snooINSERT

Beneath the waiting sun the journey continues. The balloon continues to warp a way through thin air. A breeze is nothing compared to the floating drift that represents the journey. A tule dove slams into the side of the basket. We�re loosing altitude. I look alarmed and the dog whimpers. Peering over the edge I see a gathering of wigwams.

Clouds of smoke arise from the settlement. We�ve moved on. A cold sensation creeps through my body as I breathe in some of the smoke. I instinctively cough � but I can already feel it pumping through my blood. Icicles being pushed through my body.

My eyes water and the vision flickers on and off. In and out of focus. There�s two shapes when there was one � not as clearly. The dog falls asleep. The postbox just is rooted. I stoop to my knees and with my last ounces of energy plead with him. �Please. You can talk. I know you have a broken heart and are incomplete and pain drips from you and collects deep in you like water in a bath. I knew these things. You need a few seconds under a halo of love. That�s all. But...please navigate this balloon down safely or glide away from this smoke. Please! I will help you find the filler you need�just please�

I�m engulfed in a hazy world that comes down like a blank curtain over a transparent stage. I fold and my body bleeds with the barriers of thought. All gone � I sleep.

Jagged half sleep contains weird dreams. A guy in a Levellers top mows a field. He asks the word �why?� on every push of the deadly contraption. He seems to be crying. Every now and again he picks up a bunch of grass and hugs it in his arms. He�s destroying the only thing that he loves so that it may grow back stronger. Still it hurts � but then cut to him as an old man waltzing through a field of thick grass stalks. He knows that if he hadn�t cut it then, a romantic teenager in a Levellers top, this would not be possible. Harsh sacrifice for wealth. But it was a risk as it only took a purple hale when the grass was at its weakest to kill it forever.

This fades into a man eating a pineapple. He doesn�t eat it all and stares out of a glass window into the street where everyone is moving backwards. Squiggling along the pavement in jerks. He has the power to change the course people are taking- but he�s enjoying his food too much.

Then the dream world fades up into something else. A fresh taste of real. Like lucazade for the middle ages. New. Sweet. Unnecessary. I can�t hold the memory for long, even though I force myself to a form of wakefulness.