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Approaching

by andrew sherwell

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about

I would always wake with the taste of blood in my mouth and a pounding headache. I would be dehydrated and disorientated. Simultaneously elated and deflated. Every time.

It would always start the same way too. My vision would judder as the world turned silver and white. Dizzy and staggering, my ears ringing, I felt I was being pulled through a wall.

I could hear them calling, terrifying voices urging me on. When I learnt to let go, to accept, it got easier.

And then everything would stop.

What happened next is confused. It was at the time, even more so now. Trying to explain is like trying to recall a dream, vivid in the instance, but the moment you awake, confused and fleeting. It is difficult to believe it actually happened. But it did. So I will try.

Clouds of smoke and incense cloaked them and obscured their form as they circled and swirled in their wake. The voices were now a whisper, words in no language I recognised. But at the time, I felt their message. One minute urging and insistent, other times mocking and accusatory. Occasionally, they would pay me no attention. I would hear them scream at one another and only rarely glimpse them among the billowing clouds. I would feel alone and lost.

The final time was different. I could hear many voices, far more than usual. They appeared to be singing. Slowly the voices rose to a crescendo and then fell away as a single voice took over. Clearer than normal yet still obscure, it filled me with a tranquillity and joy the like of which I had not known and which I still crave now. And then, for the first and final time, the being appeared. And I wept.

I was still weeping when I awoke, shaking and bloody-mouthed. Grandfather was sitting in a chair that he had pulled up to the sofa where I was lying under a sweat-soaked blanket. He stared intently then lent back and smiled. “They have gone,” he said.

“They won’t be back. Cherish the honour, boy.”

He was right. And I do.

Words by Andrew Sherwell

credits

released January 8, 2020

Written, recorded & mixed by Andrew Sherwell
Mastering, advice & friendship by Stephan Mathieu
License
All rights reserved
Originally released and now sold out on limited cassette by Rusted Tone Recordings in June, 2019.

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andrew sherwell London, UK

"As the shadows closed in, the stars came out"
Derek Jarman

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