by D. A. Fox
I know I am asleep and can therefore do as I wish so I grab a small shovel they are using for the open fire and get up and hit him.
He falls back to the ground with the shovel embedded in his skull, he looks dead.
I walk towards the mirror to see my reflection?
Then I'm in the corner of my bedroom looking down on myself asleep? I pull myself back towards my body and wake in a sweat once more.
Could I have killed him whilst dreaming?
I get through the day at work continually looking at the local newspaper via the internet, there's nothing? I listened to the radio which was also unremarkable; just blocked roads and someone who was assaulted by youths the night before in town.
I get home and turn on the news, Lisa is in the kitchen.
“OK darling, had a nice day.” Lisa asks.
“The usual.” I reply.
“Your dinner will be ready in about half an hour.” Lisa said.
“That’s fine.” I reply.
Still nothing on the TV?
It must not have happened, great.
I have my dinner and watch TV as usual and retire to bed. I have a normal nights sleep reassured all is fine.
The following day was work as usual in clinic. On the way home I decide to drive past Sarah's house, I have her address from my notes. The house looks quiet and the front room light is on. Everything must be alright, its seems a normal looking house, no police tape like you see on TV at crime scenes.
I need to go to the supermarket and head off to my usual one. Whilst walking around I see Sarah; she is with Andrew and they both look remarkably close?
I purposely use the same aisle as Sarah but from the opposite direction to catch her eye.
“Hello Sarah how are you, you missed your appointment.” I say to her.
“Sorry, my toe healed up and I didn't want to bother you.” Sarah explains.
During the conversation Andrew has gone off to get something and I ask is everything OK with her and Andrew now and she says its been better than ever. Sarah explains that he hit her the other night but she fought back and hit him with a small shovel they use to clean out the fire.
Sarah continues to explain that he has been fine since she retaliated but that she cannot remember hitting him; she said that she must of seen red.
That was quite a shock? I have leapt into another body, its like that American programme Quantum Leap except it happens when I'm asleep.
This is now the second time and I cannot help but think that it must be real what's happening to me?
The following day I arrange for my case-load to be cancelled and go to the library trying to look for some sort of explanation; I know this was fruitless but I look anyway.
There is a case I find on a Google search of an American guy who claims that it happens to him. All his writings have been ridiculed.
I am not intending to let the world know, they will think I am a crack pot, I will lose my practise and never work again.
At least no-one was hurt; in fact it has helped Sarah? Maybe this is a gift like spider man being bitten then he goes on to help people.
This can't be true, I am being stupid, I'm starting to crack up.
I continue to read through various books and searches online; I am looking at journals and research papers and find nothing feasible.
There is a pretty lady opposite where I am sitting; she has been getting books from the same genre as me. I take my book back to the shelf and she does also. I ask her if she has found anything interesting, “no,” she replies.
Her name is Barbara and a mature student studying psychology. “What are you looking for,” she asks.
“I am curious about out of body experiences.” I reply
“Good subject to look into, its quite common, a lot of people have experienced this.” Barbara says.
We have a discussion about it and it appears people find themselves hovering above themselves whilst asleep looking down on themselves. I explain that this is what I have experienced and that is the reason I was looking into it.
Barbara points me in the right direction to some research papers on the subject, all of them have been dismissed as rubbish. The researchers found no basis for the claims and that they even asked what was on the top of the wardrobe whilst up at the ceiling and none of them could answer.
This was not the case when I was looking down, all I could see was me in the bed with the sense of a kind of invisible umbilical cord joining me with my body? Everything else was black, like looking through a tube, no peripheral vision.
I found that Barbara lives with her boyfriend called Simon; also a student studying Physics and he arrives in the library to meet her whilst we were talking. Simon looks like the typical science geek with glasses.
You could see that he would be quite a good looking bloke if he changed his appearance but Barbara didn't seem to care. She introduced me to Simon and they left together.
I left the library and headed home.
That night it happened again, I retired to bed around ten thirty.
This time I was Simon?
This seemed quite inevitable in retrospect. I am in their flat; its a typical student flat with books everywhere, a couple of laptops but very clean. I am sitting at a table with a book about quantum particles, I know of quarks and string theory from watching the documentary channel. I don't know what was in front of me though.
Barbara comes into the room; she only has a nightie on and it does not leave much to the imagination. She has a cup of coffee for me.
“Thanks.” I said.
Barbara heads off to the settee and sits down with her legs curled up beside her. I take a sip of my coffee and spurt it out.
“Is it horrible.” Barbara says.
“No, its fine just very sweet.” I reply.
