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The distinctive and unbearable noise of my iPhone alarm blurted out and, for a split second, my heart sank as I thought I've got fifteen minutes to get up for work. Usually, I would use the snooze button and roll over, leaving me with just twelve minutes to get up washed and dressed, and be out of the house for 05:15 am. Still, this time I got my phone out of my pocket and saw the 05:00 time stamp on the alarm and, with a smile to myself, I used my thumb to flick the notice to the left, selecting ‘dismiss’.
I looked over to my mate Barkley, as I reached into the icebox right beside me. The beer cans were floating in a pool of lukewarm water along with a few dead insects and crumbs of food, remnants from our last camping trip.
“No work for me today,” I said, as my smile turned into a cheeky grin for my mate. “The last can and then I'm going to have a couple of hours kip.”
I threw Barkley the can. It was like slow motion watching the can spin 360 degrees over and over heading towards him, hurtling through the air. It was joined by an incalculable amount of water droplets from the icebox all heading in his direction like a meteor shower. His instant reaction was faultless as his right arm shot out and caught the can mid-spin, closely followed by splashes of tepid water hitting him across the face and into the eyes.
“Az!” Barkley moaned in a teenage childlike groan elongating my name to ‘Aaaaaaz’, wiping the water from his face.
Az, that's me. Aaron Abbey. 43 years young. Happy and content with life. My mate Barkley Brown, or BB, and I have known each other since primary school. Year four to be exact. My parents moved houses to a small village called Redgrand, North of England, in the county of Yorkshire. I moved schools and joined Yellow Class with Miss Hallam; I had just four more weeks at school before we broke up for the six-week summer holidays. For the first four years of his school life, Barkley had always been the first name read out on the register. On the first day at my new school, Miss Hallam introduced me to the class and asked me to sit at the blue table. Miss Hallam, a young teacher in her early twenties with light brown hair which fell to just above her shoulders, and a perfect straight fringe that sat just above her eyebrows, slowly and gracefully took a seat at her desk and opened the class register.
“Aaron Abbey,” she said, her voice so lovingly and authoritative at the same time.
I replied with a hearty, bright, and enthusiastic, “Good morning Miss Hallam!”
In response, the entire class erupted in laughter. I wasn't aware that my new school didn't have to wish the teacher a good morning or a good afternoon. Instead, a simple ‘Here Miss’ met the requirements. As the laughter subsided, and Miss Hallam embraced my response yet trying to hush the class down and save my embarrassment, we heard the most whingey cry ever. Sat across from me was this boy with dark brown hair and the most significant set of dark brown eyes to match. His hair was long and rested just on the top of his shoulders, cut to just above the top of his prominent ears, which poked out of his dark wispy head of hair. His dark brown eyes were laden with tears and mucus running down his nose. The first tear landed on his He-Man jumper as Miss Hallam from her desk shrieked out, “Barkley Brown whatever is the matter?”
BB could not speak, but carried on wailing with the only recognisable word being ‘first’. His sobs subsided, wiping the snot from his nose and smearing it across the bottom of the right sleeve on his He-Man jumper.
After a second, BB stated, “I’m the first name on the register; not him. I’ve always been first.”
I leaned forward across the table and made clear, direct eye to eye contact with him. His pupils fixed on mine as I said, “Don't worry, you will always come first to me.”
I don't know why I said it, or if I even meant it, but from that very moment we sealed our friendship. His face changed shape as his facial muscles started to relax from a fixed frown, stiff and angry-looking. The corners of his lips turned up until there was a big smile on his face.
We’re now in our early forties, and we have made some great memories between us. Some good, some bad, but one thing that never changed was our getaway weekends. We had recently found a perfect spot for the tent, and had frequented the same place for the last six months or so. It was right on top of an old quarry; it was perfection. We could see for miles from up there, and with no light pollution. The ideal spot for camping.
The area was a conservation project back in the '60s, converting the former quarry site into grassland, woodland, and heathland providing a much-needed habitat, and the perfect place for Barkley and me to pitch our tent.
We were on our regular ‘getaway weekend’. We would throw our basic no-frills tent into the boot of Barkley's car. The tent was mainly used if it rained. We usually just fell asleep in our camping chairs, our ice-cool box filled with cans of beer, disposable BBQ, and some food. Nothing too fancy. It was mainly just junk food to nibble on. On our getaway breaks, we would sit in our camp chairs, get very drunk and talk crap all night until one of us fell asleep in the chair. Our disposable BBQ would double as our campfire when we had eaten, and we’d take it in turns to go out and fetch dry wood supplies to keep it going. I say we take it in turns, but in reality, I would send Barkley out on the hunt if it was my turn; he rarely said no.
The sun was just about to break. On the far end of the horizon, there was a lighter shade of darkness in the sky. I was so tired. I'd just worked a double shift at the hospital the day before and I had not slept for nearly forty eight hours.
Barkley got up from his chair and said, “I'll just get some more wood. Let's see if I can keep this going a while longer.”
By the time Barkley got back, I had finished my last can of beer.
I looked to him and said, “Right, I'm gonna have a couple of hours sleep”. As I said, we usually fall asleep on the chairs, but I just wanted to lay down and stretch out a bit and put my head on a pillow. My sleeping bag had a built-in pillow; it was about five years old but was pretty much brand new, barely even used. It was purple, and when it hit the light, it had a very high golden glossy shine. It was a cheap fabric that caused me to get electric shocks whenever I turned over during the night. The static spark would illuminate the tent with a quick flicker; enough to hurt my eyes when the sharpness and brightness hit my dilated pupils. I crawled into my sleeping bag. Listening carefully, I could hear Barkley raking the new wood on the fire, and the zip on the tent door that was rolled up to one side hitting against the metallic tent pole with the breeze.
