■ 1 ■

I’m lying on a cold ceramic floor, and with all my strength, I attempt to focus and listen for any sounds that I might recognise. I try to grab them like a drowning man grabs a twig, but I struggle to hold on to them.

I feel too weak for this.

 I think that I have fallen. My head may have hit the edge of the mirror cabinet, and I'm pretty sure that I must have been unconscious at some point.

Everything around me has withdrawn into greyness, and I am staring at some harsh bright light that hurts my eyes.

It frightens me that I cannot move.

How long have I been lying here? I must try and remember to find out. I must treat recollection as an ally, an old friend, to find anything there that could clarify my condition. I need to know what happened? Did I, for instance, slip and hit my head on the mirror cabinet? But should there then be some wound? If there is, I cannot feel pain. And I cannot touch my head to find out as I cannot move.

Was I unconscious? How would I know as unconsciousness is not part of memory?

I try to look around through the glaring bright light. There is a mirror, and above it, against the wall, a clock pushes its second hand upwards after its descent. Approaching thirty, the clock knows that it needs to rise. I feel that this ticking sound guides me to get up too, but I can’t, or at least it feels that I can’t. I have no feeling in my arms or legs and no pain from the wound on my head that surely must be there as I do not doubt that I cleaved my skin when I cracked my skull on the bathroom cabinet.

I must try harder to remember. What is the last thing I can recall? It might be difficult to categorise my recollections in a timeframe since what happened first is not necessarily the first memory that pops up in my head. Some jump out like a jack in a box, and it surprises me that though they appear to scare me, I have no feeling, so fear is absent.

Since I cannot move, there is nothing else for me to do but wait for recollection to come while I lie on the cold ceramic floor.

While I stare at the ceiling, some more memories arrive. Perhaps not really in plural, as I wished, but one is certainly there. It should be a start.

It seems I was in a restaurant. I can see myself walking and opening the door. I step inside, and a waiter greets me. I think I know him. His name is somehow there, dangling in front of my eyes like a donkey’s carrot: tempting me, piloting me in. Around him are colours displayed in turquoise green and white. A sharp light hurts my eyes. It seems to abduct me and tows me away from this restaurant, and the waiter whose name I can’t recall and I’m back onto the ceramic floor.

Could this be the bathroom in the restaurant? Am I still there?

I look around (moving only my eyes) and recognise the bathroom as my own; the turquoise green tiles, the mirror, the toilet with the broken lid in the corner. I am sure that I’m in my own house.

I force myself to pull that memory back into my mind and to go back to that restaurant: to me entering, to me being greeted by a waiter whose name I can’t remember, and to me walking—walking towards where?

I try to cling onto the memory, but it fades like a waning dream. I try to awaken it, but every time I do, something burst open like soap bubbles, and I’m dragged back on the floor. I try it again. I need to focus, I tell myself, and once more, I’m back in front of the restaurant; I’m opening the door, but only for a second, and then I’m lying on the cold ceramic tiles where the white light greets me. Though the light is bright, it presents itself in shades of grey and monotonously bends towards dusk. It is almost as if the light tries to devour me, and I can feel how my breathing intensifies.

The weird thing is that I’m aware that I’m lying on the floor, but it doesn’t feel right. Again, I seem to be in the restaurant. It feels real. It feels as if this isn’t a memory and that I’m actually there, but I’m sure that I imagine this and that it is all happening in my mind.

Again, I walk inside the restaurant, but this time everything becomes more vividly coloured as if a fog has lifted, and again a waiter greets me. This time I can hear the sounds more clearly. It is rather noisy, and I can see two men starting a game of pool. The thunderous clamour of balls rolling toward the end of a wooden drawer suggests the start of a new game. Like a bat, I scan my surroundings, and while trying to repeat reassurance, I’m waiting for its echo. I recognise the two men and I know that they will be playing a game of pool. It feels that everything I see seems to have already happened and everything that has happened, I have seen, but I have forgotten the sequence.

Where does this memory come from? Is this a memory, or am I actually in the restaurant? I’m sure that I’m lying on my bathroom floor, but at the same time, I’m greeted by a waiter and can clearly see two men lining up the twenty-two pool balls. Is it possible to be in two places simultaneously as if I were caught in a quantum superposition?

