The Whisper

Someone spoke into my ear, whispered clearly, a man’s voice I think, deep and soft, but I didn’t quite get it.  It woke me from my sleep although I don’t think I was quite there yet, just at that in between space between sleeping and not sleeping, that comfortable, warm trance like state we seek when attempting to meditate and switch off the world.  I sat up and looked around the room for the source of the whisper, looking into the spectrum of grey mist and shadow.  The moon was bright and the large sash window cast shadows around the room, but they were just shadows, everything being familiar and as it was when I turned off the light. My cat Eris, watched curiously from the bottom of the bed, I could just see her outline and feel the warmth of her body stretched across my feet and although I couldn’t see her face I knew she wasn’t amused at the interruption.  I’m sure it wasn’t my imagination, I know the voice inside my head, it’s been there all my life, it’s me, sounds like me and thinks like me.  This was different, a voice close enough to be in my head but just outside.

I wasn’t frightened which surprised me, I felt almost privileged but disappointed I had missed the message.  I waited for the voice to come again, speaking out loud into the darkness, hoping for a repeat whisper and wanting to understand the reason behind it.  Silence filled the room, trees swayed silently in the distance through the window but even the usual noises of the city seemed to be muffled.  I strained my ears for the sound of anything, a heartbeat maybe but nothing but the slight drip from the tap in the bathroom down the hall.  I lay down again on my side, hair tucked behind my ear, searching the large mirror to the side of my bed surveying the room, watching for the movement I knew would not come.

I slept, without interruption this time, a sound sleep of a familiar dream, the dream I have often although it varies it’s the same repetitive dream.  I’m travelling across water and as I look down waves crash powerfully against a shore.  Sometimes I’m in a plane and occasionally I view the scene from a cliff or somewhere high above floating.  But I always see the water and its always moving and deep, somehow communicating, the white froth of the surf against the blue of the sea as it crashes against land.  As I travel tonight I am aware of the silence, the waves should be loud but they are not, it is as if the sound is turned down. There is always a house, not ever the same but the house is always large with many rooms of which I have to travel through.  During my many journeys through this dream, I have visited castles with huge dome like ceilings, family homes, churches and old farmhouses and I have walked through all of them searching for the room I am supposed to enter where I will find an answer.  The dream is sometimes frightening and sometimes pleasant, the atmosphere changes from room to room, I occasionally linger in a room, run from some and through others.  Tonight the house is old and the walls are cold stone, I hear my father talking to his wife in the distance but I don’t see him. My father is usually in this dream, due to arrive or just leaving but I always catch a glimpse of him although it is my journey and he too is travelling.

I wake and lay back on my warm pillow, molded by sleep, I breathe in the new day.   Through the window the old tree moves gently in the wind as it towers above the city buildings.   I think about the voice and wonder who it was, I’m certain I heard it, that it was a man and it was familiar.  I ponder also on my dream, I didn’t find what I was searching for but I will travel there again I know this with certainty. Eris wonders around the room, brushing against the bed, as is her routine, she is waiting for her food, as if I could forget.  Slowly I push back the duvet, hold it aloft as I step from the bed and head from the room.  I stop with my hand on the door and look around once again……………………………..