Dead Man: 5

And so there John found himself, in this peculiar kind of limbo.  Of all the possibilities there could be after death, this was the one that he had never expected. He’d always imagined it to be something like drifting comfortably and peacefully off to sleep (hopefully at an advanced age) - the final fading of brain activity, the pictures in his head disappearing with the light, like the last moments of a setting sun. And then just the darkness.  And no waking from it.  Nothing else – ever again.

            Perchance to dream?

            Was this what it was, then?  Was death nothing but a dream-filled sleep after all? And if so, why was he the only one here? Where was everyone else who had died before him?  He looked around at the scene he was still in – at the fireman hosing down the road now, washing his life-blood along the gutter and into the drain.  And the world going on as it was and would always be. And there were none of the wonderful expectations of myth or religion.  No Valkyries waiting to sweep him up onto a horse and take him off riding across the skies to Valhalla.  No Paradise with 72 virgins-in-waiting. No Pearly Gates. No St Peter or Angel Gabriel, heralding him with a chorus of Heavenly voices. No being summoned to a Great Creator to account for any misdemeanours, nor any giddy descent into fire and lava and eternal roasting in the pit.  Just a confounding reawakening in a form of no substance or shape that was visible inside the corporeal realm.  A soul-presence, if anything.  And no one else there with him.  No one at all. No one to see him or know of his continuing existence in this way. A free-floating consciousness – like a wind that has presence and movement, but is forever invisible.

He could face the scene no longer.  He turned away and went down a side street towards a small park, where he sometimes went at lunchtime if he wanted to be quiet and alone.  Where he couldn’t be seen – not, he had to remind himself, that he could be seen anyway.  But he wanted privacy, and to be with his thoughts now without distraction.  Just like those early-morning times in the armchair at home.

            Home. The image of his flat, his living room, his things… it all came flooding in now in a wave of grief. Knowing that he would never see it again. Or anything or anyone else he’d once known. They were lost to him now. Passed away from him – or, rather, him from them. And for how long? How long would this last – this out-of-body experience, or whatever it was?  Was it a transient state? Or was it eternal? Wasn’t there enough suffering in life without having to endure it in death as well? To know you were dead?

      The park was quiet when he got there. Just a groundsman in orange overalls, emptying the litter bins.  And a young mother over at the far end, pushing a toddler on a swing. He heard the child giggling with each forward motion and rise, saw the look of joy on its face. The creak of the chains. The breeze rattling the leaves in the birch trees on the park’s periphery. The whistling of the groundsman – a tune John knew, but couldn’t place.

      His usual bench was free, as he’d hoped. Out of habit, John put his hand down and ran it over the surface of the wood before sitting, to make sure it was dry and to brush off a couple of fallen leaves. And here came another discovery. Although he could feel the surface of the wood, and he could feel the leaves, the action of his hand produced no other effect. He swept it to and fro over the leaves, but they didn't move. It was as if his hand was merely the shadow of a hand, nothing more. He noticed, too, that he could press down on the surface of the wood and feel it resist.  But that was all. It was the same with his feet. He was standing on grass and could feel the firmness of the ground as he pushed his feet into it. But his feet made no impression. He bent down and tried blowing the leaves.  Nothing again. And then he realised that he wasn't breathing, anyway.  He put his hand to the left side of his chest, but there was no heartbeat beneath it. No pulse at his wrist or neck, either. No sign of life at all, except what he could actually see and feel of himself - his legs and arms, his body and head.

            John sat on the bench and felt the firmness of it beneath him - 'supporting' him, if that was the right way to think of it. He felt nothing else, though. No sense of relief at taking the weight off his feet. No feeling of ease or relaxation. It was as if he'd been anaesthetised. And that, at least, was another thing. He felt no pain. Just as he'd felt nothing when the accident happened. Maybe a micro-second of sensation when the truck struck him. But then it was gone. That was a mercy. He'd died painlessly. Just as he now existed.

            He looked around him again. The mother still swinging her child.  The groundsman with his bin trolley. The high dark branches of the trees criss-crossing the azure wash of the cloudless sky. The groundsman turned now and headed over towards the bench… his orange dungarees and toetector boots, his red face and stubby brown hair, his grey suede work gloves. He was still whistling that tune.

      What was it?

      John knew it from somewhere - back in his childhood, he thought. Something that used to be played on the radio in the kitchen when his mother was cooking dinner, or when his father was building his models. Perhaps it was something his brother, Harry, played on his stereo. He was sure he could place it way back there somewhere.

            He was still lost in that thought when the man’s shadow suddenly fell over him – and his weight came down on him. As with the crowd, John again had that strange experience of passing through the body.  It was as if he’d been absorbed into the man.  Quickly, he shifted along the bench, to the other end.  The man let out a quiet sigh, and the bench creaked beneath him.

            "Good morning," John said.

