QUESTION:

"Where do you go to my lovely, when you're alone in your bed?"

Those moments before sleep- sometimes I think this is the only time one is ever truly alone. Whether sharing the bed or sleeping solitary, whether embracing a warm body or a pillow; one's thoughts drift inward.

I, instead, take what I call "flights of fancy." I transport the here and now someplace else- where everything is just as it should be; else I rehearse different scenarios till I am satisfied I have created the perfect one.

In response to the day's events or to a recurring theme, off I go, visualising. I've travelled the world this way- maybe partly because physical travel has been off-limits to me or at best one disastrous near-attempt after another, for many years now.

So I may be in Tuscany one night... sitting on a stone terrace sipping Chianti and staring out at the countryside. Or the wilds of Ireland... standing on a cliff-edge, watching the might of crashing waves below. Or if in need of heat, I may well traverse the Pacific and idle on some speck of an island fringed by a reef. (No, not alone, I have the perfect companion ever on standby.)

I am not one to mull over things this time of night (or day, as is often my case). I seek escape those moments, not more immersion in whatever troubled me the preceding hours. I know some people use this time to assess; go over the day's events. Maybe chew on some problems. Not me.

I like to end my days far from events and conversations and confrontations and the minutiae of random issues needing to be dealt with. Usually with him- this to counter the solitude of my reality.

And. In case I don't wake, I like the idea of my final conscious thoughts bearing a contented smile...

Where do you go? Are you a muller, or an escapist? "I want to get inside your head."(sic)