I turned over - got a static shock, and I closed my eyes.
***
I HAD NO THOUGHTS. I had nothing. I could see nothing. I could hear nothing. I was asleep; unconscious. I was out like a light.
In the next moment, I felt like I was being electrocuted but without any pain. All of my senses became activated at one hundred percent capacity. To be honest, it felt more than one hundred percent and if there was a bigger scale to measure it on, I would. Maybe a million percent would have been more accurate. There is no other way of describing the amount of energy that came through me.
It was like a bolt of energy that entered at the back of my head, right at the top of my spine. It went straight into my pineal gland, and straight through my hypothalamus. I did not even realise I knew what my pineal gland or hypothalamus was, but at that moment, right then, I understood every part of my human body. I felt like I was standing in front of the most powerful amplifier at a concert as it was being turned on for the first time, booting up. It felt like the electrical energy the amplifiers convert into sound boomed into my chest.
My eyes, skin, bones, every part of my body, experienced this magnitude of vibrations travelling throughout me, my mind, and soul. Light and darkness expanded around me. Both light and dark at the same time. I could not understand how I was able to experience both light and dark, and all the colours in between, all at the same time. Up was down and down was up. My skin felt like it was on fire. Yet, I felt no pain. Every cell was alive, and I knew and could feel and experience each one in my body right down to my DNA. Past my DNA even, into my nucleotides and to every atom that made my human body. For the first time in my entire life, I was aware. I was self-aware; aware of myself in a way I didn’t know was possible.
I knew I was on the floor with only the plastic base of a cheap tent and my sleeping bag between the earth and me.
I could still hear BB muttering to himself as he continued to rake the fire, keeping the embers alight. The zip on the tent door continued to clang against the aluminium pole. I was aware of my surroundings, aware that my eyes were closed. I could feel the sleeping bag against my skin, my chest wall would rise and fall, and I could hear my exhalation, yet I was entirely somewhere else.
It felt like I was on this marvellous drug-induced trip. However, I'd never taken drugs of any kind in the past. Not even had a cigarette. I have always been too paranoid and naïve to try anything illegal or try anything that could damage my health. Other than alcohol, of course.
The light and dark and all the colours in between started to change from my vision's centre. I could see what looked like lots of neurons right in front of my eyes. They looked like branches from a tree; pathways in a brain, like synapses moving across each component. I feel like I am one, it's all one. Everything is one. The light. The dark. The gold.
I can see an image. An outline of a pyramid pulsating. It slowly morphs into a skyscraper. At that moment, I realise that time has no connection to the past or the future. The building transforms into an image of the Earth. I am looking down onto the planet as if I am in outer space and I feel connected to the Earth like never before. Connecting. We’re all one.
When I look more closely at the planet, I can see beams of light, billions of individual rays of light. It looks as if someone had pricked the Earth a billion times with a pin and in doing so created little holes letting the light escape from inside, into the darkness of space. It reminds me of a stereographic lampshade. I knew what the light beams were. They were people; I could see each single human and humanoid beings' light source. I could see their souls.
Suddenly, something pulled me in a direction. I want to describe it as being pulled forwards, but I was forwards and I was backwards. I was everything. It was like being pulled outwards; I was expanding. The earth faded into billions of colours. The colours around me formed a tunnel. It wasn't the kind that people describe in a near-death experience. It was more like a chamber. Swirls of light of all different colours surrounded me, spiralling. The light energy surrounding me was intense. I can't describe it as a feeling. ‘Feeling’ felt too human. In this state, there were no words to describe how I was feeling. It was pure love, light, magic, divine, words I would never use in my human life.
I knew I wasn't having a near-death experience because I was still aware of my physical body on the ground. I could have remained in this chamber of love and light for eternity.
As I floated in what seemed to be a healing chamber of some sort, one of the colours that swirled around me formed into the shape of a human hand. It was a deep orange and gold, with glimpses of red, like the sun changing colour as it greeted me. The love emanating from this hand was indescribable. No love on earth could ever meet this intensity. I wanted to hold my hand out to greet this hand, but I realised I did not have any hands at all. For the first time, I realised I was a ball of energy. I too was energy swirling around observing, loving, knowing, being. I imagined a hand of my own reaching out, and as I did, the deep orange, red and gold hand pulled me. This time, I could feel I was being pulled towards this energy force, the feeling of euphoria overwhelmed me.
I felt this presence, this energy force, observing me. Loving me. The surroundings of the healing chamber dissipated and transformed before my eyes into my childhood home. I recognised the small living room straight away. The now-dated nicotine-stained wallpaper, both my parents were big smokers. I saw my mum’s ornaments and pictures hanging on the wall. The now unfashionable furniture, our grey carpet, and red rug in front of the council fitted gas fire. I was home.
I instantly knew the light being had created a place where I was at my happiest. It was a place in my life where I felt safe and secure with no worries in the world. As I took in my new surroundings, I felt the same euphoria as I had earlier. It felt like I was back on Earth, but I knew that I wasn’t. This was a construct. It was a construct I felt the being had created for me. If I looked closely at my childhood living room, I could see it was like looking through the bottom of thousands and thousands of empty glass Coca-Cola bottles, with the light and colours shining through to create the illusion of my living room. It was like looking at a TV screen with a magnifying glass, and you could see all the different coloured pixels which made up the image.
I looked at my hand and realised I was still holding this hand made from light. The hand then slowly took shape as it formed an arm. A chest and torso. Legs and feet. And, lastly, a head and face.
“Hello again,” the being said.