The Mystery of Before

The morning comes slowly, first with a faint glow growing in the sky above the fence, then lifting to prod the feet of clouds as if to wake them and raise their rain heavy weight up off the horizon. My body fills the contours of an old chair, positioned to catch the first rays coming through the window to see off the long night. There are times when I feel that the darkness will never end, a thick black pall falling across all thought, but it goes and I begin to take in the day. Some trick of memory assembles me again, puts me in a familiar place where I know where the cups and the coffee beans are kept and somewhere in my mind a gallery opens with wall after wall of familiar faces and pictures of the past, time stamped and strung out way back to where all becomes an impenetrable blur, nothing more than a dreamless sleep out of which I emerged as me from the mystery of ‘before’.