A Ripple in Being

I'm adrift... floating off, nearly asleep. My eyes open and close drowsily and all I can see is a star studded sky. So incredibly beautiful! [Toes wiggling, back stretching to yield to the ground.] I smile as I think how far I am from human civilization. Here, there's only me, these huge silent-yet-not mountains and wide-open skies. All cliches about gurgling streams singing lullabies suddenly make sense now--SENSE, quite literally, as I can almost taste the cool water and its deep earth flavour. My sleeping bag rustles slightly in the wind.

I sleep.

I wake. Full consciousness, and I hazily take in black, black. Black all around me. A strange sound... A lack of sound? A ripple? What is this? The world is different and I-- I. i? I-I-i-I-i. Wait. Something... strange. It is like I'm in a... like nothing before. No sense of up, down, light.

I desperately need... Something. Movement, yes, that's it. Surely that will set things straight? Oh. Now I move. Did I do it? Does something push me? I don't know. I float. How long? I don't know. How long? I'm not even sure what that means. But in the darkness, I feel... ripples again. Is there something else here? A strange idea.

I feel something different now... light. I can't see it, but I... feel it. It's not a tingle, not warm, it's just the feeling of light. Why is there no memory of a word for this? Memory?--

Ah, it's filling me now. Light, light, light! There are pleasant tickles... along... me. But no, this is not light. It is familiar yet strange. The movement is different now, the ripples are gone. Air?...

I wake. Sunshine soft-feathering over my face wakes me. The aftersense of a dream seeps away as I look around. I feel changed, for some reason. Maybe it was the night of sleep in the outdoors. Perhaps the stars and the little sliver moon breathed a...

I go over to the lake to wash. A smooth pebble washes ashore on one of those gentle lapping waves as I step in to the water. I am about to kick it--a sensation, a deja vu an intense moment of... almost empathy... with the stone?

Can stones feel?