The braying of the alarm clock tore me away from restless sleep. Head still swimming with the concluding images, I reach a wavering arm to the end table to silence the incessant shrieking. A fitting “welcome back” to the present. Laying in dark silence on my couch for a few minutes, the memory of the dream fades away.

Sitting up, I push my tangled bed-head from my eyes with a yawn, strings of dehydrated saliva and the taste of phlegm clinging between the roof of my mouth and tongue.

The image of myself in a past life working as a slave in an Ethiopian coffee field flashes through my head as the aroma reaches me from the kitchen. The wonders of modern coffee brewing technology – set the timer and it does it for you. The dull pangs of hunger bubbled up in my gut.

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