Answers In The Night...

Last night, I laid uncomfortably contorted against propped up pillows waiting for sleep. My back ached. I stared into the dark, counting off seconds. I searched the darkness for slumber, for a way to cast off and drift away into dreams.

And then, quite suddenly, I found one...

I woke several times in the night with tack-sharp stings of pain. The tightly bound skin of my recent surgery would smart with every unconscious move of my body. I do not remember much of these interrupted dreams – just a bright, bleaching light and honey-colored stone.

Half a dozen times, I found myself transported to and from this place of light and stone. And then finally the dream was allowed to play itself out. I was standing in the middle of a place I've never been before. All around me were people dressed in robes, speaking languages I did not understand. Waves of heat radiated against me. Sour smells mixed with sweet aromatic ones. Flanking me to my right and left were stone walls, the color of sand. It was hard to make too much out. The light stung my eyes.

I navigated the bazaar of sun-browned faces and unfamiliar speech. I found a corridor lined with straw baskets and made my way down the cooler, shadowed path. At the end of it was a figure. My eyes strained to adjust to the shadows and I saw someone that was both stranger and recognizable. I saw my own face looking back at me. It wasn't MY face though. His was older. His was wiser. The set of his jaw different. His was one that had endured much and wore the evidence of it.

And then I realized, that I was looking at my brother.

I haven't seen my brother in twenty years. He told us he was leaving one afternoon and that he wasn't coming back. He disappeared from our lives completely. We do not know if he's alive or dead.

In my dream, I saw my brother. I was struck with the wave of emotions. Anger, relief, happiness, sadness... everything came at me like a fist. I stood in the diffused light, trembling uncontrollably. And then he spoke in a voice that I have not heard in twenty years...

"It'll be all right."