He felt the environment close around him. His closest by his side but a thousand times removed with the turn of a page and the strum of a guitar string.
Sunlight broke through the dust streaked glass, the heat of it seeking out the areas of his body most affected by its earlier attention.
A million different thoughts broke the air around him. Each one lapping over the other as the travellers around him screamed silently at the departure announcement board. His so called gift felt more like a curse at times like this, when a collection of hundreds surrounded him and unknowingly had the same violent thoughts. The words different but the end result was the same.
"Four Hours!?!?!?!?!?!"
Eloquent or gutter slang it didn't matter, the emotion was the same.
He turned up the volume on his personal music player and breathed deep as Grant Lee Buffalo smothered the surrounding anger.
After a five hour coach journey through the island's mountains and two hours in a queue to watch all his belongings be carried by conveyor belt into the darkness, the news that his flight, yet scheduled for two hours, had also been delayed by a further four hours had invoked sentiments clearly shared by his fellow travellers in the tiny crowded airport.
The sickly smell of cheap, hurried food wafted through the cramped room. Grilled cheese, burnt bread and the odour of repeatedly fried oil did nothing to appease his mood nor lesson the cramp in his stomach caused by over hunger.
Occasionally, a fractured thought insult filtered its way through the barrier that he had tried to create, as people slowly lost their temper and hurled mental jibes at the people they were supposed to love the most.
It occurred to him that if everyone followed through on their thoughts that the prisons would be full. No-one imagined hurting a stranger as much as they imagined torturing those closest to them.
He realised that he had been reading the same paragraph of his book for the past twenty minutes and sighed slapping the pages closed.
He needed to get out of there.
He turned to his partner and was dismayed to see that she slept soundly. He envied that of her. If she was able to remain still for more than five minutes then she was able to sleep whereas he required absolute darkness and absolute silence. The odds of him finding peace in this room were akin to finding ice in the desert.
He got out his phone and started a text.
"Love is ..... The shadow in your eye, the curl of your hair, the shiver in your smile. You're beautiful when you sleep, if you awake and I'm not here I had to get out and walk. I love you."
He pressed send and waited until he heard a vibrating sound in her bag.
Standing and stretching he quickly strode out of the terminal, blinking behind his sunglasses as he left the darkness of the terminal room and entered the bright unforgiving sunlight. He held out his arms and accepted the burning, knowing that the next time he woke he would be back in England, back beneath the clouds.
Looking around he realised that there was very little escape for him. Buses were pulling up and dropping off more tired tourists, people pulling screaming toddlers alongside them, all hot and bothered, little aware of how their moods would worsen once they entered the building and heard of the delays.
He looked down the roads to see which direction he should take. To turn left took him to an industrial area, square metallic buildings that you find at every airport in every country greeted his view. To turn right took him, it appeared, to nowhere. Far in the distance he could see the mountains, beyond which lay the cool blue Aegean sea. But between there and here was a long, dusty, empty road.
"Silence." He thought, and turned right.
He followed the road for half a mile and then turned off and walked into the flat wasteland. Grey sand and small stones caught under his flip-flops and turned the bottom of his white linen trousers dusty grey.
He turned off the music and revelled in the anonymity of silence. Finally! All he could hear was the sound of crickets quietly chirruping and the sand blowing in the gentle breeze. He had missed this and tried to soak up as much of it as he could, knowing he had several hours of battling to keep his mind quiet ahead of him.
With his hands in his pockets, smiling broadly he carried on walking aimlessly, enjoying the nothingness of the moment.
He walked onwards until he came to what appeared to be a natural bowl in the ground and next to it a large flat stone. He ran his hands along the stone, feeling the dust grate his fingertips and then pulled himself up and lay back, closing his eyes.
The gentle breeze lifted his hair from his face and cooled where the sun had been attempting to finish its work on his cheeks.
In his minds eye he could see the white clouds moving across the deep blue sky, he could hear the wind delicately moving the leaves in the trees, the sound of running water close by, the cool caress of the water as it lapped at his toes, and the quiet melodic tone of a girl singing.
He snapped open his eyes as he realised he could actually feel water at his feet.
He sat up abruptly and pulled off his sunglasses in disbelief.
Gone was the dust and in its place a green meadow. He was sat at the edge of a dark pool of water, trees surrounded him, shadows moved across him as the branches at the top of the trees slowly swayed filtering the sunlight.
At the edge of the pool opposite him a young girl dressed in white was bathing. She stood breast deep in the pool her face towards the sky as she poured water over herself. Her voice was amazing, unlike anything he had heard before. He gasped as he realised her dress was transparent and clung tightly to her body. Her nipples were taut and erect pointing thru the material.
As he gasped the girl froze and dropped her head scanning the area around her.
"Is there someone there?" She called out.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, I just... I mean.. you just appeared... I don't understand.. Where am I?"
The girl stared at him.
"You see me?" She asked a sly smile spreading across her face.
"Of course I see you" he replied unsure, "Who are you? What is this?" His head span as he tried to take everything in around him.
The sound of water splashing drew him back to look at the girl but she was gone.
"What the fuck is going on?" He cried.
He suddenly felt cold wet hands drag across his shoulders then his vision was obscured, he felt legs wrap around his waist as the girl span from behind him and lowered herself into his lap.
"Oh how I've missed the feel of man" she groaned as she pushed herself against his groin.
"Whoa, wait a second, just a..wait!" He shouted as he tried to pry himself from her.
