Disappear

Into The Dust

Lost On Your Horse

Blown Away

By Your Gust

Lost On Your Horse

I ride my bike. I turn the pedals.

I see you in the country, in a wide open space, lost, looking, making your way. You’ll get there, but it may take a few days.

We’re in the hospital and you’re having a good morning. You’re awake and chatting away, asking for a newspaper, imperiously surveying the world in print.

‘Did you have any dreams?’ I ask.

‘I did. I had that one again where I was lost. Out in the country. Didn’t know where I was at all. Strange. I didn’t know where to go.‘

‘I have dreams that I’m late for a flight. I’m lost in a city and I won’t make the flight.’

‘ Ah yeah – I used  to have them too. That’s quite normal.’

I remember you teaching me to make a list – to check it off, every time I travel. Then I can’t go wrong. The same as I do now before a bike ride. A mental check list of what to wear, what to bring. What to leave behind.

Desert Land

Under The Sun

Lost On Your Horse

Like A grain of sand

Lost in your storm

On The Crossroads Make A Left

Lost On Your Horse

I have a dream. You’ve been gone four days. I’m at home, in the house, with everyone there, milling around. There’s noise and chatter, hubbub and mill. I come into the TV room and there you are: sitting in the corner chair, watching TV. No-one else can see you, just me. You wink at me and smile. Tell no-one, you seem to say. I smile back.

I ride my bike. Turn the pedals. Heaving and wheezing, I gasp for air. I hear you gasp as I do. In the sound of the rain, I can hear the bed moving in the dark. In the Garmin pulse, I hear the beep of the heart monitor.

Too bright to even see the sun.

More and more sand in my eyes

Too bright to even see the sun.

More and more sand in my eyes

Too bright to even see the sun.

More and more sand in my eyes

I have a dream. You’ve been gone seven weeks, but we are on the bus, going through Clontarf. It’s a warm sunny day. We miss our stop, turning on to Seafield Avenue, because you’re asleep in the front seat.  You’re wearing a white shirt. You’re younger, not as I saw you before the end. I walk up from the back, I wake you and we go down the stairs together, getting off the bus. As we walk up the road, we’re holding hands. I’m trying to get you home. But I lose you somewhere on the road and wake up.

Racing On The Desert Dunes

I Chase You Like A Moon

On The Crossroads Make A Left

Lost On Your Horse

I have the dream again. I’m trying to catch a train. I’m late, running, trying to throw my bag into the arms of someone leaning out a window, but it’s too fast. It’s gone, a distant, mocking doppler effect pulling away from me. Panic, connections, exchanges, lines over lines, coloured lines on wall maps. Where the hell am I?

Fuck it, I think. I’m walking. And I do. I walk and walk and walk, taking turn after turn after bend after crossroads after light after beep after step after step. And… I get there. I’m actually there. I don’t know where it is or why I am there, but I did it. I get there. And I wake up.

I ride my bike. I turn the pedals. Harder and harder, lift and push, pull and thrust, a perfect circle, the tarmac grinding beneath me. I can hear you talking as I ride, I can hear you telling me it’s OK. ‘It’s OK love, it’s OK. You’re doing great.’

Music and lyrics: Arabian Horse, by Gus Gus.

Image: Camino. Taken in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. (c) Damien DeBarra, 2015