Questioning My Mortality

I had never actually questioned my mortality until the day I managed to fall down the stairs.  Over the years, I must have taken the top step down thousands of times.  You see, just so I don’t sound like a big buffoon, from the upstairs landing we have a single step down to the top step of the stairway then you have the option of, down step by step to the ground floor, or to an adjacent step up into the upstairs bathroom.

It was the unsteady navigation of that top step, the three foot square top step that you have to cross to go to the toilet in the blackness of the early hours where the only light is the shrouding orange emanating from the street lights and penetrating the edges of ill-fitting curtains in the spare room.  As some of you reading  this will be able to relate to, the early hours visit to the toilet something most have only the latter years to thank.

That step, the life changing step, 3.14am the bleary eyed trot down the landing, bouncing from wall to wall and unhooking the baby gate, we still have up for the grandchildren.  Then it happened, and I don’t know if any of you have ever experienced this before, that pivotal moment when everything seems to stand still and you are able to stop and purvey everything, not sure if it is a psychological anomaly, you think this has actually happened but in reality you have had a moment of pure open mindedness when you take in immaculate details to be recalled remember it in extreme detail later.

But this is what happened to me, the gate swung open and when it clanged against the wall, everything stopped, this just coincided with the very instant I fell.  As I came out of my momentary trance I lost my footing on the top step went over painfully on my ankle, the pain was instant and bad, but didn’t last very long as I fell and landed on my shoulder on half way down the stairs and the pain as my shoulder joint separated was definitely worse, and my entire body flipped or bounced, you choose, and landed on my back with my head on the bottom step.  Surely when I was found by the paramedics it probably looked like I had decided to fall asleep there.

My sight was blurred and cloudy and everything looked black and white, I am not sure why I was able to see anything at all, it was the middle of the night and I distinctly remember turning the lights off and locking all the doors.  A routine I have been serious about for many years, I am getting on now and the scare stories you hear about on the TV about the elderly being preyed on by opportunists and downright scoundrels.   I know of a few people who are a little more remote than I am who have had intruders, one of who had been injured in an attack but the rest stayed in their rooms and let it happen.  I have been vigilant since then and make sure my safety is paramount.  I have my son and grandchildren to think about and being seventy eight years old means I am unable to do a great deal of things I had previously been able to.

A black blurred shape came slowly into my field of vision and I thanked whoever was looking after this disassembling world for that company.  The shape in what vision I had was like seeing a silhouette through dirty net curtains and all I could think of was the hooded children that went around terrorizing everyone, this was my fear of the opportunists taking advantage of my situation.

A warm and wet unwelcome feeling spread across my pelvis and pooling around my lower back as my bladder gave up the fight and I urinated.  The same feeling was across my shoulders and head that because it was elevated knew couldn’t be related.  It must be blood from my head and shoulder causing this.

The shadow came in closer to me and took up most of what I was able to define, I said, “Are you the paramedics?” and the soft voice replied in a very relaxing manner, “I am not your paramedic but I will help you whilst they are coming.”

That voice had already started to relax me, in the few seconds since I first saw the person I had a comforting feeling and the pain was subsiding.  He kept me relaxed by asking me questions that kept my mind lucid and my thoughts away from what I had just done.  To keep me in this comfortable state he asked me to tell him about my earliest memory.

I had this seemingly long conversation about that day, it was my fifth birthday, a mere seventy three years ago, and I remember this as though I was reliving it every day.  Me and my best friend, I can’t remember his name, not everything in this memory is clear, went outside on a bright clear day in the beginning of October with balloons, the remnants of the early year’s party that had just finished.  We walk to the field next to our housing row and kicked loose stones out of the farmers dry stone wall, as we peered over the top we could see the beautiful landscape of the Snowdonia mountain range in the distance, the wind was blowing straight towards it and we had a balloon race to see whose could reach the summit of Mount Snowdon first.

