Created Equal.

As I shivered under the duvet and drifted in and out of sleep my mind decided to play tricks on me. Slightly fevered that is never a good sign for the mind. I abandoned my plan to return to work around 7.30 am when it was clear the coughing hadn't shifted, a fever had set in and I felt generally pretty awful.

Through the haze of affected sleep a dream of mum in her younger days came to me. It is strange that even 4 1/2 years since she died I still dream of her alone but not of dad alone. She read my writing and suddenly had a vision into my world that she never achieved during her life time. She understood and we connected and communicated. And that brought a contentment for that brief moment. Dreams are but fleeting.

Deeply troubled for all of my life that I remember mum was a complex and ultimately tortured figure. She saw little beyond her way of thinking. I do not know why she was as she was but it made her deeply unhappy. In the last years of her life her anxiety was so great she could barely get through days sometimes. And now she is gone.

As that dream faded my mind moved onto communications and connections. Back in the summer of 1989 I spent a few weeks in Cambridge during what was known as the Long Vacation. Part of that at Selwyn was the annual Fellows and Staff versus Students cricket match. For all my love of cricket I'm terrible at playing it. But I was seconded into the Fellows and Staff team as they were a man short. On my team was a young man the same age as me. He was an ordinary young man who grew up in Cambridge. Like all young men he needed a job and he was a gardener. Part of what the college called their "servants". A vile way of describing anyone.

In the months that followed each time I saw that young man I stopped to chat as I would with anyone. One day he said to me that "you are the only student who ever talks to me". What a sad and crass world we arrogant students lived in. To ignore a man our equal and not our inferior.

For all my many faults and my undoubted arrogance of those days I'm so glad I could connect and communicate.

Why that memory came back to me in my fever I do not know. Neither do I know what happened to the gardener who by now will be middle aged like me. I'm glad I was able to connect with him. For all men and women are created equal whatever our backgrounds and chances in life. I hope we can all remember that.

I'm hoping the fever will break soon. Really need to get back to reality.

I Heard a Voice.