3:30 am

'Who do you write for', asked the wily sage, bent over a bible type of book, the incandescent lamp casting a glow around his flowing beard, his smooth white hair. 'What do you hope to gain from your writing and why do you write', he continued. I moved forward to answer him but no words came out of my mouth. I looked around at the fading tent, the dissolving ground and the rapidly disappearing form of the sage. Wait, I wanted to stop him but he soon faded to a mass of nothingness as a goat came and chomped up the few blades of grass left behind where his tent once stood, atop a snowy peak. When I looked down, I saw the soft snow had become weathered wooden boards beneath my feet and they were crumbling away and I was falling... falling through space, feeling a little like Alice down the hole, my hair flying around my face, the wind slapping me into wakefulness as I rubbed my eyes and looked at the time. 3:30am, the wall clock blinked radium green. 

'You have the power to move millions', he said, as I gazed respectfully into my master's eyes. 'Don't waste it', he said, as I sat at his feet, massaging them with rose oil. How do I do it, I thought, but before I could say anything, he got up and left me, staring through the bamboo blinds onto the grassiest patch I had ever seen. As I watched, the grass grew taller and bigger, even growing inside the thatched hut, soon it was everywhere and all around me. I started drowning in a sea of green and as that sinking feeling set in, I woke up with a start. Time on the bedside clock: 3:30 am.

'Be true to yourself and the words will flow. Don't try to be anyone else. The innocence of your words will dent a thousand hearts. The pictures you create will bleed long after you've finished. Get started now', said the gentle doctor, guiding the chalk over a dusty blackboard as the words formed and dissolved in front of my eyes. No time to waste, he said, as the benches and chairs started shaking. Soon the plaster started peeling off and bricks became dislodged, flying in all directions, while I looked around confusedly, for the doctor. He was lost already and as I dodged a heap of bricks, I suddenly turned right and woke up with a jerk of my neck. Time on the mobile screen: 3:30 am