Dark dark. So bloody dark! You didn't remember the dark being this poorly lit!
Honestly, they should really put warning signs on the dark...
"WARNING: May Contain Low Wattage."
You sigh. Of course, the dark is dark. You've been too long away from it, that's all.
You pause and look around for bearings.

The house is definitely over......there!

Or maybe that way..

Or it could be over there......


Ah well, you've been going mostly uphill for a while.
Logically, home must be down which is, in your humble opinion, quite a good bit of deduction
for this particular brand of Early Morning and Little Sleep.

You set off with sleepy determination firmly downhill.
Ah yes, you know your way now. That tree looks vaguely familiar.
And that sky...still very much where it was just a while ago.
But now a real bit of familiarity prickles at your mind.
That swing....it was yours. And this old lightning-struck elm....you remember that night.
The thunder, the rain, hiding in the closet for fear the lightning would come in the windows and get you.
With that memory comes the knowledge that you are most definitely going the wrong way to the house.

Oh well, you came up into the mountains to escape
the routines of your life back in the city.
It would never do to tell your colleagues back in town that you chickened out and went back to bed.
NO! These are your woods and no amount of big-city spoil-ation
will ever make you quake in fear in this your womb and cradle!
Downwards and onwards!

Your path down the hill is surprisingly nimble,
with only a few skids and scrapes.
As you reach the stream in which you searched for minnows so many years ago,
more than a few hairs on the back of your neck stand up at attention.
This stream used to run down between to hills.
Now the hill that you were heading for,
the hill that hid so many childhood transgressions is GONE!!!

This makes little, bordering on no, sense.
Before you where once was hill is a meadow.
A beautiful meadow, you are not mistaken.
But definitely not a hill!


Ordinarily, you would go back to bed and worry about it in the morning but
tonite has become a journey of proving yourself. Of transformation
from that worm who lived in the city to a proud monarch of the forest and glade.
These thoughts erase any thought of immediate flight back to your pillows and
you gaze out across this miraculous meadow.
The stars and moon sparkle in the stream which now meanders out through the grass.
You smile as some of the wind dances up off the grass to carress your face.
You step out into the ankle-high grass and enter the meadow.