by Stan Mason
He had tried to avoid hitting the dog and then skidded on the ice on the road, Admittedly he stopped and then went on his way without finding out the damage that was caused.. He must have realised that Jennifer was too far gone for any assistance he could offer. Fear drove men to do the most unusual things. As Hamilton had told him earlier: “The mind plays some fantastic tricks on us when we’re under severe pressure, or face tremendous fear, or become riddled with grief and anger.” The lorry driver was human after all!
The banker discovered that he still had two sleeping pills left . He swallowed on of them, chasing it down with some water, and went to bed early, hoping that the malaise would disappear by morning. In effect, he slept well for some time but just as dawn was breaking he heard Jennifer’s voice speaking to him in his middle ear.
‘Hi, Charlie! I don’t know what the time is where you are but I‘m back to speak to you again. You see, where I am at present there is no time. It doesn’t exist. It’s important I get back to you when your mind’s uncluttered with daily problems. If you’re under stress, try and concentrate on my voice. You see, it’s like a telephone switchboard here with all the lines in use. I can only get through to you when you’re asleep... when you’re relaxed and your brain is playing only with dreams from your sub-conscious mind. The operation’s like a one-way system... a kind of radio transmission service with very weak signals. As a result, few people can hear communications because they don’t have the equipment to receive them. Not like you with your sensitive middle ear. If only you had a switch at your end to return messages but the system doesn’t work that way, I’m still bathed in radiance and glory in a tremendously bright light with no senses or feeling other than weightless delirium. After passing through the net to become formless and indestructible, I haven’t travelled anywhere. Somehow I’ve been put on a ‘hold’ situation. There’s no movement and I’d doing absolutely nothing. It appears I’m a type of energy, without shape or form. For the time being, it’s sufficient merely to be here. I’m aware of a number of people who have crossed the bridge behind me. They’re equally filled with peace and joy. They don’t communicate with me or with each other but exist here in the same state as myself. When I was alive, I always wondered what would happen to a person who had married a number of times. It was an enigmatic problem as to what would happen when they arrived in Heaven. Which wife, or wives, would be with him there for eternity? Well it doesn’t happen that way. After we cross the bridge and ’are processed through the net, we’re no longer friends or relatives. I can only describe it as a collection of balloons being held by a man in a fairground or fete. While the exteriors are touching, the air in each balloon is independent. I hope you understand what I’m trying to say because it’s all very complicated, even to me. It’s strange top think we were brought up to believe that death and taxes are inevitable. The threat’s suspended over our heads all our lives. Yet death is something we ought to look forward to. So far I’m enjoying it, Everything’s real in a natural sense. There’s no present... no past. In a spiritual sense, what’s past has not really gone, it’s still there. On earth, the concept with regard to space is quite short-sighted. For example, if you stand in front of a tree and then move on before looking back, the tree will not have disappeared. It will still be in the same place even though time has passed but you look at it from a different position. In the spiritual world, the same is true with regard to time. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a future. I can’t tell you what it is at the moment because I don’t know. But there is definitely a future! Before I go on, there’s something important I need to explain to you. I’m no longer Jennifer Roach. No longer the Jennifer you knew and loved as your wife. That person only exists in your memory. She’s gone. It’s normal; for those who lose a loved one to become emotional and grieve but such sadness is totally unnecessary. So if you grieve for me any longer, it will be of your own volition and exceptionally futile. No one’s saying that you should erase the memories of our time together. I’m positive they’ll remain with you for the rest of your life. But you shouldn’t miss me deeply. You ought to be delighted that I bask in glory. In your terminology you’d say that I’m at rest... at peace. I have no senses to feel regret, remorse, sadness or humiliation. Neither should you have any pangs of conscience, self-reproach or condemnation. I know that soon I shall be called forward to relate my experiences on earth and to explain many thing that happened during my lifetime there. When that happened, I hope to be able to come back and tell you all about it. If I didn’t do too well, they may consider sending me back. There’s a thought! I might be reincarnated if such things do happen. Hopefully it won’t be as a cat or a dog, a mouse or a spider. I wouldn’t mind coming back as an elephant... the king of the jungle. On the other hand, I might have to haul tree trunks all over the place. No... I’d rather stay here if possible although you’ll regard me as an entity without any means of enjoying the senses. I can’t imagine those wonderful meals at our favourite restaurant any more or the lovely perfume I used to buy. In fact, as my aura weakens, I remember less and less about the things that happened between us. That’s another good reason why you shouldn’t grieve. All the memories we shared are no longer remembered by me. They lodged in your mind. I also know that once my aura fades into infinity, I shall no longer be able to speak with you. Don’t be concerned, I shall still be watching you for the rest of your life. I hope you recall all this when you awake. Enjoy your life, Charlie! Leave yourself only a brief memory of me. Yucca, Charlie, yucca!’
