The .......zzz ZZZ Part Four.

The next morning, the gentle vibrating of the bed woke me up, I was tired, at first, I thought I was dreaming but no it was real, I was still in the competition, I got up and had a shower, and after I was on my way to the prayer/meditation room, when I heard the buzzer go, this was to let us know to go straight to breakfast! Puzzled I turned around and went to the dining room, where it was just me in there. I ate my meal in deep thought, soon after I had finished, I then heard the gong to go into the great hall. I made my way to the room, and saw that there were three other contestants. The joint organiser, Victoria was there, with a big smile, and she said, “Well done you have made it to the final four.”

The four was a significant number to me, for I had told my kids from when they were young at sports day at school, “Everyone loves a winner, but if you come second, then that is very good, and if you come third, you still get a medal.” I also drummed it into my children, “If you don’t get a medal, then not everyone can win in a race, someone has to come forth.” I did not want to come forth, and in this case, there would be no runner up, it would be all or nothing. I had not, booked annual leave, from work, flown all the way to Japan, to come forth. Someone would come forth, third, second and soon.     

“Things will be slightly different from today, you will all share the same bedroom from tonight, it will be a very large room and you will be in a corner each, and not near to each other. You will also eat together from lunch time and until the end of the competition.”

I glanced over at Evon and the others and smiled, they looked rough as I am sure I did. Victoria carried on, “Each bed will be near a door which be ajar all night, when the vibrating is felt, simply quietly get up and leave the room by your door.” Victoria paused for a second then said, “In front of you, is a meal request, for dinner tonight and tomorrow night, there are three choices, McDonalds, KFC or a vegan option.” I chose my favourite McDonalds. I did wonder if that was a clue, was there only two days to go until the end? Woo-hoo, I thought. I had SO many questions, but I kept them to myself, as no one else said anything.

After this short meeting, we did have a bit of free time, I used mine to write in my diary and pray. The four of us did our mind tasks, it was so interesting each day a new one was added, today was colouring in on the laptop, the colour that was written down, for example we could see it was blue, but it had to be done in red for that was the shape, shown at the bottom, another colour was brown, that we could see, but it had to be changed to black, as black was in the circle at the bottom, there were fifteen colours in all. Unusually his was a timed exercise.

I really enjoyed my Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries straight out the pan and hot sweet chocolate, I felt so full afterwards.

I did try to talk to the others, but they did not really want to talk, and I understand that, there was no hard feelings between us. I suppose everyone was naturally tense, and tired and did not want to snap or say the wrong thing, that could hurt another.

As I crawled into bed that night, I did wonder if it was the last day. It seemed, that I had just shut my eyes for a second when I felt the bed gently vibrate and I got up and left the bedroom. I went and had a shower. I went into the prayer/meditation room wrote in my diary, my writing was tatty and I did not want to write lots anymore, just enough so that I could look back on it and remember how I felt today. I felt VERY tired, but I suppose I knew I would, thank goodness it was only seven days. I think if they were to say, “We are going to add another day,” I might just walk out, or not.

Gravy and cherry tomatoes, they were added to our lunch today, and it was only me and Evon who were left.

We did our mind tasks, and ate our chosen meals for dinner. We then did what seemed liked a very long tasks sessions, it seemed to go on and on. We had been placed back-to-back and about three meters apart.                         

Lucy then broke the silence and said, “You can stop working now, let us four go into the prayer/meditation room.” I made sure I sat on a hard pine stool. Lucy said, “Tomorrow is the last day, tonight you will be in your own private room again, and it is the contestant that comes out of their bedroom, but it must between three and four hours, AFTER you have gone to bed, there will be no vibrating, to wake you up. If you come out of the bedroom BEFORE it is three hours, then the other contestant wins.”

Victoria then spoke, “If neither of you come out after four hours, the winner will be decided by the mind tasks that you have done, your percentages were gathered each day, and the contestant with the highest, will be declared the winner.”

So, this was it. I wasn’t really hungry, but I know food is fuel, so I ate my fish and rice meal for lunch and McDonalds for dinner.

I said to Evon, “All the best,” She didn’t reply, but gave me a weak smile.

In bed, I remembered the words of my god-mother Miss Steele, “If I want to get up at 6am I gently raise my head up and down six times on the pillow,” I have never ever tried it before, but tonight, very gently I did just that, one in memory of her, and two to see if it would work. “One, two, three.” I remembered Psalm chapter 121, “He who keeps me, does not sleep. He watches over me.” There was nothing else to do. I fell asleep.

I suddenly woke up!!!!! My mind was crystal clear, get out of the room quick! I jumped out of bed and flung open the door, outside the bedroom was Lucy and Victoria, nothing was shown on their faces, Victoria said, “Please follow us into the great hall.”  I sat down, Lucy said, “You have been asleep for six hours,” I burst into tears, she said, “You are the winner, Evon came out of her room after two hours. I said, “Really, I won?” I cried some more and said, “Thank you God.” Victoria said, with a beautiful smile, “What would you like for breakfast, anything within reason,” I said, “A full English, with no baked beans, and a slice of marmalade on buttered toast, and a cup of tea with two sugars.” I needed to get my strength up, for tomorrow, as planned there would be an interview on live telly, where I would receive my cheque.

I couldn’t stop smiling. There wasn’t many things in my life that I had won. I remember winning the obstacle race at my junior school, when I was about nine. My undiagnosed dyslexia had held me back at school and throughout my working life, but here I was in my sixties, against all the odds, I had won!  I was chuffed to bits.

The lovely marshmallow sofa that I loved SO much, I donated it to a home for older residents, they would have lovely kips on it, our six cats would destroy it, and that would be sad.

At the interview the following evening I was asked, “What will you do with all that money?” I said, “I would first give one tenth of it to my Church in England, then I would go on holiday to Malta, and I would write a story about my wonderful experience here in your beautiful country.”

I was then asked, “What would you call your story?” I had, had plenty of time to think about it, and said, “I love to write, and often in the evenings, I will start to write, and fall asleep, and my husband Paul would always say the same thing when I wake up, ‘Did you only write the title, “The….. zzzz ZZZZ …” Then fall asleep?” Then I would always reply. “Yes.” Then everyone laughed, and so did I.