It began with a lucid dream.

I stepped into the liminal landscape as I had been instructed and waited at the crossroads (crossed paths actually.) It was an empty place with no visible markers, no specific foliage. No houses or human habitation to be seen, slightly rolling hills in the distance, a flat grey sky over a beige stubbly land. I sat waiting on the rock, still sleepy, holding my notebook and my communicator – a small spherical device, calibrated metal. Notebook in my other hand, my eyes scanning the horizon. Nothing.

I was tired. Arms and legs were sore and achy, eyes dry from the arid landscape. Still, I hummed a favourite tune as I was waiting, alternately idly doodling in my notebook and standing to stretch. Not a hint of wind. Evenly mild temperature. No sun pierced the flat grey sky.

Falling asleep beside the rock, with my head on my jacket roll, still waiting. I woke, ate an apple, sipped some water, put my lunch bag back into the pack for later. Checked the calibrations on the com-sphere. Ran on the spot, did some jumping jacks to get the circulation moving. Not a sound but my own breathing. Not a bird in the sky. If there were any ground animals, or insects, I didn’t see them. Nor was I aware of any living creature. Nothing was coming to me and my thoughts were empty, as if I were more part of this landscape than I’d first believed. No one coming, nothing coming. Time to set out and explore.

Before me the crossed paths seemed to intersect the landscape much like the com-sphere I held in my hand. “Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns,” I hummed to myself. I turned to east, south, west, north, to face – what? The same landscape in all directions. Then I knew: it was up to me. “I am the one who must take the decisive step. Nothing is coming,” I thought.

I’d arrived with the idea that someone would surely come along the road eventually. A little car with a magician in it. A group of otherworldly beings. A man with a donkey. An old woman with a bundle of sticks on her back. Merchants going to a fair in a nearby town. A circus troupe. A truck that breaks down right on the spot and has to leave its load of furniture behind. Nuns and mummers and dancing children. A pack of wolfish dogs. A samba band. Hoop dancers. A flock of sheep with the shepherd and dogs following behind. I realized these were all imaginary. The place was as still as it had been when I first arrived by liminal transport. I stepped up on the rock to poke my head through the flat grey mist just above me. It was nearer than I thought. I raised my hand through it, crying out, “Okay, that’s enough.”

A small step ladder came in from above, and I managed to sit it on the rock, climb it and get a bit of an overview. They could see my head poking above the grey swirl. Noted it on their clipboards, as I once again sank down. “I must have been dreaming,” I thought to myself as I woke in my own soft bed that morning.