Somewhere between waking and sleeping on our journey towards the unfathomable deep, there comes a thin moment where we have one foot in the waking world and the other is in that other world where we relinquish conscious control.
Pausing here and straddled between two planets that drive one another like gears, the attentive traveler will notice a narrow door only wide enough to sidle through.
This is the border of sleep, where imagination and reality are braided together, a chasm in the crust of consciousness, venting the hot pumice of imagery into the irresistible magma of narrative.
Welcome to episode 32 of Stories from the Borders of Sleep, a podcast of curious tales from bordersofsleep.com featuring original stories by your host Seymour Jacklin.
Visit bordersofsleep.com for more information or to leave us some feedback.
Artworks by Robin Trainor, production by Tim Wiles, and the soundtrack for this week's episode is from the album out of the Blue and Into the Amazon by Emily Burridge, and that's available from magnitude.com this podcast is also available on itunes.
So if you're ready to journey with me, then I shall begin.
Calicut's Gift by Seymour Jacklin when the ground shook and the sky darkened, Aniha would stay indoors, and no one would be able to coax her out into the murky daylight.
It's only your father, calicut, clearing his throat, Appar would say to her.
The adults were used to the volcano's outbursts.
Anyone growing up in the village would have felt the ground flowing under their feet and seen the sky choked with red dust four or five times by the time they came of age.
The rumbling and belching would last for an hour or two at a time and return unpredictably for a couple of days, and then there would be silence for a few years during eruptions, the villagers went on with their lives, patiently swept their paths clear of soot and ash, and gratefully ploughed it into their gard gardens.
Even when he sneezes, Calicut blesses us, said Appa, for he believed with everyone else that the fertility of the soil was improved by the ash.
Appa had also told her that Calicut was the father of their island and those that surrounded it.
The old mountain had coughed them up many generations ago.
Small comfort in her nightmares, Ziniha saw the volcano coughing up another litter of huge islands that would fall from the sky and end all their lives.
On this day, as the soils of the island seemed to take on the unstable qualities of the ocean that surrounded it, and the sky was jaundiced with ash.
Aniha had balled herself up with her back against the wall of the hut and her knees clasped to her chin.
She felt sure that on this day, with each fit, the mountain's sneezes were more intense and prolonged.
The ground thrummed in waves like a plucked string.