It was early morning when it visited me - two hours after midnight. It must have called to me in my sleep for I surfaced from the surreal depths - awoken by Wonder.

For an hour my body lay limp while my mind fidgeted frantically with uncomfortable thoughts, as if trying to scratch an insatiable itch - awoken to wonder.

Trying desperately to comprehend the senseless suffering endured by so many and ultimately asking myself the question : "Why not me?". It is surely far more common to find a person in tragic circumstances asking themselves that time-honoured question : "Why me?".

I suppose my question arises more out of a subconscious fear : what is stopping these things from happening to me? What separates me in my circumstances from those who find themselves unwillingly thrust into a virtual hell on earth? A disquieting sense of insecurity wells up inside of me. Suddenly becoming so acutely aware of one's vulnerability leads to an almost irrational anxiety. The statistics are more than likely in my favour but this thought does little to assure me.

Foolishly yet almost instinctively one scrutinises the lives of such victims of fate, trying to find something they have done which could somehow have deserved them such suffering. Introducing morality into the equation is the mind's desperate attempt to try make some sense of what must otherwise be totally senseless.

Somewhere, right this very moment, in a maternity clinic waiting room, an anxious father-to-be paces relentlessly back and forth, anticipating the arrival of a new-born child. So too am I expecting a delivery - waiting for some answer to be born of my mind's perpetual labour. But, like being offered vinegar to quench a desperate thirst, my hopelessly disappointing attempts at answers are like a miscarriage to a first-time mother. I guess they too were born premature. It shall surely take an entire life-time to even begin to fathom the whys and wherefores behind it all.

Now, after an hour of this, I cannot take it any longer! I must break free of these doldrums. My mind does nothing but stagnate in this quagmire of negativity. My bed which was at first warm and secure has now become claustrophobic. I feel imprisoned in it as my mind feels imprisoned within this slough. In a violent gesture I rip open my stifling cocoon. My duvet I thrust to one side. My mind is free.

I take it outside where a chill air greets me as I venture forth clad only in shorts and T-shirt. But it's an exhilarating feeling which I welcome. In stark contrast to the unnaturally abstract realm of philosophy and thoughts on the ultimate meaning of existence, this sensation is concrete and has a striking sense of immediacy. I'm not merely a mind thinking on the subject of life but I, myself am actually alive. Quite profound, or what?

I must focus my mind upon inspiring things. A dose of the starry night sky is always good medicine. Like the nasal congestion suffered by a flu-victim, my mind has become clogged with superfluous thoughts and worries. But now, as I gaze into the vast open universe, I can feel my mind opening up. A heaviness hanging over me has been lifted. No longer am I being crushed under the weight of weighty topics. The relief is almost indescribable. I can breath again.

Look! From behind an unseen horizon, growing like an invasive fungus over the mantle of the night, an ominous darkness, like an inexplicable hole in the sky, eats at the Milky Way, swallowing vast galaxies of stars. Yesterday was wet and, although the sky is mostly now open, another off-shore front approaches. The air is still chill from last night's rain. The air is still........................................

From way over the dunes, I cannot see the sea, though it fills the still air with an inarticulate ubiquity of sound. If I did not know I might suspect a waterfall. From this distance there is no definition - no rolling timpani, no cymbal crash of a wave, no hasty shshshsh....eeet of foam rushshshsh....iing to the sands. The sea's melodies merge into one.

There's always a shooting star to be seen - provided you stick around long enough, that is. It's not that they're particularly rare. Quite the contrary! I'm sure there is a veritable colony of them up there busy buzzing around like a hive of bees. It's more to do with having one's eyes glued to the right patch of sky at just the right moment. But, no matter in which direction I happen to be gazing, I always have this paranoid feeling that the most spectacular shooting star might be just outside of my vision, covertly sneaking its way into the earth's atmosphere. If you do perchance catch a glimpse of one, the likelihood of you finding yourself staring it smack bang in the face is quite remote. More than likely it will tease you from out of the corner of your eye. And, in the split second it takes for you to turn your head to where you think you saw it, it has already made its getaway. Then you're left with that niggling question of whether it really was a shooting star that you saw or just some randy, pheromone-crazed moth caught in the glare of a seductive night-light.

A strange feeling comes over me as I stare into the compelling cosmos. Like repeating a word to oneself until it finally loses its meaning, as I fix my eyes on the midnight sky their focus drifts in and out till I'm no longer aware of what I'm really looking at. It's almost as though I've induced in myself an altered state of perception. One moment it feels as if the stars hover right before me - particles of dust caught up in a shaft of light. The next moment I feel as though I'm gazing so deep into space that I'm seeing past the furthest star - looking right past reality itself. Reality takes on a degree of subjectivity. I'm only vaguely aware that my neck is beginning to cramp something awful.

Why is there no life out there in that sky? Why can't things for once break free of their stale mould? I'd like reality to surprise me for once by not being so predictable. I'd like to gaze aghast into the sky as otherwise stationary stars suddenly perform a dance, leaping insanely about the sky as though, all this time, they had been nothing more than a display on the screen of a video arcade game waiting for me to toss a coin into the slot. Twinkle, twinkle, fucking twinkle! Why must they always twinkle? Fuck! It gets so boring after a while. But part of me is afraid to imagine any further . I'm standing on the edge looking off, yet clinging on tighter than ever. I suppose, no matter how distasteful we sometimes feel it is, we do become comfortable with reality.

Cavorting comets! Can it be? A real shooting star rudely jolts me out of my detached state. Under more normal circumstances I might simply be filled with the sense of satisfaction a shell collector might experience at finding that truly rare treasure hidden amongst a multitude of common mussel and periwinkle shells. But, being so absorbed in my state of limbo and on the brink of experiencing the complete dissolution of reality, it comes as quite a shock to suddenly be confronted with the very subject of my imaginings. Have I gone truly hat-stand? Have I finally lost all grip on reality? One moment merely choreographing a cosmic ballet in my head, the next moment seeing the star of the show take the stage right before my eyes. Is this the opening night? The night that reality finally opens up, it's shell which sheltered me shattered, to give way to a flood of insanity? No longer kept in darkness by its veil? Would that it were so!

For the past half an hour my neck has been contorted into the most awckward positions but here it finally is - a real shooting star! Yet, somehow I'm not as enthused as I had anticipated being. After all, it's statistically correct that I should have seen one sooner or later. And besides, it's not quite the same as if the entire Milky Way had suddenly got all shook up.

I'm convinced that shooting stars are somehow painfully shy. If you do happen to catch them off guard, they don't waste any time in making one hell of a hasty dash for cover. Woooshhh, and they're gone. They seem frightfully embarrassed at being seen.