Sitting on a train, a window seat towards the rear of the last carriage, and fifty minutes into a three-hour journey, I stare out the window and soon begin to daydream. Outside the train, the view is magical. The multitudes of fields all freshly cut along with many barrel rolls of hay tightly wrapped and scattered throughout, provide such a backdrop that it is so easy for one to lose oneself in a daydream. The smooth relaxed sound of the moving train also makes it easy to let the mind wander.

The varying shades of those barreled mounds of hay differ greatly almost from field to field, how such a thing could be mystifies me, bright golden yellow to a dark orangey brown, stunning in the late spring sunshine.

With sunshine comes bright light, a bright light which at times can be quite blinding. Patrick Calderwood finds himself surrounded by brightness, a brightness that was, is everywhere and Patrick has no idea as to how he got to wherever it is that he so happens to be. He cannot remember the moments prior to this moment that he does indeed find himself in.

'What the ...? What's going on? Where am I? ...' he speaks out loud, shading his eyes.

The moment really begins to take him, in more ways than one too, for Patrick begins to levitate. He grunts with surprise and stretches out both his arms as if he were attempting to catch his balance. His head moves frantically, searching to find what it is that could be deceiving his senses. There is no deception, not by whole at least.

By now his eyes have adjusted to the brightness, for at this point it no longer blinds him. Without knowing what is going on and without being in control, Patrick begins to move forward. Images surround him. At first, he sees them as if these images are in his mind rather than being in a particular place. These images are images of beauty, a person, a lady.

'Who are you? Where am I? Where are you?' he asks to no one in particular for these are still only images. 'Are you an angel? Am I dead?'

Still levitating, his forward motion would slow, and the images soon become a presence. She is below him sitting, putting on make-up in front a mirror, the kind of mirror you would find in a theater dressing room. He calls out an 'hello' to her, but she does not react. It is as if he isn't anywhere near her at all, but he is, maybe it is her that is not really there. She must be, she has to be.

Patrick opens his eyes and is once again blinded by a bright light. This time his eyes adjust a little quicker. Rather than levitating and looking down, he is laying on his back staring up at a ceiling.

'Hello' he calls out in somewhat of a panic.

'Try not to move sir' speaks a soothing female voice off to Patrick's right side. 'You are in St. Luke's Hospital.'

'St. Luke's? Why am I here?'

'First of all sir, you have nothing to worry about. A doctor will be in with you shortly to inform you as to why you are here.'

The nurse begins to move away.

'And second of all?' asked Patrick.

'Excuse me?'

'A moment ago, you said first of all, I just presumed that there must be a second of all.'

'Oh okay' spoke the nurse being unable to stop a smile from appearing on her face, 'it is just an expression sir, that's all.'

Patrick sees a clock hanging over the doorway to the room he lays in. It is eleven o'clock. There is a window in his room, and it is bright outside so the time must be in the morning. He adjusts his position slightly to make himself a little more comfortable then closes his eyes. The next moment he is aware of has a male voice calling his name. Patrick had fallen asleep and apparently, he slept for six hours. The first thing he sees upon re-opening his eyes is a man in a white jacket holding a clip-board, presumably the doctor and the second thing is that clock he had viewed earlier. This clock does indeed show that it is almost five o'clock.

The doctor asks a couple of questions, questions pertaining to Patrick's history, his own and his family's, for why it is that Patrick is in hospital and feeling so tired is due to the fact that he had been sleep-walking and had been found wandering almost a mile away from his home.

'Goodbye Doctor' calls the nurse from outside the room. Her shift is over, and she is done for the day.

'See you tomorrow, Valarie.'

Valarie Evans wraps her long beige jacket around herself and buttons it up all the way, for it has begun to rain, a light hazy rain. She lives in an apartment which usually is a fifteen-minute walk away from the hospital but on this particular day she walks quicker than normal because of the rain, but she does not run. She is going to get wet one way or another so there is no real point in running home as far as she is concerned.

The rain has darkened the sky somewhat so as soon as she does get back to her apartment and lets herself in, she turns on a light. She takes off her jacket and hangs it on a rack just inside the door then grabs a nearby hand towel and starts using it on her face and her shoulder length black curly hair. Next order of business is to head to the kitchen where she opens the fridge and takes out a carton of milk which she pours into a bowl that she soon places on the ground.

'C'mon Jess' she calls and fairly soon her ginger and while striped cat comes out of hiding, going straight for that milk.

Continuing to dry her hair, Valarie looks out the kitchen window. Not only is it not raining outside but it appears to be quite bright, but that is not the half of it for what she can see is not what she should be able to see. Outside the kitchen window is a large field freshly cut with many barrel rolls of hay tightly wrapped and scattered about.

'What the h ...?' she asks out loud as she stops drying her hair.

I come out of my daydream and just in time too. It is a little after five o'clock and my train journey has come to an end, for the train itself has come to the end of the line. There are four other people in the carriage that I am in and we all more or less stand up at the same time. What I see makes me smile. Two men and two women, one of each had been sitting together across the aisle and a row down from where I had been sitting and the other two are a little further down the carriage.

Now why should any of this make me smile? Well, the nearest two people to me just so happen to look exactly like Patrick Calderwood and the lady at the theater style mirror from his floating vision, and the other two just so happen to look exactly like Nurse Valerie Evans and the Doctor from the hospital where Patrick had come to be.

I had seen their stories play out in my head, but perhaps the stories I saw are not actually theirs but what, on some subconscious level, believe their stories to be.

It is so very strange how our minds work, and how they can pick up on things to place in the likes of our daydreams, how very strange indeed, and pleasant too. What is stranger yet is how life itself works for when I get off the train a ginger and white striped cat comes right up to me as if it knows me somehow, the name on the cat's collar is 'Jess', life is indeed a very strange thing.