Dead Man: 6 (ii)

John thought back to that moment. It was the Christmas holidays, and he'd got a temporary job, helping out in the stock basement at a department store. It was heavy work - shifting boxes, getting orders ready, taking in stock deliveries.  The constant push push push of Christmas meant that no sooner was something done than it needed doing again.  Also, most of the other staff were much older, and John - being a bit green anyway - was often the butt end of jokes. Either that or he was constantly getting pulled up for mistakes, or not doing things properly (he was a bit clumsy that way, he knew, and always had been).

But he was earning his own money at last, and that made it bearable. He could buy Christmas presents for the first time with cash he'd earned, rather than using pocket money. He liked that sense of confidence and independence it gave him.  In spite of all the downsides, it made the idea of starting work - as Harry had kept telling him - seem inviting. Maybe he did have enough education after all - even though getting higher qualifications might bump him up the ladder for future jobs.  Better ones, too. 

            And what job did he want to do, anyway?  He'd never really had a clear idea.  The only thing that had ever appealed was being a writer.  He'd always enjoyed it, writing poems and stories as he grew up.  He saw famous writers and looked at how much money they made, the big cars they drove, the big houses they lived in, the jet-set lifestyles they led.  That had always seemed, to him, to be the ideal life.

            But you couldn't just become a writer.  You had to have something to write about. And here he had another quandary. Did you need education to help you to be a writer?  Or was it life experience you needed - going out in the world, working, meeting people?  He’d even written to some famous writers - finding their contact details in the 'Who's Who' in the library - to ask them what to do for the best.  The few that chose to answer didn’t offer any solutions.  One had left school and started work as a reporter on a local paper - never had any qualifications, just did it and worked upwards from there.  Another said education was always a good idea, and the opportunity for it should never be turned down.  Yet another confused the issue further by saying it depended on what kind of writer he wanted to be.  And what did he want to do it for? For fame and money? Forget it! He was just one ant at the bottom of a vast ant hill, and there were thousands and thousands above him.  Did he have any talent, anyway? How did he know?  How would he find out?

            And so his brain carried on swaying around, like a rudderless ship in a tempest. Work? Education? Some kind of middle way - could he do that? Get a job, then go to night school?

            What if? What if? What if? What if?

            One evening, he finished work at the store and put his jacket on to go home. He walked along the basement corridor towards the stairs and the elevator - the stairs to his right, the elevator in an alcove on the left. He'd had an idea knocking about in his head all day for a short horror story about a man who can't decide whether to take an elevator or use the stairs in some building.  He only needs to go up one floor, but decides to take the elevator, because he's feeling lazy.  He steps into it…  and as soon as the door closes the light goes out and it plunges to... something. Another world? Hell? John wasn't sure, but he liked the idea. And now it came back to him as he faced that choice himself. He was tired from the day, and the elevator was waiting there. He usually took it. But he decided to take the stairs instead, for once.  It was only two flights, after all. He turned towards them...

            ...and then he remembered nothing until he opened his eyes and was looking up into the face of one of his co-workers. Greg, his name was. A bloke of about thirty. Quiet, like John, but decent enough. John could see the worry on Greg's face at about the same time he felt the dart of pain in his forehead. He was flat on his back.

            "You alright, John?" Greg said.

            John put his hand up and felt the bump and the wetness above his right eye.  He looked at his hand.  Blood.

            "What happened?"

            Greg pointed up at the wall by the stairs. At the ventilation unit on its iron brackets.

            "You clonked your nut, mate.  Went over like you'd been shot.  Lucky I was coming up behind you.  You had me worried.  Here."

            He gave John some tissue paper.  John sat up, wincing at the sting as he put the paper to the bump. It felt about the size of a golf ball.

            "How long was I out?"

            "About half-a-minute, I think. I heard it.  Christ, you whacked it one. It's you being so tall, mate. Everyone else walks under it."

            John tried to get up, but stumbled. Greg held him by the shoulders.

            "Steady on, John. You need to get that looked at. I'm going to ring for an ambulance."

            "I don't need an ambulance. I just want to get home."

            Greg shook his head.

            "You get that looked at first.  I had a cousin die of concussion after banging his head and leaving it."

            John did feel a bit woozy and nauseous.

            "Okay," he said, sighing.

            He sat back against the wall as Greg went off to make the call…

 

            “You alright, John?”