            Nothing.  Not a flinch. The man pulled his gloves off and took out his phone. It blinked on and he swiped the screen a couple of times.  Then he put it away again and took out a tobacco tin. He rolled himself a cigarette and lit it – inhaling deeply and blowing a trail of smoke that wafted into John’s face.  And John could smell it! That same pungent aroma that had followed his father around everywhere he went.  Another echo of childhood.

            The man puffed contentedly for a few moments as he pulled his gloves back on. Then he got up and pushed the trolley towards the gate.  And John was alone again.  

      In shifting along the bench, John had noticed the small rectangular plaque on the back rail - tarnished by age, and dedicated to the memory of some long-lost visitor.  He looked at it closer now:

David Edward Dyer

1913 - 2010

Always in our thoughts

            Ninety-seven.  Fifty years older than John was. More than twice his age, in fact.  A long life.  A life, John thought, that was probably well-lived and filled with experience.  Wartime service, most likely.  One of the Forces. The fears, the horrors, then the relief and jubilation afterwards. The settling into a new life - young enough still for a fresh start.  A wife, perhaps.  Children and grand-children.  Great-grandchildren, even.  Work that saw him through to retirement, then many years afterwards to enjoy it – or so John hoped and imagined.  So many memories.  So many friends and loved-ones - people who thought enough of him to make this commemoration, however humble.

            John turned his head again and stared down at the grass – at a fly, settled on a blade of it, the metallic blue of its body tricked out by the sunlight.  Such a simple organism, born for no purpose but survival – like everything else. The span of its life perhaps no longer than a few days or weeks. 

            And what of his own life – the one he’d now departed?  What had he done? What had he achieved? Where had it brought him? Where, if it had continued, might it have taken him? It had been a good life, hadn't it?

            Hadn't it?

      What had it been?  Forty-seven years. An average sort of life, perhaps. Fulfilled in some ways, unfulfilled in others.  He remembered the words his father had drilled into him, when he was still too young to fully understand:

       You make the most of what you make, son.'

       John remembered the way he’d said it.  The regret that was there, not far beneath the tone of the words. Getting married and having children and needing to earn money before anything else, so taking the route of a steady civil service career that had given him a good pension (had he lived long enough to enjoy it), but no sense of satisfaction otherwise.

            And what about John?  Had he made the most of what he'd made? Had he made the right choices at the relevant times? And where had it brought him? What had it given him?  Was it a life well-lived? What, in its absolute essence, did the life of the person known as 'John' add up to? 

      These were thoughts that had been going through his mind more and more in recent months – halfway, as he was, between the divorce and reaching fifty (an age, he'd always thought, when he'd be settled and happy, however that might come). Often, he'd sit in his living room at the flat in the evening light, just before bed, and try to join the bits of it up - like a puzzle with a difficult picture, and pieces missing, anyway. Kate was certainly a missing piece - and a vital part of the picture. He'd pick up her photo (he still kept it on the shelf beside his armchair), look at the shy smile she was giving the camera, and wonder what was going through her head at precisely that moment. He'd think about the evenings they'd spent when they were together, in happier times. The tasks of the day over, and both of them relaxing on the sofa with their mugs of tea or glasses of wine - her with her feet tucked up underneath her, his resting on the edge of the coffee table.  The chats they would have then - about the books they were reading, a film they wanted to see, something in the news, their day's work, their thoughts about a holiday.  Their hopes for the future, and what that future might be.  Selling up, giving up, escaping somewhere new where they could really make a life for themselves.  The kinds of things many people think about doing.  It filled in the gaps in their lives – gave them something to focus on and look forward to.  Something to feel optimistic about.  Something to give their relationship a momentum which, in the end, they were unable to sustain.  Sometimes those chats went on into the night, only ending when one of them started to doze.

      On those evenings alone, once it was all over and they were apart, he’d realise how much he missed those chats. They'd been each other’s closest friend.  True soul mates. It had always reassured him to know that there was someone else he could do that with, rather than store it all up inside himself, along with all the other mental clutter, and never find an outlet for it. It had made him feel properly connected to life and to the world.

      And now?

      Now, she was sitting alone in her flat as he’d sat alone in his, separated by a distance of just over two miles, but as far apart in many ways as if they were living on different continents, in different time-frames.  Only ever speaking now to discuss the arrangements in the aftermath. The intimacy was gone. The sense of shared lives – shared hopes and perspectives – was gone.

      John still knew, in his heart, that he loved her.  And he’d always held out that vague and elusive hope that love would prevail.  That somehow, and in some way, they’d find a way through it all and come back together.

     But this ended all that. And now she would have this to deal with as well – this news of his death.  As if he hadn’t given her enough to deal with. More grief for her, to pile on top of the rest...

     John was startled from his reverie by a sudden sense that something had changed around him. And something had.  He was no longer alone.  Someone else had crept up quietly and sat down beside him – close, too. A man, it seemed – dressed much as he was, but more hunkered down in demeanour.  Sitting there, elbows on knees, hands together, staring at the ground as John had just been.  Once again, John made to shift himself, to create some space – only stopping when the man turned his face to him and spoke.

            “Hello, John,” he said.

(to be continued)