 While the thought briefly occupies me, it is pushed aside by a white glistering light, reflected by some fragmented glass that is shattered all over my bathroom floor. Together with the pieces of glass, I can also identify a toothbrush, but I have to force my eyes to the left corner to see it. I realise that doing this can give one a headache, but I can still feel no pain, and I’m still unable to move my head or my hands and legs.

Should it be essential to ask myself if I am paralysed? Would that be more vital than finding out what has happened? Why I’m lying here? Why can I not feel any pain or even move? I’m trying to lift my finger, but I don’t know if I did it as I cannot see it. Perhaps I’m moving my toes instead, but there is no way for me to find out.

I tell myself that there is more comfort in memories, and again I try hard to leave this bathroom floor to go back to the restaurant. Doing that seems to erase discomfort, which is a strange thought as I still cannot feel anything, so where does the notion of discomfort come from?

I open the door of the restaurant, and the waiter greets me. I step in. I am inside. He greets me by waving his hand and speaks words I cannot understand. I cannot shake the feeling that something is missing: something that seems necessary to restore my memory. Could it be that I need to go further back in time and visit what has happened before the waiter greets me and before I walk into the restaurant?

Suddenly an image of a beggar pops into my mind, and while this happens, I see him sitting at the far corner of my bathroom. I think I remember him. I believe I’ve met him somewhere at Cape Town’s Waterfront, and while I come to that realisation, he unexpectedly disappears from my bathroom’s corner.

Is the beggar a vital part of my recollection?

I remember him eating a loaf of bread and saying something about modesty. But while he is in my memory, I am, in fact, at the waterfront. I can feel the ocean’s wind browsing over my skin and hear the seagulls squealing their arguments, but as with the restaurant, I think that something is missing.

I remember (or can hear) the beggar comparing modesty with a river flowing in the direction of an ocean for the sole reason that the ocean lies lower. I don’t know if this association is significant or where it fits in, but while I see him sitting at the pier and staring at some yachts tied to the docks, I am vastly aware that I am lying on the hard ceramic tiles of my bathroom floor.

The beggar sits on a concrete block. He leans against a traffic light and says that everything flows to what lies lower. The boats are directing their bare masts towards the clouded sky, and his back is bent forward. It is as if he is praying, and I could be tempted to do the same if I believed that praying helps. Cars stop for red and orange, while green hurries them to move on. While it is strange to see the beggar, it would have been weirder if he was not there. That would have been the same as nothing by itself has no existence. Pedestrians would have stopped and searched for what they have never noticed, for what they have never missed. They would have wondered about the change. They would have asked themselves if anything was missing, but they would have failed to understand it because they had never looked at the beggar in the first place. Egoism blinds. Egoism masks our surroundings, and though I can see him, at the same time, I despise his vagrancy.

What purpose does he have than to annoy me? I hate his rootless-ness and would spit on him or would sneakily kick him as though I were in a football game thumping my opponent. But would the referee notice it, like Karma or God would?

Everything flows to what is lower, the beggar said. Though I seem to remember that, while sharing his knowledge, he had asked me for money, and like paid sex that soils the orgasm, it had made his Taoistic message worthless.

I’m back at the restaurant and sit at a small round table. I seem to remember that I’m lying on my bathroom floor, but that seems like meagre imagination.

The waiter takes my order: a Cajun Chicken salad with a Castle Lager. He safety-checks the items on his notepad, and I still can’t remember his name.

It is rather noisy, and the two men at the pool table breed loud and vulgar uproars. It feels as if I can taste their commotions. Their sounds clatter into my mouth while swelling up my tongue and clinging to my palette. The flavour is almost metallic. The clanging click from the iron shaft a man with short hair pushes in to release it tastes like rusted iron. Seconds later, a fragrance of mushiness enters my mouth. It is the thunderous noise of balls rolling toward the end of a wooden drawer. It suggests the start of a new game. This sound also enters my nose, and it smells like a tropical cloudburst.

I can still feel nothing, and though I can move my arms in the restaurant, my-self in the bathroom is undoubtedly motionless. This thought worries me, so I silently repeat reassurance and wait for their echoes to ease my mind.

The man with the short hair positions the balls in a black plastic triangle on the table and arranges them according to colour: the turquoise green first, then the bright white ones, and finally the grey. The black ones are missing, and while I think they should be there, the fact that they are not, appears to remind me that everything I see has happened in the dreams of a man lying on some cold ceramic bathroom tiles.

