“Ernest can you see the mirror on the wall?” she gestured to an elegant full length mirror that seconds before hadn’t been on the wall.
“Could you stand in front of it and watch very carefully.” Juanita smiled at him and again gestured to the spot in front of the mirror.
“Please, humour me.” Ernest shrugged, pushed the duvet to one side, got out of bed and stepped in front of the mirror. Ernest stared back at himself from the mirror, dressed in a maroon dressing gown and paisley pyjamas. He smiled and started to turn to ask her what he was waiting for, when his reflection called him back.
“Ernest,” his reflection said,
“Keep looking at the mirror.” Ernest reluctantly returned his gaze to his reflection and saw that the Ernest in the mirror was moving independently, not synchronising with him.
The reflected Ernest untied the maroon dressing gown, slipped it off and placed it over the back of the armchair. He then undid the buttons of the paisley pyjama top, took it off and folded it before putting it on top of the dressing gown. He turned back and tapped his chest where the bottom of the breastbone ended. The skin covering a circle twenty centimetres in diameter disappeared leaving Ernest looking into what he assumed was his own chest cavity. As he stared into his reflected self, Juanita asked,
“What can you see Ernest?”
“A heart, I assume mine. The bottom of my lungs, part of a liver and some stomach or intestine?” He queried the last part as he wasn’t sure how to relate the purple, grey organs he could see against his perception that they would be a healthy pink/red colour.
“Your heart, is it beating?” The question took him by surprise, he hadn’t noticed, he had assumed it was. He stared into his chest cavity for a moment, but couldn’t discern any movement.
“Your lungs, are they expanding and contracting?” He looked, uncertain what he would see. The hole moved upwards giving him a clear view of his lungs
“No.” He paused not sure what to say. The reflection in the mirror wasn’t showing any signs of life. He hadn’t felt any breath when he had blown onto his fingers. If he were dead why did he feel no different from when he was alive? Better than when he was alive.
“I’m dead.” It was a statement and not a question. The question she was expecting came next.
“I don’t feel dead. I feel better now than I have done in twenty years. Don’t the dead feel,” he paused, failing to find the word he was searching for. Instead all he could offer was,
“Dead?”
Juanita thought how she should answer what was a fundamental question of the newly dead.
“On earth, to live you need to breath, your heart has to beat to propel your blood around your body, you eat for energy, etc., etc.. You know the biology. This, is a different place. You’re not alive. Opposite rules apply. Do you feel good? Yes, you do. Have you noticed the lack of breath or a pulse? The answer is no. Alive has it’s advantages, death also has advantages. You’ve demonstrated to yourself that you can peel back the layers. In humans; clothes then skin, then organs. In objects from outer through to inner. In limbo our differences are the skills that help us to do whatever we have to do. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t dead. It’s simple. When you die one of three things happen. You can go straight to heaven. Here life is relaxed, pleasant and without stress or pain. It is the best place to be and more than half of all people who die go straight there. The alternative is that you go straight to hell. Life in hell is unpleasant, stressful, painful and repetitive. Whatever you have done in your life that caused you to go to hell will be linked to the punishment you will suffer. An example might be a murderer who is killed time and time again. Each time is more unpleasant and they remember what has happened before.” Juanita shuddered, shaking her head to clear the thought.
“Or, you are sent to limbo. Limbo is the place where you come when you have unfinished business on earth that has to be dealt with before you can continue. If you come to limbo, you will progress to heaven, but not until you have resolved, whatever has to be resolved. You still have work to do. Unfinished business occurs if your death is premature by more than five years. You will need to return to earth a few times to resolve those issues. Once that is completed, you will continue to heaven.”
Juanita watched Ernest, paying close attention to the expression on his face. Would he be bright enough to see his situation for what it was and accept it? Or, as quite often happened, if her subject lacked the intellect to grasp their new reality, she would need to give them a simpler explanation.
Ernest paced around his bedroom. After a moment he stopped pacing, a decision had been made. Turning to face Juanita, he smiled walked to the armchair and lowered himself into it before he started to speak.
“I have two more questions for you. What is it that I have to finish? And as my guide can you assist me to complete this task?”
Juanita smiled with relief. She spent a couple of moments pondering how much to tell Ernest immediately and how much of the story to save until Ernest trusted her a little more. As if reading her thoughts, Ernest answered that question for her.
“I’m sure that you are wondering how honest you ought to be with me at this early stage in our relationship. I would also have concerns about my ability to cope with anymore extraordinary revelations. Can I tell you why this doesn’t present a problem for me?”
Juanita lips twitched with a small smile and she inclined her head to indicate that Ernest should continue.
“You know as much about me as I know about myself; probably more. You are aware of my flaws and attributes. Looking at me the question you must answer is; has dying changed him? Of course, but for better or worse?” Ernest paused and when he was sure Juanita was keeping up with his thread he continued.
“My family were very bright. My mother, father and brother were all gifted academics. My forte was of a more practical nature, commerce, and I was very good and very successful at it.”
