Dead Man: 4

Some things happen so fast that the brain is unable to register them.  Like a bullet firing from a gun.  Other things happen at a speed that allows for some brief cognition of the event.  A fall from a high building, or a plane crash.  Precious seconds or minutes in which to know what’s coming, and what it will mean. Time enough, maybe, to say a few words to oneself, have some final thoughts.

            John, on that last morning, had less than a second. A quick turn of his head to the right as he stepped into the road – a glimpse of the truck there, sunlight flashing on the windscreen, the driver’s face - time enough for the shock to hit before the tonnage of steel did

           and then it was over, the film stopping

           darkness and silence

A life ends thus.  As it did for John - though he had no awareness that that’s what had happened.  It was too sudden, like a light fusing.

          Life one second - nothing the next.

And that’s how he’d always imagined such an event would be. No tunnel leading to a glorious light.  No reconnection with the long-lost. No ascension to a realm of eternal peace and happiness. Hamlet had it right, he’d always thought:

To be… or not to be. 

They were the only options, as far as he was concerned – in spite of the rub:

Perchance to dream?

No, he was convinced.  Death was what it said it was.  Death.

And yet… something was clearly amiss here. Some sensory awareness began to come through to John’s brain. A ringing sound, rising out of the darkness. And then light – low at first, but growing, as when the moon begins to emerge from slow-moving clouds at night.  The ringing slowly subsided, drawing down to a steady background hum, lowering further still as the light increased. It was a strange, calming experience – for experience it definitely was. How else to explain it? Like drifting slowly, face upwards, to the surface of a warm sea.  The diffused light, the sense of weightlessness. And not knowing anything at all – anything - except the experience of the moment.

            How long did it last?  Seconds?  Minutes?  Impossible to tell – no sense was there of future or of past.

            And then it changed again, as something slowly began to materialise from the light, like shapes emerging from a fog. Other sounds, too, were coming in.  Recognisable sounds. A chattering, like birds in a tree, softened by distance. The shapes – indistinct as shadows at first – began to coalesce and take on proper form, as if coming into focus from a great distance.  The chattering modulated into something else, too, like a radio being tuned in. Voices. Car horns. Engines running. A siren. Shouts.  Someone (a woman?) crying softly…

            And then the whole picture finally came together there before him.  He was standing – or, at least, he had the sense of standing – behind a crowd of people.  They were near the edge of the road he’d been on, a short way down from the crossing.  The traffic around wasn’t moving. He could see an ambulance there too, its lights flashing beyond the sea of heads and upraised hands. The hands were holding phones, which were filming or photographing whatever was going on. He heard someone close by ask what had happened. He turned to see who it was, and realised they weren’t talking to him but to someone else.

            “Don’t know. A jumper, they think.”

            “Oh God! A suicide?”

            “Maybe. Those other people saw it.”

            The man gestured to the right with his head. John looked and could see Colin Donald Pollock, up at the crossing, talking to a police officer. John reached to touch someone’s arm – to ask if they would let him pass. His hand, though, went through the person’s arm, into their body.  And they didn’t flinch, didn’t turn to see who it was. John pulled his hand back and held it in front of his face.  It was his hand, as it had always been – the palm criss-crossed with lines, like roads on a map.  The nails. The hair on the back of his fingers. He lifted it to his face and touched it, felt it. He could feel every part of himself.  But only himself.  He couldn’t feel any of those bodies, pressing in around him –  overlapping him, as he now saw. It was as if he wasn’t there at all. A shadow.

            A ghost?

            He took a step forwards, directly into the backs of the crowding people – through them – until he was at the edge of the road. He saw the truck there, the driver standing near it, the police officers with him, the man's mouth hanging open in blank shock, the way he was staring downwards.

            Then John saw what was taking everyone’s attention.  He saw himself – lying there in the road, supine, legs askew, a green-uniformed paramedic crouching over the top half of his body. His left shoe was still on his foot, which was twisted in a way it really shouldn’t be – his sock showing, the narrow strip of skin below the trouser hem. The other shoe was off, lying to one side, alone and abandoned and mouth-upwards, like it was simply waiting to be slipped back on.

            John moved closer and tried to see what the paramedic was doing – no one to stop him. He saw blood, some thick wadding being held against his head, which was also twisted at a strange angle, like he’d been caught mid-sneeze. The paramedic was speaking, asking John something…

            “Can you hear me?”

            “Yes,” John said, “I can hear you.”

            “Can you hear me?”

            … and then, like a film cut, John was there, back inside that body lying there, looking up at the paramedic’s face – his cropped grey hair, the soul patch on his lip, the veins at his temples, the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the green of his eyes behind his glasses. Beyond him, in the brilliant sky, a plane going over - the sun glinting on it like a star, the con-trail chalking the blue. The paramedic repeated his words, but they were drowned out by the static. The intense white noise.

And then it faded. All of it. The sound.  The camera going out of focus, the light going out…

            …and John was back there again, outside himself, at the edge looking down, seeing himself lying there.  And the world was still there, as it was and had always been.  Time was still moving.

            Another paramedic appeared – walking straight through John – carrying a stretcher. He opened it on the ground.  Gently, the two paramedics rolled John aside, slid the stretcher underneath, rolled him back into it. They covered him with a red blanket, then took an end each and carried him to the waiting ambulance. The second one jumped down and picked up John’s lonely shoe. He took it with him and climbed into the driver’s seat.  The siren sounded. The ambulance moved slowly away – away from the gathered crowds with their hands still held high.  Along the road towards the inner part of the city.

            John stood there and watched it go.  He stood there in the road, by the crossing he’d so recently stepped onto. He stood there and watched as the people slowly dispersed and went about their day, and the police began to get the traffic moving again.

            He stood there and watched the day return to normal.

            He stood there alone.

            Unseen.

            Alone.

(to be continued)  https://www.abctales.com/story/harryc/dead-man-5