Ghosts

I had a very surreal and, at the time, terrifying experience this morning. It was about 7.15 AM. I wasn't quite awake yet, but I also wasn't really sleeping. I knew my alarm would go off as it usually does at around 7.45. I would then snooze it till about 8 before I make a real move. Bottom line is, I had about 45 minutes that I intended to spend in bed drifting in and out of consciousness.

I turned to my side, and could feel myself drifting back to sleep. The room, as it always is, was dead silent, and the only light was the omniscent, soft mood lighting that came from under my bed. My eyes became heavy, and I felt myself dosing... In an instant I felt someone get in bed behind me. My heart sank as I regained consciousness. Was that a dream? No. I was paralyzed. My muscles stopped responding. I was being pinned down, and one of my captor's arms held me still from the neck. I needed to yell, scream, say something. I couldn't even turn around to face him. I knew it was a man, because he was singing, in colloquial egyptian, something strange and non-sensical.

Though I couldn't utter the words, my mind started reciting prayer. I was in terror. I gave one big push backward and suddenly I was free, my muscles back to normal.

I sat up in bed, wondering how much of that was actually real. The comfortable answer was: none of it.

I got into my suit, walked all the way to the tube station only to realise I'd forgotten my wallet and work pass. Cursing myself, I walked back to my flat and took a cab. At noon, I had a date with an Australian guy (Mr R) I had met that rampant Friday at the Adams Street priv club (see "Great expectations").

Mr R was pleasant, and very handsome. Perhaps a little too pleasant, but I guess you exepect a certain amount of pomp when you're dealing with bankers. We had a civilised lunch at Carluccio's in the Wharf, where the conversation drifted from personal backgrounds and work, to plans for the future.

As he spoke the heavily accented words came slowly from his mouth. A bustling Carluccio's sometimes made it difficult to catch every single word of every sentence, to the point where I was picking up every Xth word...Like LED banners, the words flashed in front of me in a disjointed and jumbled manner. I lost track of the sentences, and his point.

"Beach"; my brain jolted into the past. D, the beaches of Ras Shitan, of the Egyptian North Coast. Man it was warm there. Man it's freezing in London today.

"Bank of New York"; walking for what seemed like miles from SoHo in New York downtown to the financial district with J. Why does NY just get better weather than we do?

"Music teacher"; a high school crush, one of those deeply psychotic ones where you never tell anyone about it and just obsess for hours. Listening to my CD player (remember those!), a pubescent teenager going home after badminton practice on the after school bus.

"Lamb stew"; I don't like stew. Tried it once where it was actually decent. That was with JD. That asshole.

This went on for a while. At some point I think Mr R realised my gaze had become strange, as if I was looking through him, not at him. He realised he was talking too much.

We walked back through the Canada Square mall to the underground entrances of our respective buildings. Where the path forked I thanked him for an enjoyable time and sincerely expressed my wish to see him again. We decided we'd keep in touch as to the next opportunity.

As I walked into my building, I realised that perhaps the concept that ghosts live among us dull humans isn't entirely inconceivable. Here I was attempting a civilised early lunch, and in many ways all I did was bring my ghosts to the table. I'm fairly certain that, to some extent, a ghost or ghosts followed him to that table too. What happened this morning in bed, if on any level 'real', was a mere extension of this presence, probably induced by dream-like mode.