Someone yells: ‘I’ll be right there, Steve!’

I wonder if I am asleep. Is this a dream, and am I lucid? For some reason, I feel that any minute I will be woken by a woman’s voice on my clock-radio announcing that road accidents in South Africa have gone down by twelve per cent.

But if I’m dreaming, why am I sitting in a restaurant while waiting for my Cajun Chicken salad and Castle Lager to arrive?

A couple of tables to my left sits a woman who wears her long black hair in a ponytail. The elastic only ties it together at the bottom end, and so it spreads thickly to join way below her shoulders. A bottle of diet coke stands in front of her. It’s half empty (or half full as I struggle to see the difference). She reads a book written by Irvine Welsh.

Am I dreaming this too? Am I dreaming that she is beautiful, that there is something unconventional about her? But that is not the word I am looking for since it does not entirely do her justice. Unconventional is rather negative. Enlightened sounds better. She seems enlightened like the hippies some decades ago and like the Rastafarians now.

I am aware that I’m staring at her. I can see that her eyes are small, her nose pointy but distinct. She has an almost oval face that appears relaxed while at the same time, distant and cold. She wears a black waistcoat which is too short for the white T-shirt she wears underneath that only loosely conceals her figure. It is almost a stylish sloppiness that borders on nonchalance, and although anarchised, it still looks orderly and neat. I am sure she listens to piano music: possibly classic and rapide like Chopin and Liszt or maybe Maurice Ravel. Her fingers are delicate and long, nearly bony, but not knobbly, so she might play herself.

Am I making this up like the man on the bathroom floor is making me up, or am I’m the one who is making up everything?

The woman with the long black hair in a ponytail looks at me, but it is clear that she does not see me. Perhaps I am not there, or am I merely invisible for beauty, non-existent for grandeur?

Could it be that I am the beggar? Is this something to consider, or is the thought too absurd?

Light only reflects when touching an object and the blackness in the whole devours gravity and matter.

Why do I think about this? Does it even make sense? I wish that I am the dreamer and that someone wakes me up, but at the same time, I can see soothing energy encircling the woman at the table left to me, and I feel that I don’t want to leave here. She radiates confidence, and though it casts brightness throughout this dark space, it makes me feel lonely as it seems to reflect my true self.

The waiter walks over to her table and asks a question. She looks at him (smilingly) but shakes her head. Two menus lie on her table, so she must be waiting for someone, but I cannot see a ring on her left hand, and the waiter walks away. Something is said about an ambulance, and I wonder if the woman with the black hair is waiting for me? Is this something to consider, or is the thought also absurd?

‘I’ll be right there, Steve!’ a man yells.

‘Fuck!’ I hear the other pool player shout and can only just see the white ball on the pool table tumbling into one of the holes. He has a tattoo on the soft skin between his thumb and index finger. It looks like a symbol of peace, but I can’t distinguish what the drawing represents as the distance is too far.

His accent seems Irish, so he yells: ‘Fork! Fork!’ as the ball misses its mark while his competitor (some years older) arrives. The man chuckles quietly, pats Steve on the shoulder and takes his two turns.

Someone in the restaurant vomits, and the man with the tattoo asks his partner if he has seen it. The woman with the black hair tied together gets up and offers the sick man a paper handkerchief. When she walks back to her table, she looks in my direction and smiles, but I’m sure she cannot see me as I know that I am invisible. If I’m not, she will surely have to say goodbye when she leaves, and that really scares me.

Is this a memory, or am I dreaming? Perhaps I have met her before, and though she resembles all the women that have left their footprints while crossing my path, I realise that she is different. Perhaps I have cherished the memory of this woman in the restaurant. Why else would she be here? Why else would I chew on reminiscence like on a meatless chicken bone? Perhaps I have tried to bury the memory of her, though the scabby dog in me must have dug it up now that my anguish is growing and mutilates my lawn into a deep pit. Perhaps I am plunging into that pit and falling a bottomless fall before reaching the cold bathroom floor and waking up?

Lying on the ceramic tiles, I stare at the ceiling. I can see how it moves, how it shrinks and swells as if it is breathing. It floats on the waves of the ocean and sinks towards humility. It plunges on top of me and crushes me against the floor. It seems to suppress me into humbleness, and that on its own is not a pleasant sensation.

