Nope! Still too much to do and not much time. And we have visitors here, at my ‘real’ job – so I’m just catching a few moments.

And tell you a story: but it may take more than one attempt.

It’s the Hay Festival going on right now. And, maybe that’s the key.

I’m not at the Festival, as such, but, rather near there. Or, at least, staying at the Crown. This is a pub/hotel. Even if this is not THE Crown, as in the one in Hay itself, it’s close by. I know this because the bar is packed with festival goers and authors and others. There are lots of people I know and I am fast becoming quite drunk. It feels as if it is my birthday or something. As if it’s a party for me, even if it’s not.

Then a ‘blast from the past’ walks in. A guy named Mike. He used to be one of the company’s trainers but I knew him when we were trainers well before that. He had a drink problem. A serious drink problem. We tried very hard to patch him up. The last I had heard was that he had finally solved the problem and the drink problem was no more.

It was unexpected, seeing him.

“Hi Mike!”, I said. I grinned because it was so nice to see him. However, he seemed a bit shifty. I asked him how he was. He evaded the question. I asked him again but he wasn’t giving an answer.

Then K walked in. Another surprise. We chatted for a bit.

Then someone rang the telephone at the bar and asked for me.

It was John. For some time we were owners of the company until one of the recessions took hold and John left to become a contractor. We had remained friends after that. Again, John had worked at the same company as Mike where I had been a trainer. So we all knew each other quite well.

“You’ll never believe it”, I exclaimed, “but both Mike and K are here”.

I went on to explain about Mike seeming a bit down and pondered whether it was that he had taken up drinking again.

The call ended.

I went back to the place where K and Mike were and told them that John had telephoned. I was really happy to have had the chance to speak to him. It had been many years.

Then, someone said:

“But, didn’t John die some years back?”

Ah yes, in both my drunken stupour and the happiness of this whole evening, I had forgotten that John was, in fact, dead, having died some years ago.

“How strange”, I said. It gave me a slightly weird feeling.

But I shrugged it off. It had certainly ‘been him’ on the phone and, yet, it couldn’t have been. Ah well.

The night carried on and I carried on drinking. At one point, I went to the toilet. As I walked in to an empty Gents, I heard someone coming in as well. I turned round. It was John!

“John”, I said, “What are you doing? Are you trying to scare me or something?”

He didn’t reply. That may have been because, although it was certainly him, dressed in a long raincoat, he didn’t have a head.

“C’mon John”, I asked, where’s your head?”. And I laughed.

I went back to the bar. There, sitting at a bar stool near to where I had been was P, John’s wife! I couldn’t believe after what had happened that she was here! Standing behind her was R, her (and John’s) eldest son.

“P”, I exclaimed, “how lovely to see you!”

I went on to tell her about the strange phone call and then seeing him, headless, in the bathroom. She started to weep. I know they were close. I turned for a moment at some distraction. When I turned back, she and R had gone. I went looking for them. I really didn’t want P to be upset over what I had told her. I couldn’t find them.

Later still, I was very drunk. I don’t remember going to my room but obviously I got there.

In the morning, on waking, I found that my room didn’t seem to have a bathroom. I went out of my room door which opened into the bar area where they were already serving breakfast. I went up to a waitress.

“Excuse me’, I said.

“I don’t have time now Sir. Please wait your turn”. She was abrupt. But I needed the bathroom. And I needed to shower. Today I was going home to F and I wanted to go home. I didn’t feel particularly bad (i.e. no bad headache, etc.) but my mouth was all ‘fuzzy’.

“Look”, I replied, tersely, “I don’t want breakfast but I do need the bathroom and there isn’t one in my room”.

“It’s the door round the corner of your room”, she replied, seemingly annoyed that I seemed so stupid.

I went back to the room. I went round a corner into a small area that I had failed to notice before and, sure enough was the door.

I went into the bathroom. I went to the mirror. I was looking at myself to see how I looked.

Except the mirror image wasn’t looking back at me but had its head down, so I could see the top of my head. I needed to force myself to lift my head. My forehead seemed abnormally large, more like an alien than a human. God, I thought, I must be feeling much rougher than I thought!

As I raised my head, my eyes came into view. A shockingly piercing but slightly dark blue set of irises looked back at me. Almost with malevolence. The blacks of the pupils seemed to be much blacker than usual and bigger – but this blue of the eyes was unreal.

I needed to shower. From the bathroom was another door. I didn’t want to go out and ask again. I found the door locked but one of the keys on the hotel key fob opened it.

I was outside. Into a garden. But the garden was also the shower. There were shower heads dotted around the garden with soap near each one. As I walked nearer to each shower, the shower started automatically. The temperature was perfect, some had aromatic smells, some plain water, some had coloured water. I started to shower.

Then some other people came into the garden. They wore swimming costumes. I didn’t know there were other people allowed. One of them said that I shouldn’t be naked. They had been told to always wear a costume. I explained that I hadn’t been told that and went to another shower to continue showering.

But this John thing was worrying me. I mean, what did it all mean? This was starting to resemble some sort of ghost story thing! I wanted to get home.

But what of John? And what the hell was I doing, naked, trying to shower in a GARDEN?

I woke up. It was, in fact, about half past midnight, last night!

As some of my weird dreams go, that has got to be one of the very strangest. As F said, when I told him a little of it this morning, it resembled a Tim Burton film!