As clear as a summer’s day the balloons were taken, but although the mountains were about thirty miles away as the crow flies we watched then fly, taken on the wind and far away, we were convinced that we could see the balloons even after they had actually disappeared from sight.  All the way to the summit we had a neck and neck race and I distinctly remember seeing the balloons hit the summit.  My balloon had just won the race by a nose.  We were giddy school children at that point.  I was jumping around at my victory and he was kicking his feet in the uncut grass at the foot of the wall with his head slumped. 

I even told my companion about the night we had spent as a family just a few days after my birthday when we found out my father, an armorer in the RAF, had been posted to Hong Kong, BFPO1, and we had out an old battered atlas to find out where it was and was convinced I knew where it was, but doe to my lack of formal education at five years of age, I couldn’t even spell it let alone know how to use an atlas.  I think my guess was a few thousand miles away from where we were going to be spending two years of our lives.

My companion said after it was obvious that my side of our conversation had stopped, “So you lived in Hong Kong, I have been there myself on a number of occasions.” This baffled me even more, as to the identity of the strange silhouette I was exchanging these polite details with.  “Whereabouts were you?”

Again, bearing my soul in order to take my mind away from the pain and uncomfortable situation I wished so badly to be out of I said, “We were in the New Territories, a few miles up the road from RAF Sek Kong.  The mountain all round covered in forests and beautiful greenery.  My reminiscence of that time spilled out of me, watching the authorities chasing down and capturing rabid dogs, being stuck in school whilst the golf ball size hail stones fell dangerously from the sky, the Christmases when Father Christmas talked to us on the military telephone, one of those big green one you see so often in the American war films.  He was also delivered to us not only on the back of a green fire engine on the run up but also in a big green military helicopter onto our school sports field during our end of year party.  That was what defined the magic that completed the Christmas in the UK forces in a tropical client.

“What else?” he said, wanting me to keep my mind occupied and away from this pain, life affirming pain that your wishes could not give to your most dire enemies.  “One of the things that has a burning memory for me is the time, I must have been about five or six years old, I woke up and told my mum about a dream I had.  It was a vivid and perfect dream, one of those dreams when you wake up and its reality actually seems real in every detail, mannerism and fact.  Your eyes open and for a minute you do not believe you are lying in the same bed you went to sleep in, but have actually woken up in the bed of your dream.  It was a man, a grey haired old man stood in front of an old sand stone building.  It wasn’t until after I had told her about this dream, after hearing the tale I told my mother she told me that seven years before my birth my great uncle Mac had died, an elderly Scottish Gentleman who lived in a sand stone town house next to a river.  He was silver haired and wore very distinctive black glasses that I managed to describe to her making the dream all the more real.

A sudden burst of pain shot through my shoulder and I could feel the creep of fresh warmth, around the base of my throat, the warmth of my blood pooling in that little indented area and then overflowing and running onto my chest and down under my arms, “Stay with me?” my companion said, “Tell me, you are still in your childhood, what more” I screwed up my face as another bout of pain shot through the vertebra in my neck and into my head, “focus on me not the pain,”

“Have we met before?” I said, and in reply the man said, “I have one of those faces that everyone thinks they have met before.” I don’t know it I actually smiled at that statement or if it was in my head, “You have lived a long life and you only seem to be talking about the beginning of it, carry on and focus on those things and on me, you will not notice the pain.”

“We were living in the New Territories in Hong Kong when I had that dream, it was a great place for a child to grow up, this was back when Hong Kong was a part, albeit a rented part, of the United Kingdom.  I took my very first photograph, I still remember it, they were building a new play park, on our complex and I could see it from the balcony of the apartments three or four floors up from mine.  The was a slide, it was large and must have had twenty steps to get to the top and a long stainless steel, brand new run down to the bottom.  I photographed it, a landscape that was completely dominated by this slide and the brown soil that surrounded it.  The supports and steps were painted a fresh orange colour and the hand holds all the way up, were painted sky blue.  Although after my dad got them developed he ripped it into small pieces I can still see that picture clearly in my head.  I can still feel the disappointment of see it ripped without care into small pieces.  That park dominated the time spent in the Orient, it was the site me and my brothers watched the authorities chasing down and capturing rabid dogs, we saw the trucks taking away bananas from the plantation not far off, and more truck bringing in loads of toys for storage for the refugees someway off.”