Almost intoxicated, I observe the remaining people in the restaurant. While I look at the pool players, the light coming from the lamp above the green table converts them into colours. They spread out like a rainbow, and their shapes attach themselves to the walls. The brightness tires my eyes. There is white and grey and everything in between, so without a doubt, there must be black.

I wonder if this frightens me, but I cannot recognise it as I have no more feelings left.

Why don’t I feel anything? Did I hurt myself? Have I been disconnected from everything like a loose electrical wire, and must I wiggle it like a flickering light bulb that needs tapping for it to hurdle back to glow? Which one must I do to wake up; to remember or to forget!

Perhaps my memories need categorising and be adequately arranged so I can move forward. However, forward seems to be a bit arduous when one cannot move at all.

Have I fallen and hit my head on the bathroom cabinet? Am I lying on the bathroom floor, or am I in the restaurant? How can I find out? Trying to remember it will not offer any more clarity in the same way that dreaming you’re awake doesn’t make you realise you’re asleep.

In the same way, as gravity pulls water downhill, my thoughts are pulling me down. I try to fight them by thinking things like: eternity is mathematical, but that doesn't seem very meaningful, and therefore the thought is not strong enough to keep me away from the bathroom floor.

I try silence and waiting, but not for long as I’m afraid that if I stay too long away from the restaurant, the woman with the black hair will no longer be there. Silence always sneaks up without a sound, like the falling tree in the abandoned forest or like the earth’s rotation around its axis. It is almost as if it isn’t there when you don’t listen.

Intoxicated with annoyance, I look around. I see the heavy bathroom furniture in the murky dimness of the room, the mirror above the cabinet, and the ceiling that rises over me. A ceiling feigns protection. No one ever looks at a ceiling since one needs to tip one’s head backwards, which will provoke the illusion of instability. It is not a pleasant feeling. Therefore, the ceiling remains insignificant. Unless, of course, when you wait.

These are thoughts that I drag out of silence. Hazily they fill the room and pat my shoulders. They soar like flies and stick against the window. I am trying to fight this dream, but water cannot defy gravity, and so it drains me as it pulls me back to the pool players who swear and yell that fear kills everything.

Or do I dream of them saying that? Do I dream of them saying that only when you don’t have any restrictions, you can find true freedom and that everything else has the mere function to paralyse you?

Is this all a dream? Do I make this up? Do I concoct the Irishman asking his partner: ‘Did you see that? Did you see that chap over there puking in the bloody restaurant?’

Have I invented him dropping his cue on the green-carpeted table and bellowing (more or less pleased): ‘Fork man, what are you doing?’

A man, leaning with his left arm on his leg, gazes at the floor. Sweat drips from his forehead and saliva from his mouth. In front of him, spread out over the floor, lies some vomit. His right knee touches the floor, and he looks like a knight receiving decoration (or like a priest in prayer). While his stomach contracts, his body quivers. Embarrassed, he glances around. He glimpses at the people in the restaurant who, without any exception, have focused their attention on him. Then he stares back at the floor.

The young woman with the long black hair drops her knife while she stands up to lend him a paper handkerchief. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks, but at the same time, her face displays revulsion.

In the background, Bob Marley sings that everyone has the right to decide their destiny, but how can one decide on what has already been determined?

The man mumbles an apology by explaining that he must have eaten something wrong. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she interrupts, and when he wants to give her handkerchief back, she refuses to take it.

The waiter picks up the knife, and an older woman yells: ‘Can someone please call an ambulance!’

The pool players have lost interest. They end their game and walk up to the bar. The man named Steve orders himself a Hunters Dry, and their voices, inspired by alcohol, become louder. ‘There I was,’ I hear Steve say, ‘chatting up her friend, so at the end of the evening, I couldn’t turn around and hit on her!’

The older man laughs. ‘How did you do it?’ he wants to know.

‘The next evening,’ the Irishman recites, ‘we were sitting outside on the balcony, and she told me about her boyfriend. She said that in a couple of day’s she would fly back home. I asked her if this boyfriend-stuff meant that I was wasting my time.’

The waiter brings me a second Castle Lager. I must have eaten my meal since it is no longer in front of me.