Roach woke up a few minutes later to the jangling noise of the alarm clock which sounded like a banshee screaming in the murkiness of the morning gloom. He sat up in bed, rubbing his hands over his face to rouse himself. Was it the voice of Jennifer in his middle ear as suspected or was it a figment of his imagination... the means to reduce his grief? It all seemed so real. Her voice... the things she told him... could they really be attributed to his imagination? She had already given him clues such as ‘Yucca’. It was only a one-way communication system she had told him. He couldn’t ask questions and expect to get answers, He could only wait and wonder!
He spent the next half hour thinking about the problem but he couldn’t fathom it out. It needed someone with a much higher intelligence quotient to determine the truth. He wondered whether he could introduce thoughts into his mind while Jennifer spoke to him. In that way it might induce her to respond accordingly. She might be able to pick up the vibrations and translate them. Anything was possible! For example, if he posed the question ‘Who is God?’ she would never answer because she wouldn’t know. And even if she did, could he be certain that it wasn’t a figment of his imagination? It was impossible to tell. The problem was that human-beings were such complex creatures... not like those who had crossed the bridge!
Chapter Eight
The bedroom was almost in darkness, lit by the reflection of the moon shining through a slit in the curtains. Wendy Purdy sat on a kidney-shaped stool at her dressing-table with her back arched slightly. She had spent an hour in the lounge reading a travel magazine which offered trips to places where she had always wanted to go. However she couldn’t afford any of them and knew full well they were as distant as another planet. The American Dream... to visit cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles... exploring the American West where there were natural wonders such as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Park. There was travel to the mysterious kingdom of Nepal where one could step centuries into the past descending from the mountains to game reserves on the plains. One could tour the Andes to the Amazon, searching for lost civilisations and the endangered habitats of South America stretching from the thundering falls of Iguacu to the serene expanse of Lake Titicaca. They were all far distant exotic places relating to remote dreams of paradise beyond one’s reach. She stared at her husband who was fast asleep and shook her head as the magazine slipped idly from her fingers to the floor. She had expected very little from life and fate made certain that she w
as not to be disappointed. . It would be euphemistic to state that the years of marriage to Jim Purdy had been exciting. As the sixth daughter of a coal-miner living in a stark mining town with extremely few amenities for young people, she had grown up to be a sales assistant in a local store and ended up marrying a truck driver. It was probably the highest level she could expect to reach in that environment. Many years later, when Purdy decided to set up in business on his own, it appeared that the fortunes of the family was on the rise. However, in the effluxion of time, due to poor management and very severe competition, all aspirations spiralled downwards. Now it all seemed lost... their savings, their home, their marriage and their pride! In addition, she had to contend with the fact that he had killed two people and had slept with a woman on his trip to Manchester! There was nothing left! As a wife, she had a duty to honour his wishes and to protect him. She had never forgotten her wedding vows and refused to take them lightly... for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse! However, as a citizen, she knew that he was guilty of killing two people and she also had a duty by law to report him to the police. He was also guilty of murdering their marriage by virtue of the fact of his infidelity with another woman. She truly believed that, during their marriage, he had been unfaithful to her with three other women but she was unable to prove it. She could still sense the odour of the perfume in her nostrils of the woman he had slept with in Manchester. Whatever happened with his business and their home could be endured, but it left much to be desired with regard to their marriage. She would still continue to stand by him through thick and thin unless she caught him being unfaithful again.
Purdy began to snore loudly and then snorted erratically before turning over on to his side and resuming a silent sleep. What she would give up to take up those offers to travel to the United States, or Nepal or South America! They were distant dreams that would never be fulfilled! He had been such a handsome interesting man when they first met. In those days he was young, boyish, fearless, sporting a powerful physique, and he had swept her off her feet. She felt she had been carried off by a whirlwind. Every weekend, he would take her to the local racetrack where he was one of the popular stock-car drivers ..a strong contender for the money, the prize, the trophy and the records. The shelves in the house were filled with trophies that he had won in the past. Sadly, he hadn’t shown that sort of courage or inspiration for many years. For most of his life, he had worked for a road-haulage company, driving a fourteen-ton truck which bore the insignia of a mediaeval knight under which was written: “Knight of the Road!” Driving vehicles was all that he knew. It was all he ever wanted to know... it was his life! As time passed, there came one economic recession after another and he became redundant when his employer’s company went into liquidation. In a way, it was a double-edged sword for Purdy. On the one hand he was out of a job without any prospects for further work because all road-haulage companies were on the financial brink. On the other hand, there was all that experience as a driver to enable him to start up in business on his own. The decision to become self-employed changed his life overnight from an easy-going truck driver without a care in the world to an entrepreneur of a small business who had borrowed heavily from his bank, with all the worries of the world on his shoulders. He had lost his verve, his charm, his interest in other people... including his wife... as well as his youthful appearance. The new turn of events created, in itself, a mid-life crisis from which he would never recover. Wendy Purdy recalled the words of wisdom from her father who had advised her to marry another young man in the town by the name of Harry Timson. He was a young miner who had been going out with her for some time and was preparing to emigrate to America. Change and a new venue were too uplifting and scary for the young woman and so she let him go without her. In some ways, leaving the stark, cold mining town to emigrate was enticing but she declined to take the opportunity, thereby ignoring the parental advice so freely offered. Many years later, she learned that Harry was the owner of a number of shoe stores and had become very successful in his own right. He had started out as a car salesman and now broadcast his company and its wares on numerous radio stations in a few states. Indeed, Wendy O’Donovan, as she was then, had missed a great opportunity through the inexperience of youth. In hindsight, major chances are very few and far between in real life. If a person made the wrong decision whenever one occurred, there was no hope of ever going back. She didn’t care at the time. She was head-over-heels in love with a man who was much more fun to be with than Harry Timson. He was Jim Purdy! Now that she had been through the School of Life and gained worldly-wise experience, she realised what a fool she had been. If she could only live her life over again and made the right decisions... but that was wishful thinking! On was stuck with those that one made at the time and, oddly enough, most of them are defective through the influence of passion, desire and ambition. Reason dictated that the young should never be allowed to make decisions for themselves, It was too risky, too implausible, and often ended misguidedly. More than often, life played some very unfair tricks on people! She stared at the sleeping man in the bed who snorted and turned over on his other side. Yes... it played some very unfair tricks!
