Today I didn't have an Epiphany,

I utterly refuse to consider people other than Saul on the road to Damascus as having had epiphanies.

Neither Newton nor Archimedes claimed one and both of them knew of the concept. Nor can Joan of Arc reliably be credited with one, because she was in all probability schizophrenic.

An epiphany demands clouds parting, trumpets, and heralds at the very least. Plus a loud booming voice off-stage.

So I seriously question people who say they got all this action on the top of the No.5 bus on the way to the Pizza parlour.

It may be obvious by now that I did not have an epiphany this afternoon. But, having been so vehement about repudiating the tendency people have lately of having epiphanies on a semi-regular basis and without visible effects and cloud parting; I find myself bereft of a way to say what happened to me this afternoon.

Perhaps it was a revelation? But that still sounds faintly ecclesiastical – so...no. Yet I honestly felt like the deep fog around me was being cleaved As if the clouds really were parting. I’m not sure if they snapped back again like sturdy knicker elastic, or if they left a gap. But while they were parted I think I got my first full look outside in a long while.

And what I suddenly realised was that I have been living, foetus-like, all folded into myself, in an egg made of opaque, charcoal, grey. And in another blinding flash I realised I’d been living inside that shell now for 7 years. Seven!

And the reason I realised that was because I saw clearly again the person I had been before I slipped into my grey egg. Someone whom I haven’t seen in all that time, but who was suddenly as familiar and beckoning as an old pair of Uggs.

There was a voice. And it was off-stage. But it was mine – a voice from 7 years ago. And it said, in tones of exasperation: “You twat!”.

And lo! I looked and saw it was so.

So, I might not have burst out of my chrysalis completely yet. But I’ve seen through the cracks in the shell.

And I think I got my ‘Fuck you!’ back.

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