Christmas – 'What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.' – Agnes M. Pahro

The following story is just that, a story, weird and wonderful, or not so wonderful, depending on how you look at it, if, from your own point of view, you look at it as just a story you have come across, if you were to imagine it from the point of a character, the main character, then it may not be so wonderful. It can be something quite frightening indeed.

Christmas is a joyous time though this is not a Christmas story though they say the movie Die Hard is a Christmas movie. This tale just comes to a conclusion of sorts at Christmas time so make of it what you will.

To you, this story is just a tale you have come across, a tale you would not see as something real. To say this is a true story would mean nothing to a potential reader as it is so out there that it just cannot be true ... so I won't argue its place in actuality. I won't argue its humanity, I won't argue its comradery. It is just a story, and I am accounting for it here, a verbal document, or a written document as you see it, and it comes with no proof of authenticity.

It is simply a tale, tall or otherwise. Its telling to be told right here. Take what you will from it, and I can be grateful for any attention it may draw. It may not draw any attention at all, yet here it is all the same. It may one day, pay dividend for someone, in some place at some time or other be it sooner or later from a time such as this.

No point in explaining how fantastical it may appear or anything of the like. Mine is just to tell it as well I can but before I begin a proper, I have some food for thought first. Something to consider before we dive right into the main course if you will. The brightest star in the night sky is still just a star until it is believed to have some kind of significance or other. With all that said, done, and out of the way ... let's get to it ...

Do you trust all of what you see? Is what you see ... reality? How about the screen you are currently reading this upon? Is it an actual screen or are you being duped into only believing that it is? Is it possible that we, as human beings, can and do go somewhere when we sleep either physically or even metaphysically? If so, then where do we go when we sleep? Where can we go in our sleep? Is it possible to live a second life, a separate life, or alternate life in conjuncture with our daily lives as we sleep?

Can you, and do you, trust in all that you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch in regards as to it being in the here and now? What if you cannot trust these things? Then how can you tell where the here and now actually are? The mind works in ways we cannot always understand. It can have its own way of telling us that things are not as they may seem, and we may not be where we think we are or where we perceive ourselves to be. The here and now may not be right here nor even right now at all, so can you and do you trust all of what you see?

And so, it begins ...

1.

Emptiness ... deep and unending. A lack of anything and everything. A belief that all is well and good. Perhaps it is. Belief may be enough for some though it can be unfulfilling for others. Floating through air, a light swim without challenge. The challenge is wanted ... needed ... then –

I awake in a darkish room being totally unable to move. This inability to move comes from a lack of blood flow. The feeling, it is like waking after sleeping all night with your head on your forearm and the blood circulation to your hand has been cut off and it takes a moment or two to get things going as you wriggle your fingers, so imagine having this feeling all over.

With great difficulty, to begin with at least, I attempt to restore proper circulation starting with my fingers and toes. There is the sensation of being stabbed with thousands of pins and needles to varying degrees all over. It is not an excruciating sensation, still it is quite odd, something to be dealt with, not endured.

I don't know where I am and there are no blankets either on me or the bed that I am laying on. I call out an 'hello' to which there is no response, there is no sound at all, anywhere, apart from what I am making. There is too much to think about before I can even begin to consider a how or why to the fact that any of this can be.

It does takes me a while to get any sort of motion to my body and I make the unfortunate decision to move, long before I am actually ready to do so. Yeah, I had definitely attempted to get up far too quickly and to which I just end up just falling to the floor. I let out a roar, more out of frustration rather than due to any pain from having fallen from the bed I was on.

The tiled floor felt freezing cold to the touch, and I had no choice but to stay on that cold floor until I had more confidence in my own ability to move or to get up without falling over again. What was done was done, and what I needed was to concentrate so I could indeed get on my feet safely.

All I am wearing is a gown, the kind of which one would wear as if in a hospital getting ready for some kind of surgery and it did seem that I was or am in some sort of hospital though one which also seemed to be completely abandoned and unfamiliar to me. Had I been brought here due to an illness, or perhaps because of an accident. I am not aware of either so perhaps I might have been in such a poor state that I was to be abandoned too.

There are no obvious signs of destruction within my immediate surroundings, so if there were people here, then they had probably been frightened off somehow but what do I know? What could I know? I am new to this moment, new to this place.

As it is, I eventually manage to make it to my feet and slowly begin to make my way out of the room I had awoken in. Small shaky steps to begin with. Feeling a little stronger now, I begin to walk down a hallway, a hallway with no windows to the outside world; I may just be too far indoors to have any direct access to the outside.

Some of the lighting in this hallway is flickering on and off, suggesting to me that either some kind of damage had been done somewhere, with which I have yet to notice, or that I have been here a long time, so long that degradation has snuck into the electronics, though surely, I would perish before that would happen.

For the first time since waking, I hear sound other than what I am creating for the buzz of the electronics grows stronger. Again, I repeat an 'hello' and my voice just echoes out.

Yeah, I have no memory of how I got here, and I am so much thinner than I should be, so much thinner than what I know I am. So, it may seem I have been here for a long time, this would explain why I felt the way I did when I woke up, but where is everyone? And why aren't I hungry? Odd, it all is so ... odd.

I must have been looked after to some degree, this must be it, I am definitely not hungry, and I am also clean, perhaps I had not been completely abandoned. A strange thing, what the hell happened to my clothes? I guess whatever had happened to my clothing does not matter now for such clothing will no longer fit me.

The last thing I remember prior to waking here is going to bed at home but who knows how long ago that was? It feels as if it could be ten minutes just as easily as it might be ten months, such is the freshness of feeling versus the physical effects on my body. How the hell did I get here? And just where the hell is here? I have been to the town hospital before and this place ain't it. I have so many questions with absolutely no answers.

On with what apparently is going to be a journey of discovery, and I leave one hallway only to enter another adjacent hallway with the choice now of do I go left, or do I go right? That's all I need now, more questions. I am definitely in some sort of hospital, just not my local hospital; I go right, plenty of rooms, plenty of beds, no blankets on any of them and no people anywhere either.

I find some clothing and surprisingly enough the clothes I find fit me perfectly. I keep on moving and can't help but get the feeling that I am being watched and or followed and every time I get a feeling or sensation that something is moving behind me, I turn only to see nothing at all; there still isn't anyone at all anywhere, not that I can see anyhow.