‘She answered, yes!’ Steve continues. His friend roars with laughter. ‘So I thought: I have nothing to lose. You have no idea how the world opens up for you when you have nothing to lose. Fear is the biggest restriction. It kills everything, and I think everyone should simply do what they feel like. I told her about my ex-girlfriend. You know: that she is going to Jamaica with her new boyfriend? I spoke to her about yoga and even about sex. Do you remember that chick in Durban: the one with that staggering black body? She was only eighteen, but man, it was the best sex in my life! That’s what I told her.’

The young woman stands up and walks towards the toilets. Her skirt disturbs the little table and the bottle of diet coke while trying to preserve its balance, bounces like a child playing hopscotch. She quickly grabs it, smothers it to tranquillity, and I wonder if I know her? Could I simply walk up to her, shake her hand, kiss her on the cheek while light-heartedly enquiring how she is while speaking simple words like: ‘Hi Anna,’ or ‘Hi Cindy,’ or whatever her name is and complain about the weather, the sun, the rain and the mist on top of Table Mountain?

But what if I don’t? What if I don’t know her? Should I then walk up to her anyway and introduce myself? Should I say something witty to break the ice and ask her for her phone number?

‘No!’ Steve hollers. ‘I’m not joking! I swear, man, fear ‘forking’ kills everything. It’s so much more refreshing to live without restrictions. Can you imagine how many years I’ve wasted? I see everything far clearer now. Every morning I get up and do my yoga. I try to visualise one thought: I am love, I am full of love. It helps man, I ‘forking’ swear.’

‘But how did you do it?’ his friend insists impatiently. ‘How did you eventually get her into your bloody bed?’

The Irishman leans backwards, supporting his elbows on the armrests of his chair. He unfolds his hands and, like male behaviour among gorillas, spreads his arms wide open. ‘I simply asked her,’ he smiles roguishly, looking at his mate while waiting for his reaction.

I order another Castle Lager: my third one.

Am I perhaps drunk, and is this why I have collapsed onto the bathroom floor? Is that the reason why I sense a lingering headache without me being able to feel the pain?

‘I don’t believe you,’ the friend wails, amplifying his surprise by slapping his thighs, repeating: ‘I don’t believe you just asked her.’ But he does and only says it as a manner of speaking.

Steve laughs and leans forward, explaining: ‘At the end of the evening, when everyone had left, I told her that I was tired and that I wanted to go to bed. I simply asked her if she felt like coming with me.’

The other man asks what she said while already knowing the answer.

‘She said: “Excuse me?!” the Irishman replies, relaying the facts. ‘She looked at me and said: “Excuse me?!” He mimics how she must have held her head to one side: raised eyebrows, puppy dog endearing, and his friend cries with laughter. He wants to hear it again and again, so the Irishman repeats: ‘Excuse me?! Excuse me?!’

‘And then?’ his friend wants to know, and Steve leans backwards, receiving admiration appropriate for the mightiest hunter of the village. ‘Then she followed me to my room.’

The young woman returns from the toilet, and while she leaves the restaurant, she passes my table, but I avoid her glance by staring at my drink.

That is surely not what has happened.

Memories can be tricky: they lead their own life if you let them. They change every time you remember, and the woman must have said something while leaving the restaurant. She must have left her number behind. How else would all of this make sense?

Unless this is a dream, I would not know any other explanation. But if this is a dream, would I then be aware of me being asleep? I have never given it any thought, and now that I want to, I am too tired. Am I awake when I observe myself sleeping? Perhaps I am dreaming up the woman in the restaurant, or could she be dreaming up me? Are characters in a dream conscious of them being part of it? A lot has been written about lucid dreaming, but there are so many things that I don’t know and still have to learn. One cannot have knowledge without insight because wisdom brings you where instinct isn’t allowed.

Was it perhaps me who felt sick in the restaurant? Is that something to consider? Would I know if it was me who rested my arm on my leg; touching the floor with one knee while my stomach contracted; my body quivering for some attention? Did I vomit on the floor next to the woman’s table while receiving her handkerchief, and at the same time, her contempt?

In my imagination (or in my memory, how do I know the difference?) I can see her leaning forward, whispering in my ear: ‘Phone me,’ and writing with a blue ballpoint some numbers on the back of my hand.