At that moment, Purdy existed in delirium on another plane. In the arms of Morpheus, he was reliving past glories of his success on the stock-car racing track. For those few brief years, there was no one capable of holding a candle to him in that field of sport in the county. He was daring and courageous, almost to the point of recklessness, for that was the only way to ensure continued success, ostensibly caring nothing for his personal safety as he concentrated on winning races. Every week, he careered around the track in one battered stock-car after another, effecting considerable damage to the vehicles of other competitors. There was only one thought in his mind... to win! Success was no stranger to him either. He won and kept on winning for as long as he could remember... until misfortune overtook him at the peak of his racing career. It happened at an international tournament with competitors from all over the world. There were no longer any local pushovers to hammer into the ground... no quarter from anyone. Contestants were champions in their own right, not only highly-skilled in their field but each won was determined to win the major prize. One of the races started well and everything was going to plan when he fell foul of the Mortensen twins from Sweden. They had entered the race in separate cars and, after some harsh encounters, he realised that they were ganging up on him. There were always individual needle matches in competitions, mostly regarding savage impacting on certain vehicles on a one-to-one relationship. In this main event however, there were two cars in concert against one. He had no chance of beating both of them by himself. Eric Mortensen hit him at an angle on one side while Bjorn Mortensen, who was running fractionally ahead of him, struck him on the other side simultaneously. The twins were past masters at such tactics and the double-hit was timed to perfection. Purdy’s car turned over a number of times to end up resting on its back eliminating him from the contest. But worse was to come, Although stock-cars carried low levels of fuel, to avoid fire on impact or crashes, his car suddenly burst into flames. He was only just conscious and managed to haul himself out, in great pain, suffering from a fractured leg. When the ground staff pulled him clear, he was on fire all the way down his back. Fortunately he was wearing protective clothing which prevented him from serious injury but he was still badly burned. The scars would be visible for the rest of his life. The broken leg meant an end to his illustrious career. There was no rancour or chagrin. He had already lasted far longer than any other local champion and concluded that it was the right time to retire. There was no dishonour at arriving at that decision. He was like any other sportsman forced to retire through injury or age.
He snorted and twisted again in the bed before rolling on his back to his earlier position. It was all relative now. A person usually had only one chance in life to be successful. Such conferred opportunities came in all shapes and sizes. Early triumphs, such
as his success in stock-car racing, or those awarded to other people in whatever they used their skills, tended to be short-lived terminating in the early years of manhood. They achieve a decade or so of glory and nothing more. People like Purdy tended to be remembered for a while and then disappeared into the woodwork. It was impractical to make a comeback! In the fictitious story, Faust managed to beat the odds by selling his soul to the Devil to elongate his life. The opportunity to do that never came to the driver for he may have well accepted the offer in order to relive his previous triumphs, ignoring his fate in death.
When he awoke it was broad daylight. He felt refreshed and quickly realised that he had slept far too long. His wife was absent from the room but he found her downstairs stretched out on the settee far asleep with a travel magazine in her hands.
‘Damned woman!’ he thought. ‘Always wanting something we can’t afford! Always being miserable because they can’t get what they want!’ He returned to the bedroom to dress and then went down to the kitchen to make two mugs of tea which he placed on a tray and took into the front room. ‘Wakey, wakey! Rise and shine!’ he recited, as she began to regain consciousness, sitting down in an armchair after placing the tray on a coffee-table. ‘Tea’s up if you want it!’
