretching shadows. The body, stiff, cold and anonymous slowly bent at the waist and raised its sleep-sodden head. The torso and face bore untraceable scrapes and bruises, reflected in the countenance, wincing at each burning ache that accompanied even the most delicate muscle movement. Lengths of dark brown hair jutted and flowed without regularity, faint remnants of a parting suggested that the unkempt style was once neatly partitioned; the body bore no resemblance to civility now. Blurred shapes, colours, outlines, are all one, an immeasurable mass of sense data, filtering through the receptors and falling, falling, falling onto the hard exterior of the brain as if the tightly furrowed, pensive brow were clenching the very muscles of rational thought: the data cannot be categorised, nothing can make sense, our innate concept of unity means nothing if reason cannot divulge sense from our surroundings. 

The head turned stiffly from side to side, slowly, surveying its surroundings, each movements reciprocity, an agony of aches, burns and arid, grinding bones, as if the very joints had been scorched dry by the intensity of the sun: now at mid arc, intense and unforgiving. It had taken the best part of the morning for the body to gradually inch its way upwards into a stable vertical position and it now stood, swaying uneasily in the light breeze. Turning its gaze inwards, the body took stock of its own condition. Though the body was evidently damaged, the lacerations and bruises appeared not to be the greatest source of discomfort, in fact, they resembled little more than scrapes and bumps. Yet, even the slightest movement was enough to prevent its thoughts stretching beyond kinaesthesia. Untraceable discomfort is undeniably a cause for concern, in most cases that is, however, the disillusionment of such sensory ambiguity offered in this particular scenario simply added to the sense of utter disembodiment felt by the upright figure: deceived by his senses beyond any logical reconciliation. Overwhelmed by unbearable pain and confusion, the body collapsed to its familiar resting place with a sudden uncanny limpness. In a futile attempt to protect its head from the unforgiving earth the body struck out an arm in a gentle protective curve. The attempt had little effect as the head, removed of the support of its weak neck thudded against the hard soil and stones that lay compacted beneath the grass. The guardian arm, now draped listlessly across the face, bore to the dull, rheumy eyes its naked wrist, upon which, in passing glimpses between intermittent lapsing consciousnesses, the eyes noticed several marks, engraved in ink much like a tattoo but with the drab artlessness of a barcode or registration code - 0-0-1 T-A-V-I-A - L-E-H-N. The characters blurred and the mind slipped back into darkness.

***