Sleep.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made of and our little lives are surrounded by sleep”, said the Tempest to me, as I woke suddenly as if from a car crash. I’d noticed him lurking in the shadows of my mind for some time, but here he was, as real as mustard, in my bedroom.

          “…dreams are made of? Am I a fantasy of my own making? I do seem to sleep a lot these days. Perhaps that’s the only way to truly exist?”

          “No”, said the Tempest and returned to his game of checkers in the corner of the room, with Hamlet, who seemed to be taking an age with his next move. There’s just no reasoning with wizards, I reasoned to myself and left them to their game.

          Outside, the sky was a carpet of sparkling diamonds. My mind was racing with notions of “I am because I sleep”, so I didn’t notice the guy in the machine circling above my head. Until he nearly took my head off.

          “Sorry, my bad”, he shouted, as he wrestled desperately with the primitive flying object. He seemed to be fighting a losing battle and sure enough, two minutes later, he crashed spectacularly into the side of the cliff I was standing on. I looked down and watched as he somehow walked away from the wreckage.

          “Are you alright”?

          “No. That shouldn’t have happened. I think I may have underestimated the stress levels on the propellers. I need to invent some kind of electronic counting device to help with the calculations”.

          “Why don’t you call it a calculator”, I said, trying to be helpful.

          “Alright, I’m the inventor round here”, he replied, rather curtly, and proceeded to get out his easel. “D’you mind if I paint you; you have wonderful bone structure”. But I had already left.

          I sleep therefore I am. Yes that’s it; that’s what the Tempest meant. I am only real when I dream.

          “No”

          I looked up and saw the Tempest scowling at me from my bedroom window.

          “Who will rid me of this turbulent wizard”, I muttered under my breath and quickly ran around the corner. I carried on running until it hurt. Until my lungs felt like they had an Alien in each of them, ready to burst out of me, like the man in the film. Until I couldn’t see the wizard anymore. Until I wanted to wretch with the effort of it all. Until I felt alive. Until I saw King Solomon, sitting on a giraffe outside a huge Temple.

          “I’ve been looking for you”, he said, as I fell to the ground desperately inhaling delicious gulps of air, as though my life depended on it.  “You’re late”.

          “What time is it?”

          “Its time for our meeting. There is a time for all things, my boy. A time for being late and a time for being early. There’s also a time for being on time”.

          “That’s all…..gasp, gasp…. very well, but when do I know…..gasp….when the appropriate time is?”

          “That’s a very good question. Usually after the event, as a rule”

          My breathing began to steady as I thought about what he’d just said for a moment. “I’m sorry I’m late”, I finally replied.

          “Very good. You’re a quick learner. The choice is sometimes ours, but the timing is not always in our hands. Stop chasing the wind, it’s futile. Just breathe”.

          “Are you the wisest man in the world?”

          “Wisdom, too, is a chasing after the wind. Just breathe, my boy. That is all U need to know”.

          I climbed on board the giraffe and we travelled for miles. He told me many fantastic stories and I listened intently. He spoke of shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. I asked him if all this was a dream. If any of it was real. But he only said, “The time is now, my boy. From dust we are born and to dust we will return”. Before I even knew it, he had gone and I was alone once more.

          “No”.

          I recognised the voice, without having to look up.

          “Why do you keep saying that?”, I said to the Tempest.

          “Because we are such stuff as dreams are made of…….

          “…..and our little lives are surrounded by sleep?”

          “Exactly”.

          So, I dimmed the lights and soon nodded off.