            John snapped back to the day.  Jack was looking at him.

            “I was just remembering it.  That day.”

            Jack grinned.  “Wished you’d taken the lift, eh?”

            John raised his eyebrows.  “You knew where I was?”

            “Of course, mate.  How could I forget?  Like I said.  That’s where we went our separate ways.  That bang on the bonce.  You waited for the ambulance and went to hospital.  I didn’t.  I buggered off home.”

            John’s mouth fell open again.  What the hell was this bloke on about? He began to wonder if this was all a weird dream after all.

            “What do you mean, you buggered off home?  How could you?  I was back home, anyway, two hours later. Dad came and picked me up.”

            “That was you, though,” said Jack.  “Me? I got home, had dinner and went to bed.  Slept like the proverbial, too.  And when I woke up in the morning, that was it.  Like that bang had knocked something into me.  Sod school.  I was going to get a job, make some money, see the world.  And you?”

            John shrugged.  None of this was making sense.

            “Like I said… I went to the hospital.  I got checked out.  I was alright.”

            “And?”

            “And… while I was there, in the waiting room… in came Wriggles.”

            Jack grinned.  “Wriggles?  What… old Ealesy?”

            “That’s right. Mr Eales.  My… our English teacher. He’d cut his thumb open laying some carpet and had to have stitches. So we sat and spoke for a bit, while we waited.  He asked me if I’d made my mind up on things.  I told him about the fretting I’d been doing. Not knowing which way to turn.  How it was driving me nuts.  He listened to all of it.”

            “And?”

            “Well… that was it, really. He listened. Then I got called in to see the doctor.  And as I got up he said to me  ‘I can’t make your mind up for you, John.  But I hope you have a good Christmas… and a decisive New Year.’”

            Jack coughed to cover his laugh.

            “Is that what he said? Crikey, mate.  I was expecting something profound and life-changing.  He always was a dour old bugger, though.”

             “You can laugh,” John shrugged. “ But it was life-changing.  Not so much what he said, but the whole thing of it. I saw it all in that instant.  I’d had that accident after doing something I wouldn’t normally do – and all because of this stupid idea I’d had for a story.  And it led me to that waiting room… and seeing old Wriggles like that.  I felt there was a reason for it… like I was being given a sign that was telling me what I needed to do.”

            The laughter dropped from Jack’s face now, and they looked at each other levelly.

            “So… I did it,” John said.  “I decided to stay on at school.  I took my As. And then I went to university.”

            Jack tilted his head in acknowledgment.

            “So… it was a meaningful coincidence for you, was it?” he said.

            “I guess so, yeah.  Synchronicity, as I later came to understand it.”

            Jack grinned again.  “The Police’s last album?”

            He nudged John’s arm.

            “Just kidding, mate,” he said.  “I know what synchronicity is.  And do you know… old Jung was onto something with that.  And it ain’t a million miles from why we’re sitting here now, talking about this.”

            “How’s that?” John asked.

            Jack sat back again and stretched – staring upwards at the tree tops.

            “I’ll take you back to school again.  Physics class.”

            John groaned.  “Never my strongest.”

            “Me, either.  But I do remember something very clearly. One day, old whatsisname… physics teacher…”

            “Hockley?”

            “That’s it.  Broccoli we called him. He was going on about the behaviour of sub-atomic light particles.  Photons and that. He mentioned this thing called the double-slit experiment.  Remember that?”

            “Vaguely.  Something about shining a beam of light at a screen with two slits, then seeing how the photons behave.”

            “That’s it. And there was this anomaly with it.  The photons didn’t behave as you might expect.  Instead of splitting into two separate paths - some going one way, some going the other - most of 'em seemed to be in one place on the other side.  And not on the left or right... but in the middle.  So it was like they'd split apart, then come back together.”

            “Yeah, I remember.  Something about one thing being in two places at the same time. Which isn’t possible.”

            Jack just looked at him. “You don’t think?”

            “Well, no. It can’t…”

            John stopped.  He thought on that a moment.  Then something came to him.

            “Hang on a minute… so you’re saying…”

            “Exactly,” said Jack. “What I’ve been trying to say all along… what happened that day. That bang on the head that split us into our parallel planes.  You went your way, I went mine.”

            John felt his mouth drop open again.

            “And now,” Jack went on, “Here we are again. Back together.  United in death.”

 

(to be continued)