Billie's Divination Den

 Four years ago, I laid down in the Sahara Desert.

 I closed my eyes for ten seconds and convinced myself I was floating on water, but eventually Berber heat cut through unbelonging high street polyester and I was forced to move onto a rug. Cracked camel skin and Turmeric stained wool stopped me from falling through sheets of silken sand and into the pips of Africa.

 A fat, slate blue sky beckoned me, and I remember taking a handful of sand to chuck up at it, hoping to leave a mark. By the time my hand left the floor most of it had gone, slipped back to its indistinguishable family. I knew then that the moment would never come again.

 Today, I lay in a local dog-walking field, cradled by damp moss and thick mud that slaps back when I throw my palm down on it. My clothes are damp with yesterday’s rainwater and piles of burnt charcoal clouds tell me that it won’t be long before they soak my world again. There is a panic, briefly, for the winter insects that may surface from the curly dock or dandelion leaves, but today they have stayed in their marshy camp-outs – our soggy earth can provide for them better than I ever will.

  I close my eyes and try to exist in a passing moment. But it is England, and a cold, ashen raindrop appears on my face and rolls, unpleasantly, across my cheek, telling me that it is time to go home.