A nondescript car has come to a standstill in an unknown rural location. Two young women – the driver and co-passenger – have exited and are standing in front of the vehicle, it's not clear why. They are wearing trim but relaxed uniforms in soft bluish grey tones: trousers, with shirts tucked in and elasticated wideband belts that clip together, like those fashionable in the seventies and fifties. There is a man, partly hidden, just behind the car, by the boot. Two other men have suddenly emerged from the back of the car, leaving each rear passenger door open behind them. By the roadside, now, there is another man – who the women may have come to meet or been surprised by. Without appearing to, he gives a signal to the other two men. Silently and swiftly, they approach the women from behind and, without any warning, slit both their throats.

When this occurs, I am standing as an onlooker about eight paces away from the women. The unexpectedness of the sudden execution, in the dream, is felt as a wave of shock – in vertigo and nauseous, I convulsed forwards, but at the same time I also slid down the wall (that was directly behind me) with my arms outstretched above my head and against the wall, and as my hands dragged down the wall they left trails of blood.

I awaken. I reflect... I drift back... now there is a sandy beach. The tide is out, so the shoreline is distant. It's the morning, sunny but misty, perhaps I'm out for a walk on the beach, but there’s no context to why I’m there. It's also as if I am invisible, and not there, too, when I am passed by a group of 30 or so running figures engaged intently in some precise form of fitness routine. Then, in the distance, along the bay, I see some rocks and suddenly my perspective re-locates to these and where a dishevelled figure lies, as if washed up or fallen. It begins to no-longer feel like the present day period, but some other time, in the future or past, as I crouch over the figure, concerned. The man, who is laying face up, begins to awaken. Disorientated and bleary-eyed, he inches himself up onto his elbows to make out his surrounding, but just as his eyes begin to see, a hail of bullets suddenly rain in from the seaward direction.

I awaken again, I'm glad to be awake, even though I feel like I've just been to the cinema.