Climbing out of the luxurious folds of the armchair, he began pacing the room in the manner he had adopted at difficult board meetings. Movement calmed him; allowing him to concentrate on the situation before him.
“I was shocked when you told me that I was dead. However, the benefits outweigh that. I feel so well. All my aches and pains have gone. No arthritis, no angina, no anything. Ironic? I have always been a card carrying atheist, once you died that was it. Black empty nothingness. No past, no present, no future. Just nothing. To discover that there is something, an existence, a future, has shaken my belief system to the core. Now, I need to know the truth. I need to know how it works, what we do, how we do it and how long it takes. Okay?”
Juanita studied Ernest as he walked across the room to the armchair and eased himself into it. She had listened to Ernest’s argument but his reasons were too trite and manufactured; something was missing. She floated around the room, studying him from various angles trying to fathom what was different. He watched her, watching him. A contented smile on his face, waiting for her to respond. There was only one explanation that fitted.
“Ernest, why are you happy to be dead?”
Ernest looked up; startled,
“Pardon?”
“Dying doesn’t seem to bother you? You were shocked but not for long.”
Ernest thought for a moment, then nodded and replied,
“Five years ago, my wife died of breast cancer. She died in agony while I held her hand. She was my best friend. Her name was Jess. We had been married for thirty years and were looking forward to twenty more years. When Jess died, my life died as well. Now I can see her again. All I have to do is deal with this unfinished business and then I can keep my promise to her.”
Juanita decided, Ernest was ready to move onto dealing with his unfinished business. However, he now had to learn what he had to do and how it needed to be done.
“Ernest, we now need to talk about what you have to do while you are here. I flicked through your file in the time before you arriv
ed; you’re going to be kept occupied for quite some time. We have three separate areas we need to work on before you can move on and see your wife again.”
Ernest interrupted, surprised by what she had said.
“You knew I was coming, before I arrived? How could you know that?”
Juanita considered his question and how she should answer him. He was bright, and had shown he could process unexpected information. Honesty, she decided, was her Ernest policy.
“Your death date is set at birth. However, it can move by as much as ten per cent depending on a number of factors. Throughout history, one of the main factors has been the political situation in a country and because of these political situations the likelihood of war. Connected to this is the availability of food, the occurrence of endemic diseases and the frequency of serious epidemics. Continent wide pandemics; the plague in the thirteen hundreds and the flu pandemic of nineteen eighteen, really messed with our estimates. As we come forward in time through the centuries longevity increased because of improved sanitation, vaccination against many life threatening diseases and more stable political situations around the world. Tobacco has kept us busy as it has culled more people than all the wars this century combined have managed to achieve. Now we see less tobacco related deaths as people realise that it will kill them in a painful and unpleasant way and more deaths caused by drinking and eating too much. Yours is a fat, drunk world.”
She continued in a dry, unsentimental manner,
“You were a little unlucky to be killed. However, it only shortened your life by about ten years, so it was just within the guidelines. Murder is the one we can’t predict. Child murders are always heart breaking. How do you explain to a child that their life has been shortened by maybe ninety-five per cent because of something they had no control over?”
Ernest’s anger exploded with no warning.
“Wait a minute, rewind. What are you talking about? Killed? I wasn’t killed. I was sitting in a bar enjoying a large Laphroaig whisky when I felt a terrible pain in the centre of my chest. The pain radiated out across my chest and spread down my arm and up into my neck. I heard the barman on the telephone to the ambulance service saying that one of his customers was having a heart attack. I heard the paramedic, when they were putting me into the ambulance and connecting the leads for the ECG, say he thought I had had a large M.I. and they needed to get moving before I arrested. The next time I was aware of anything I was here. I died of a heart attack.”
Juanita chose her words with care. Keeping her voice neutral, she replied,
“I’m afraid it wasn’t a heart attack. It looked like one, it would have felt like one, but it wasn’t a heart attack. You were poisoned. We don’t know why you were murdered, just that you were. One part of your unfinished business is to work out why it happened and who killed you. When you know that, you will then know what to do. Your brother’s death was also suspicious. His death is linked to your death. His death should have been his unfinished business and he should have stopped here in limbo to deal with it himself. He wasn’t assigned a guide and passed through to heaven. As the connection between you both is so strong, it has been decided to assign his unfinished issues to you.”
Ernest studied Juanita’s face and physique.
“You’re only a child aren’t you? How old were you when you died?”
“Child? No, I am a woman; I was sixteen years old, married. The Inquisition, the Dominican Friars, tortured me. They believed that I was a witch and had cursed a priest. It was such nonsense I refused to confess. So, they tortured me until my body couldn’t take anymore and I died. Don’t let my apparent physical age deceive you. I have guided many people before you. I am at your disposal until you have completed everything that needs completing. One issue you need to address is that we cannot do anything from limbo. We need someone on earth.”
“I’m sorry, we need what?” Ernest said.
“A physical body. We’re ghosts. We can’t turn the page of a book, speak on the telephone or ask a question. Psychic detection is a sweet idea, but without a body to help …” Juanita left the sentence hanging.
