�Bolero� gave me nightmares, even years after my first hearing the haunting music.

In recalling that time I saw myself, in my mind's eye, a five year old, laid on a couch in a doctor's surgery. My eyes snapped open to stare in horror at the cream coloured kidney- shaped bowl loaded with blood soaked cotton wool.

On the radio in the background classical music. This �Bolero� was music to me not a name; it relaxed me, soothing , preparing me for stitches or amputation.

I felt anguish, extreme remorse and tasted the surreal like a true victim. How. How I wish I hadn't? Too weak, too upset to cry again yet more tears on dried tears . I remembered the extreme nausea. Then pain kicked in as the throbbing started. In vain I needed to cling to anything for hope.

Naturally I passed out many times through loss of blood but on awaking I heard the whispering call of �Bolero�. That's why it scorched itself into my memory. Gave me those nightmares. Now the pain has gone. Yet clinically I remember every step of the action, each detail; how I felt, reflected to me, in the intensity of the music.

Of course I was wicked, wild at five, a dare devil who might grow up wanting to be a stunt man. I'd seen Tarzan, defied my grandfather, being a boy who loved adventure.

Maybe that's why I played with the sharp wood chisel to copy the workmen I'd seen. One slip. Too late. I ran around like a headless chicken blood spurting everywhere.

A neighbour heard and took me off to the local surgery. The experience stayed with me all my life. So too did the scar. I can look at it, the jagged snake like pattern on my thumb and hear again �Bolero�. But now I hear the music without the pain.

Somewhere deep within me lurks the gypsy spirit, listening. My Iberian grandmother, a D'essa,gave me the love of gypsy music. Thus Maleguena could stir me to new levels of enjoyment.

The T-shirt 'Blood and Sand' remained a favourite of mine, linked to the raunchy rhythm making me hanker for excitement.

In Spain I loved to wander into shops selling real leather goods. How I fingered the belts, the saddles, coveted those cowboy boots.

Then too I visited a bull ring where I met a bull fighter. This man, deep chested, had massive arm muscles. Pride showed in his face when he took out his Toledo steel swords. He showed me his cape in the bullring. Me? I heard stirring Malaguena ,under my feet the sand, and burning my face the relentless sun.

I remember too visiting a bar for bull fighters. There my eyes lingered on the all-faded, curled-at-the-edges, photos behind the bar but I recognised faces . The owner, a retired bull fighter, loved having his friends around him. And gypsy music like Malaguena for the nostalgia touched his life - mine too.

Cleveland is a BeWrite.net writer of 14 months, fresh and very enthusiastic and featured in �The Whimsy�. He is read around the world, published in most genres, is also a regular contributor to The Horse Chronicles, Opinions and Writers Post Journal. LBF Books are publishing his book Moondust. Already six stories from Moondust are set for distribution by UK based company AudioBooksForFree.com and Moondust is due to become an e-book. Bookshare.com use his �Dragon Country� for its blind members worldwide. His fast fiction �Today� won a prize at Short Story.net. He is writing a magical realism serial currently published in Cyprus and due to become a second book. It is under consideration by a Scottish filmmaker. All his children�s stories are translated into Braille for overseas literacy projects. Besides writing Cleveland is a dedicated carer, has been a Road Race director for 10 years, run 4 London Marathons, qualified as a LifeGuard. He teaches ESOL and hopes to teach Creative Writing. Sometimes he�s a guinea pig for Medical Research on Road Safety or Depression here. To read a selection of Cleveland�s work on the showcase section of this site, click here

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.