I drifted for a little while not into the darkness around me but into memories for my childhood.  The memories bounced around into different ages, starting school after school depending on where we had been posted to, the horror stories other child would tell me about certain teachers in the school in Scotland, the horror stories about abandoned builds and shelters that were used during one war or another although I never heard of most of the places actually being involved in any wars.

When my memory cleared the comfort of the man’s voice was telling me to, “Stay with me” and I came out of it and he said, “So you were stuck up a cherry tree with a bad feeling in your belly.” I had seemed to jump forward in time a few years, but did I speak it out loud, I don’t remember saying anything but had this conversation vanished from my head because of the amount of pain I was in.

“So you have danced on the same stage as Madonna then, that is impressive!” he said, my memories jumped another 15 years, I used to tell people this to get a rise out of them, to make me seem more interesting than I was, few questioned me about it, but in essence it was true, Madonna appeared in the Hacienda in Manchester in the nineteen eighties and whilst in college in Manchester I danced on the very stage she had, the just happened to be 10+ years between the two moments.  I often found by telling people things and omitting pertinent pieces of information made the story into a conversation that could make more of what it was, rather than the gloomy boredom that ultimately came out of stark silence.

Our conversation continued in the same vein, when I say conversation I don’t know if I actually said anything, I have no recollection of saying anything at all.  It felt like everything we talked about was in a different order to the way it happened, and for some reason, I started talking about a time when I was eight years old, a friend and me went sledging next to our school most of the others there had the latest toboggan or shiny plastic sledge, but we had an old hand made, heavy monstrosity that made me a little embarrassed but the end goal was to sit down and slide very fast down a steep hill.  A small laugh came from my comforter and he said, “Tell me more.” So I did, but there was an air of confusion in my head, why would he be so fascinated by a children’s story all about sledging, but I continued and told him how it was cut short by me being cut off at the ankles by an unstoppable sledge that hit me hard and sent me in a complete somersault landing hard and barrel rolling down the hill to the very bottom.  The thought of the pain I remembered made my current pain rear its ugly head again.

“Calm yourself, keep focused on me, you have told me a great deal but you are not telling what I believe is your happiest memories.  Think of those and tell me.”

I thought, it didn’t take me too long to put things straight in my head, “September 19^th 2008, this was the day my wife came out of the toilet in the first house we brought.  She was holding the dry end of a pregnancy test; we had been trying for six years after being married for nine.  We looked at the little window and within seconds, the little pink lines appeared and I distinctly remember saying to her, as the tears started to flow from her eyes, that the instructions said to wait three minutes.  We waited three minutes, then after five we were still watching it and after thirty minutes of rechecking we both decided that it wasn’t going to change and that we were actually going to have a baby.  And as all good news is not good news until someone else confirms it she did another test.  Same process, the lines appeared almost immediately and then we waited and waited and phoned the doctors, and talked to our GP.  This is also the wonderful man who had referred us to a specialist for the fertility treatment and subsequently talked us through other options, all he had to say to us on this occasion was, “Congratulations.” Through our happiness we neglected to see what a major change this was going to be to our lives, we endured a full nine months of morning sickness, post natal depression, a vigorous post natal infection and a massive amount of sleep loss.

His first tooth at three months, his first unassisted steps just before his first birthday, first day at school which was hard for my wife to leave him for such a large amount of time.  Birthday parties, his need to continually eat hotdog sausages, watch Sonic and Super Mario on YouTube, illnesses.  Heart breaking illnesses allergic reactions, swimming, his addiction to the beach and going in the sea, although he said it was a river.  His first day in high school, watching emotionally as he walked to the bus stop with a back pack that looked too big for him and a blazer that made him look little and vulnerable.

The pain rose again in my head, the blood pounding harder making me feel both hot and cold at the same time, the increasing size of the blood pool under my neck and back was more and more obvious to me.  The click of fingers was rapping at my consciousness, as I remembered the last eight days just before my mother died which was when I was twenty six and only 3 months after my wedding, I had always told my mum I would dance with her on my wedding day.  A sort of final gesture as she became only my mother and not the main woman in my life, but she couldn’t she had a sore hip, I thought it was her sciatica playing up, but I wasn’t to know that two months later she would be taken into hospital only to leave to go to a hospice to spend her last eight days of life lying medicated until finally her race had been run.