“An accomplice? I assume you have a stock of these that you use from time to time. Call them up and we can get cracking.”
Juanita looked to the sky and sighed. Bridging her fingers, she spoke with exaggerated care. “Ernest for a man who can demonstrate flashes of brilliance and insight that are truly breath taking, you can be very dim witted. Concentrate. Your accomplice or whatever you choose to call them has to have a connection with you. You need to be able to influence them. You need to trust them. Don’t be under any illusions if you don’t complete yours and your brother’s business, you can’t go anywhere. Trapped in this room, in limbo.” The expression on Juanita’s face hardened.
“Eternity is a very long time. Use a little of your intellect to find yourself a helper. I’ll see myself out.”
Chapter 4
Reverend William Bacchus was disappointed, by dying. He didn’t, he thought, consider dying bad, per se, but death, as with everything in life, had a right way and a wrong way. His death was wrong. He was a vicar, he knew about death. He knew how it worked. He’d read the books, attended the seminars, been bored to death at the retreats. It was straightforward.
As a man of God, he had expectations. Every job had it’s perks. Sales reps got company cars, butchers got all the steak they could eat and vicars got a personal meet and greet when their time came. Where were the choirs of heavenly angels? The light at the end of the tunnel? The large wrought iron gates, with St Peter, clipboard in hand? Blackness. Nothing, but a bland emptiness. That he had not been expecting.
Now he was dead. Where was God? Where was the personal meet and greet he had been led to believe was part of the package? William’s next thought brought him up short. What, he wondered, if the missing God, missing choirs of heavenly angels, missing tunnel and light combination, missing person in robes, was to show him that he wasn’t dead? Was he asleep? Dreaming in glorious Technicolor? Seemed unlikely, but possible. Could you think when you were dead?
“William, William Bacchus?” It’s too late, he thought, I’ve been waiting here for ages and you’re going to say you’re late because; why? If you can’t get it right for one of your own, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of them.
“William, I’m going to need your help.”
Need my help? William looked around inside his head where the voice had come from, but could see nothing. Need my help? I’ve spent my life helping. I preach, visit, pray, and preach some more and that’s not enough?
“William, when you wake up, you might not remember this, but we will come and talk to you again once you have seen my gift to you.” What’s this guy talking about? I’m dead; I’m not here to receive a gift. Or does that mean I’m only sleeping?
“Mr Bacchus, Mr Bacchus,”
At first they spoke with a concerned gentleness and then with more insistence.
“William, Mr Bacchus. Can you open your eyes, please?”
Open my eyes? William thought. I’m asleep. You can’t sleep with your eyes open. William knew he was thinking rubbish but he hadn’t felt this good since having his first joint and discovering girls all in one evening.
“William, open your eyes, please. You’re in Yeovil hospital and we need to talk to you. Open your eyes, please.”
William was struggling to understand why this person thought he was in a hospital. He’d had a couple of whisky’s, well a few, quite a lot actually and he was a little fuzzy. Perhaps he ought to try to talk to them and find out what they were doing in a vicar’s bedroom in the middle of the night. He sniffed or thought he did. If he was in hospital, wouldn’t it smell? The sterile antiseptic came first, reviving the memory of a hospital ward in Devon. On holiday with his mother he’d climbed some large rocks on the beach at Croyde Bay. He’d then discovered that the going up is far slower and less painful than falling down. He had an operation to repair a bad
ly broken wrist and spent three days being pampered by his mother and all of the nurses. His nostrils twitched again, tasting the air around him. Next he smelt a subtle spicy scent with a background note of citrus, followed by a waft of garlic and gum disease. He felt garlic and gum disease turn away and say,
“Dem, he seems to be sensitive to the morphine. I can’t get this chap to wake up enough so that I can check he’s still alive.”
Looking across from the next bay where he was treating a patient with a broken femur, Dem said in his idiosyncratic way,
“It is looking like he is waking. I will be with you momentarily. Can you ECG him and have some blood? Oh sorry, I forgot, please. Please.”
After finishing putting his patients leg in a temporary splint Dem came and stood by William’s bed and started reading his notes and looking at the ECG that the nurse had handed him.
“I think we should try harder to wake him?” A statement in the form of a question would have confused anyone who wasn’t used to Dem’s peculiar use of English but after three months was ignored by all the A&E nurses.
“Dem, I have been trying for the past ten minutes. Should we try Naxalone?”
“No, no here he is now.”
Moving around the bed so that he could talk to William who was lying on his side. Dem began,
“Mr er, Bacchus?” a voice to the left of William asked. Glancing down at the folder, the voice resumed.
“I think perhaps I mispronounced you. Apologies apologies. In Gujarat where I am from … No, no. Before I fascinate you with Gujarati wisdom let us discover your malady. Please call me Dem. Ah good you are becoming awake. Let me tell you what has befallen you.” He paused to let William struggle into an upright position with the help of a nurse. He then continued,
Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) Page 3