I lie on the bathroom floor, and there is nothing left but a dull buzz enclosing me. This time the noises metamorphose into colours and sound like silver, like light grey. The mirror, devoured by grey mist, is unable to show any reflection. I gulp for air while trying to regain control, but suddenly, a violent rumble shakes the building. It almost looks like the bathroom breathes because the walls shrink and swell.

I still lie on the cold ceramic floor, and the beggar leans against a traffic light, but I am sure that this is impossible. I am unable to move, and he chews his loaf while breadcrumbs sputter on my face. He speaks words of humbleness, and while I try to ignore his Gandhian philosophy, I gaze at his wrinkled skin. I can see how his blue eyes are enclosed by the coarse leather that layers his miserly bones. His trousers are ripped, his shoes dilapidated. I follow his every move. He sits in the corner of my bathroom, and it feels like he has been there all the time. The only reason why I haven’t seen him before is that I’ve never looked. At least, that is what I tell myself.

What is he doing here?

He stops eating and folds his hands in front of his mouth as if he wants to warm them. His thumbs support his chin, and his index fingers obstruct the holes of his nostrils. It looks as if he’s meditating. He breathes heavily through his mouth. It makes an almost distorted sound. He seems to speak. His voice feels warm. He smiles while he emits words while he secretes them through delicate air. Words too frail, too weak to carry themselves to my ears. He stares at me; never lets his eyes rest.

He speaks again, and like smoke from cigarettes, text hovers towards me. I try to read it, but it is too vague. I can distinguish some of the words. I decipher: ‘Do you?’ It must be a question, I think. I focus again and read: ‘Do you still…? …Do you still think?’…

Do I still think what?

… ‘Do you still think of…?’ and then it is there: high pitched and screaming! It is as if someone is about to hit me because blood flees from my face in fear of pain. I feel sick and know that the beggar can see this. His question, like the venom from a puff adder, disrupts me. It assaults my strength; it rots my veins and thrusts all perspiration through my pores when he asks: ‘Do you still think of the flying man?’

 ■ 2 ■

A booming, almost roaring noise shakes the bathroom. The whole house trembles, and a horrifying scream bounces alongside the walls. Like an echo, it repeats itself. It reverberates against the ceiling, the clock, the toilet and the mirror cabinet. A glass tumbles, and while gravity predicts its fall, it doesn’t make a sound.

The muscles around my lungs contract, and it becomes more and more difficult for me to breathe. My thoughts want to flee and try to pierce their way through my brain. For the second time, violent noise forces itself forward. The screaming makes me stagger, and I hear someone shout: ‘Look at me! Look at me; I am the flying man!’

This doesn’t make sense, I think. I try to seek support from the beggar. He is still sitting in the corner of my bathroom. He smiles and whispers: ‘Don’t worry; everything will be right in the end.’

When would that be? Does time define any ends?

Again, the house trembles and the glass on the cabinet falls.

It must be gravity, I think. Gravity makes glasses fall. Gravity forces us to be humble. I listen to the whooshing rustle of tap water streaming to what lies lower. It fills up the sink while colouring it in shades of bright and dark red. The colour appears to be pulsating; it spits onto the bathroom floor, and I wonder if this will leave stains on the turquoise green ceramic tiles?

The glass is falling. Inch by inch, it heads for the floor, and I’m unable to stop because I’m paralysed. Instead, I wait for the collision that follows: the jingling clatter of broken glass and also to the clicking noise of metal that I can’t define.

Somewhere in between, echoing through space, is the forgotten cry of a boy announcing that he is a flying man. 

I shiver as if infested with fever. The scream tears itself through me, and I can see an aeroplane tumbling down the hill. I can hear its pilot shouting: ‘Look at me! Look at me!’

The plane falls. The glass falls, and I fall. Or at least I think I fall. I think I am tumbling in some sort of empty darkness where only fear exists. I feel nauseous while the beggar stares at me. I have fallen and have hit the ground. The house is shaking, the aeroplane shuddering. ‘Sorry for the turbulence,’ the pilot says. ‘I am truly sorry!’ and his sentiment, like an elevator, lifts me higher and higher. It catapults me over some sunny white dunes near an undistinguished ocean. The harsh bright light of the reflecting sun hurts my eyes and scorches my skin.

I think I’m crying. I believe that I have collapsed upon my knees, that I am touching the burning sand and that my stomach contracts, my body quivers while vomit piles up in front of me.