The bath is warm and relaxing. My skin glows from the heat of the water. I’ve always liked a scoulding hot bath. Sometimes I imagine having a dip into that cool clear lake of my dreams, and despite looking for it on many an afternoon’s walk and having asked locals and looking at maps, I’ve never found any evidence of it. That reassures me that I’m only dreaming… But it also terrifies me that I’m only dreaming. I yearn to be able to escape this life. Working every day to pay for bills to live in a house where I work everyday. There’s no sense to it, I exist to work to pay for that existance. And worse, the existance I live isn’t what I want it to be. I never can decide what I want with my life, a husband and kids perhaps, or travelling and seeing the world. Too many conflicting ideas.

I sigh, and no longer feeling the heat from the bath, I start to scrub and get myself clean once more. I start listing the household chores I need to do. The vaccuming, change my bed sheets, unload and refill the dishwasher, and cook some stew to freeze for the week’s meals. Mundane. Boring. Pointless. I scrub vigourously at my body, knowing I will regret the actions but unable to contain my contempt at the chains I have placed on myself. Chains trapping me in this world and body. I could shed them if I wanted… I start at that thought. It wasn’t the wishful thinking of leaving someplace to start over, it was more like actual escape. To be free and live free. No holds, no commitments, just… Just… Just being who I should be.

I close my eyes, lie back in my bath. Could I have the “dream” whilst awake? I ponder, and let my mind clutter my thoughts. I should be out of the bath and dressed. I should lock the door and sit outside. I should make sure I leave a note on the kitchen table in case I go missing… But I want to go missing… I want to run free. I get out the bath. Having made a rough kind of plan I intend to keep to it. I grab a towel from the stack I keep in the bathroom,  mercilessly rubbing myself dry. I grab a clean set of clothes suitable for running about in the forest, I also put a spare set in an old leather rucksack along with a bottle of water, some bread and cheese and some candles and matches. I don’t know why I’m packing the extra items. It just feels right. It’s as if my body knows what to do, and so I let it. I let it write the note saying I’m going to go camping in the woods for a few days retreat. I let it lock the front door and hide the keys under a plant pot. I let it walk me straight into the forest…