“That's how you like it.” She said.
“Its fine, just me.” I reply.
I am at the table pretending to know what I am looking at in the physics books and Barbara starts to read a book. This seemed to go on for quite a while. “Why am I here?” I am thinking. Nothing is happening, they are a normal loving couple? Then I am back in my bedroom once more.
At work I am wondering what the previous nights dream was all about? There has to be some sort of reason I got there. I started think about Simon's field... physics. Maybe the clue is in there somewhere.
I know physicians mess about with maths to try to work out how the universe works, but maybe its not in maths, they may need another kind of language to do this.
Something where 2 + 2 does not equal 4 but can be any number.
I studied cell biology and physiology with all the other 'ologies' needed to be a Podiatrist. One of my theories was that, the cell has a nucleus surrounded by various organelles.
The atoms are surrounded by electrons.
What if our universe was just a cell?
That there are other cells next to our one? All these cells make up something bigger; another human maybe who also lives on a planet in a universe, which is itself a cell with other cells next to it, and so on and so on.
Then there is the possibility of parallel universes.
This theory in part was stated by a physicist a while ago who said that there could be cells of universes next to each other. I should have published that but there you go.
Maybe what I am experiencing is something weird like that theory but I need to find out what it is?
I can't be jumping into parallel universes as the consequences happen here in mine?
I am not a physicist and have no inclination to be one but I will have to try to find out why this phenomenon is happening myself without having to study physics for years.
That night I was back in Simon's body once more; he was again studying, he seems to stay up quite late doing his work.
Barbara is in another room, I can hear her singing but do not know the layout of the flat. I get up to wander around and she is in the bedroom getting changed.
&nb
sp; She is taking off her day clothes; she has a beautiful body, she's a mature student but only about twenty seven.
Do I carry on looking or walk out?
“Hi love.” She said.
“Alright, I need to stretch my legs for a minute.” I said.
She carries on getting undressed until she is naked; I am 46 and have not seen a girl that age naked since I was that age.
She is gorgeous. She slips on her nightie, the see through one she wore the night before.
Was this some sort of pervy way of getting off with her? I leave her alone and go back to the table with the books.
I wake again back at home in bed none the wiser.
Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
Lisa has asked if we are going out and I have agreed; I could do with a drink.
The evening is going fine, we are at the Abington Park Hotel; its not a hotel it's a pub and are sitting in the garden, there's quite a few people there; the pub is opposite Abington Park which we can see across the road.
A group of teenagers are there doing the usual thing, standing around talking with cans of lager.
One of them has pushed another; they are two boys and they start to fight, one of them falls to the floor and looks hurt.
I feel the need to go over and help him and cross the road to the park.
I tell the others to leave him alone as he is hurt. Another of the boys says to the boy that punched him, “hit the old git Adam.”
I tell him I now know his name and that he should leave and amazingly they did.
The boy on the floor comes around and I ask him if he is OK. His name is Brian.
He states that he is and wants to go home and he leaves on his push bike.
I returned to the pub and continued my drink, talking to Lisa about the 'youth of today' as if we did not get into scrapes when we were younger.
The boy named Adam then appeared at the gate to the pub shouting abuse at me. I ignore him and go into the pub to finish the evening.
Nothing else happened and we bought a takeaway and returned home.
That night I was in the corner of the room once more and awakened in the boy from the parks body, Brian. He is in the park with some other boys. They are talking about Adam and how much of a twat he is.
I can see some more boys approaching, its Adam with some other boys. Adam begins giving me a lot of abuse saying I slept with his girlfriend. I try to explain that it's rubbish and not to listen to gossip; he obviously doesn't believe me because he starts throwing punches.
Brian is a lot smaller than Adam and doesn't have the strength to fend him off.
Adam then pulls out a knife and comes towards me. We grapple and fall to the floor, I get up but Adam stays down; the knife has gone into his own chest.
I try to stem the bleeding and ask the rest to call an ambulance, its clear to me its very close to his aortic artery and that it is possibly futile but I continue.
One of the boys then pulls out the knife I shout, “no” he will bleed out. Its now fatal; there's too much blood.
I hear an ambulance siren and the crew heading towards us; the other boys with Adam have all run off.
I awake in the morning and put on the radio, a boy has died in the park from a fatal stabbing. I'm gutted; the police have arrested a youth who is now in custody charged with murder.
I follow the case and Brian gets charged and is awaiting trial. He has stated he knew nothing about the incident, he can't remember.
By now I am afraid to sleep and it's affecting my job; I cannot concentrate and am making silly mistakes, but what can I do? Someone has died and it may happen again. I know it wasn't my fault as Adam pulled the knife.
