the night of the stick insect came fast, sometime in spring, soft light fading from a long day, curtain of night on the horizon, you can hear the waves from the beach, a few fires and the sound of guitars strumming the summer of love. 

i was walking over the dunes, looking for a spot to lay down, spend the next few hours gazing at the stars, making wishes, frittering away a night, away from the crazy crowd and their spiral antics, the shrieking girls, the beer boys and their stories of surfing daze, tubes and wipe outs.

i clambered up a dune with a view, lay at a forty five degree angle and nestled in, face staring at the ocean and the endless milky way. it receded away into infinity and i was lost immediately, a full immersion, got that insignificant feeling and that douglas adams sensation where you just know infinite possibilities exist and as i gazed out there looking for pleades a shooting star shot across the heavens, followed by another and then a shower of them crashed the party, strange little lines of bright lights, zipping through time, a super massive fire work display. it lasted a few minites, my breathings slowed down, i felt relaxed, my eyes couldn't take in the vastness and they felt tired so i must have closed them, laying there listening to the breaking waves, the crash and the sounds of crickets. 

i don't know how long i was asleep, maybe a few minites but more likely hours, time gets all displaced in nature, it follows its own logic but when i opened my eyes the light appeared magnificent, the milky way was some where else, or the earth was, there was one star in the skies, venus, the dim lights of fires were burnt out across the beach, the horizon was almost visible, which meant the sun would be rising soon. 

in the space between night and day, in that first breaking ray of light that spans across as the sun rises over the horizon i saw the twigs, sticks, they were just shadows, straight lines, i could see them on my chest, on my arms, legs and there were hundreds of them, the light was coming, it was travelling from the sun to me, and yet i could already see these things, they were all over me, moving around with their strange stick legs, and as i brushed them away more seemed to come, i jumped up, the light must be about to hit, i could see it form a sort of wave as it came dancing across the water, like rings of fire travelling towards me. the sun then blazed its tip and i could no longer look in it's direction.

the stick insects were attempting to climb up my legs, one was on my arm, jesus they were strange ancient creatures, the sun had arrived and they started  to walk away from me, hiding in their places, blending into the shrubs, into the foliage, i watched them leave me. hundreds of them, all slowly just merging with the environment, until i could no longer even see them.

venus was gone, the day had started, surf rolling in in beautiful sets, a surfer was running across the beach towards the waves and leaving a trail of foot prints in pristine sand. i looked down and then back up at where the stick insects had gone, nothing, not even a trace of their presence. 
i walked down to the surf, excited by the thought of a dawn swim, the air was clean and fresh, the spray of waves being carried along up the beach like a giant atomiser. this planet was magnificent.