It's a beautiful Spring afternoon and I am driving back home, singing along to a familiar tune on the radio

It's a beautiful Spring afternoon and I am driving back home, singing along to a familiar tune on the radio.

The warm wind is blowing gently through my hair, carrying with it the scent of opening blossoms. A scarlet petal falls onto my sleeve, I brush it tenderly away.

I am picturing Hannah in my mind as I drive. She is wearing white like she did on our wedding day and is smiling that special Hannah smile. She rang me at the office, excited with news, said come home soon. But teasing Hannah would not tell me what it was, "wait till you get home," she whispered in her sweet voice. I won't ruin her good news, I won't tell her what I saw in my briefcase, what lurks in the trunk and the strange man who haunts me. I won't tell her about my sore throat and the fact that sometimes I feel like I can't breathe properly, the air just won't fill my lungs. I won't tell her about the noises I hear, the beeping, mechanical sounds that remind me of my mother's death. She doesn't need to know about the voices I hear or the feeling that I have that I am living another life somewhere else. The dreams I have, the waking dreams of a woman with long red hair and a man with a sword and numbers that mean nothing. Of a great conspiracy I have to stop, of the knowledge that there is something I must do. Something really urgent that I have to do. Hannah must not know any of this because it would make her sad, she would know for sure then that I am crazy.

Like Eddie.

I won't tell her about the flashbacks.

Look I'm having one right now.

I see a door. It has a number on it-19. I slowly push it open. I am in a hospital room where the smells are clean and fresh, lots and lots of flowers everywhere. And there as I cautiously approach her, my white clothed mother hooked up to tubes that make no sense to a twelve year old. She isn't dead, just sleeping, her red eyelids shuttering eyes that went dull a while ago.

Soon I will be an orphan.

There's a squealing sound, a loud screech, the monitors are flashing, I am pushed out of the room by someone, I can't tell who, nurse, doctor. I am too dazed to register what is happening. The screeching gets louder and louder.

I look up. There is a tree in front of me. Why is there a tree in my Mom's hospital room? I hear a voice shout, the words are indistinct, I can't hear properly above the pounding of my heart. There is a man screaming in anguish somewhere and a pressure in my arms. My throat hurts, it is raw with screaming. My arms are heavy and sore. My chest is cold. I slept too long. I dreamt too much in pain.

There is something I have to do. There is someone who needs me. I have a mission.

I struggle to open my eyes again and see a body, I am clasping a woman, a dead woman with curly brown hair. Pulling her against my nakedness, I close my eyes, let the tears fall. Open them again.

The tree is much larger now. There is a thud.

I close my eyes again.