Should I go to the police and say that I saw the incident?
Brian has the back-up of his friends that saw Adam pull the knife so he should be alright, it was self defence plus an accident combined surely?
I put it all out of my mind and try to continue my day as normal treating patients in clinic.
I arrive home and have my dinner and sit down to watch some TV with Lisa.
"Did you have a nice day." Lisa says.
"yes thanks, more of the same, ingrown toenails corns and verruca's." I reply.
"I have been asked to go on a works night out Friday is that alright with you." Says Lisa.
"Yes that's fine you enjoy yourself I will have a night in ." I said.
Friday arrives and Lisa leaves for her night out and I relax in front of the TV with a few cans of beer.
I start to feel a bit sleepy as the night goes on and fall asleep on the settee.
Once again after a few days of peace I am inside someone's body; I do not know who it is?
There is a lady next to me and we are having a meal in a restaurant. The lady is calling me Steven; at least I now know that. She is talking about work and she apparently works in a bank from what I can gather so far.
There is a big meeting in 3 days and the bank is merging with another. I find out that the two banks are major players and that the share price will rise; this is the sort of thing where jumping into someone's body may come in useful.
The takeover is
The same routine happens and I wake up, no sweating, just feel normal and then I fall back to sleep.
The following day I check online the share prices for these companies; the lady says her bank are taking over the other one.
The share price is £2.19 a share.
I check my bank balance and business account balance and can afford quite a large amount of shares.
I have also contacted my bank and can re-mortgage the house and can raise in total £650,000.
I decide to take the gamble and buy shares in the bank.
I buy 296,800 shares.
As the nerve racking days pass the merger is on the news and the share price shoots up to £6.50 and I quickly phone my broker to cash in; he explains to me that the shares are worth £1,929,200, this is just fantastic; the broker takes a small percentage but it still makes me a millionaire even after buying my house back.
Lisa is on a night out with my sister in law Karen and it feels like an incredibly long time before Lisa returns and she does at 2.30am very drunk and talking shit; I decide to wait until morning but I could not sleep, I just listen to Lisa snoring all night, but its OK I don't care for once.
I get up at 8am and go to the shop for a paper, its all over the front page and also on the news.
Lisa comes down at around 9.30am with a thick head and heads for the kitchen cupboard for headache tablets then comes into the front room.
I tell her she looks rough and she tells me where to go in a very impolite way. She then goes into a long speech about the previous night; she actually lost her handbag and had to borrow £30 from a friend.
After about 20 minutes she has told me everything that she can remember and goes quiet.
I am going over in my mind how I can give her the good news; I want it to be shocking.
I don't want to just blurt it out?
I tell her I have re-mortgaged the house!
Lisa has gone berserk, shouting and swearing; I think I could have done it better. I explain that I have also spent our savings and the business account money!
"What the fuck." she says.
"I gambled it on the stock market." I say.
"You fucking arsehole, what were you thinking." Lisa says.
"Before you have a heart attack I have made a little profit and have not lost anything." I reply.
"How much profit, a tenner I bet or something stupid." Lisa replied.
I open the laptop and log into my bank account online.
"Are you ready." I say to her.
"Go on then, show me." Lisa replies.
Lisa is sitting on the settee and I pass the laptop to her. She is looking at the screen but not taking it in.
"What is this, you have a joke screen or something, I can't be doing with your silly jokes this morning." She says.
> " Its no joke, I bought a shit load of shares and this is what the return is." I said.
"Piss off." she replies.
I explain to her that its not a joke and tell her we are going to the bank later to buy back the house.
We arrive at the bank and my manager has a grin on his face; he has seen the large deposit going into my account and knows why I am there.
He tells me to take a seat and he will be with me shortly.
During this time I take Lisa to the cash point inside the bank and enter my pin and bring up the balance and we have just over 1.95 million; I did leave some in the bank, I am not that silly.
Lisa nearly drops to the floor and after it sinks in she gives me a big kiss and a huge hug; I haven't seen her this happy for a long time. Lisa need to take a seat to really let it sink in.
The bank manager calls us in and we pay off the re-mortgage leaving us with one and a half million.
For the next few days Lisa is ecstatic, calling her friends and work mates. Lisa has spoke to her boss and he has agreed some time off for it to sink in.
Lisa has constantly asking me how I knew that there would be a takeover, I explained I overheard someone in the pub when she was on her works night out and that the woman who was saying this was one of the people that would be at the takeover meeting.
After saying this many times that conversation begins to fade.
