The sun was going down. It was growing cold. With a groan Adam sat up and stretched. The shadow of the great Celtic cross lay across him like a swathe. Rubbing his eyes, he looked round. His stomach was rumbling and he could tell without looking at his watch that it must be time to go home.
He climbed uncomfortably to his feet. He felt disorientated; strange. Slowly the dream was coming back to him.
Was it a dream?
Had he dreamed his whole life?
He glanced back down the hill, trying to get a grip on himself, trying to remember. His mother and father had had another quarrel. He had run away, up the hillside, to his stone. And he had fallen asleep. That was it, surely.
He was a boy, wearing shorts and gym shoes with his binoculars and his life’s dreams hanging round his neck.
Or was he, after all, an old man, a fool, who had gone back to the stone, looking for Brid, the beautiful nemesis of his dream; an old man, whose life was nearly over?
Cautiously, with a shiver of foreboding, he looked down at himself, wondering.
Which was he now, old man, or boy with his whole life still ahead of him? Could he believe his eyes, or had time played a trick on him again?
How would he ever know?