“Ah her they come” my companion said, as I heard elephant like footsteps descending the stairs behind me.  “Dad, oh no dad.” A sudden urgency took ahold of his voice as he shouted for his wife to call an ambulance, “What took you so long?” I asked him, “You woke me when you were walking down the corridor I heard you fall and came running.”

I weakly said, “What is the time?” and he told me it was 3.14 am, but that was the time I got up to go to the toilet, “But I have been here hours, this man has been keeping me calm.”

“What man” he said and I replied, “I am starting to see a little clearer now”

My companion said over the words my son was saying, “And the time is now here for you to repay the debt you have held for the past forty years”

I said weakly, “Yes we have met, I knew I recognized you.”

He said, “Yes we have, we shouldn’t have though, you have seen something a rare few in all time have”

I said, “As a child, my son” I turned my head to as best as I could to look at my son, “fell down the stairs, he was mortally hurt and you were hunched over him.”

He said, “I don’t hunch, I am more graceful than to hunch.”

“Yes, I asked you to spare him and you obliged me.”

“Now I am here to get what you owe me.”

 “Not him, please.” I begged.

He Said, “No not him, you have had a good and full life and others thought you were better in this world until your time.”

“Thank you”

At this he disappeared and from the gloom, another figure walked beautifully towards me and held out her hand, my wife had come back to me and the lifelong promise I made to her I can now keep.

“I promise I will be yours for life and whatever is after this one, you are my soul mate and I will be yours for all eternity.”

Toads in the Road at Night

Turning left from Old Road Bwlchgwyn at the Moors Inn onto the road that takes you over the Llandegla moors, a road which I travel everyday going to and from work, a sign I see every day shone brightly in my head lights. Toads in the Road at Night, this time there were toads in the road, they were all over the road and something I wasn’t expecting. Because this stretch of road adhered to the national speed limit of sixty miles an hour and because I am supposed to use this speed guidance as a ceiling not a target or even, as was this case, something I can excessively beat, I put my foot down. Tonight like any other night the road was deserted, really everyone was either in their own homes or out at a Halloween party and this is where I was travelling back from. 

I was the designated driver, my turn always seems to come on a day when there is a celebration or a weekend, never on a Tuesday. 23.33 flicked over on the back lit, standard green display when the front end of the car started to slide out and as the adrenalin pumped the wheels caught the road surface just as quickly as they lost it. It was a dry night and the moon was surrounded by every star visible in the northern hemisphere twinkling like a sheet of cheap Christmas lights. Gaining control, the wheels straightened and I let out a deep breath and saw a quick red and white flash out of the corner of my eye. I had never before noticed it at night but tonight it was a colourful streak I just had to look at. And for that split second that I turned my head was when the toads could be seen in the slightly hidden dip. That part of a dip your headlights don’t reach until you car clears the preceding hump. 

The car slid once more, my attention drawn back to where it should have been, the road was moving and so was the car, but the car had spun and was moving sideways. Then the migrating toads stopped and the car tyres gained purchase on the tarmac and flipped it onto it’s side, the screams of my friends as we were thrown about was deafening. 

It wasn’t until the second impact came, the windows on the road side of the car shattered into small square safety cubes. Sparks emitted from the scraping roof bars until they got caught in one of last winter’s pot holes and the car started to roll over and over. Every single bit of dust, piece of paper, chewing gum wrapper and all other things that are strewn around a car started to tumble around with the small cubes of glass and as the other side of the car smashed on the road so did the windows, imploding more cubes to hit and hurt everything they touched as the car was spinning and tumbling down the road.  

After revisiting the site many days after it all happened I found out that the car had finally come to a stop about one hundred yards down the road in the trees just passed the start of the forest. I am not sure how long I was knocked out for but I woke upside down being held safely in place by the seat belt and the now deflated airbag pouches all around me. I wasn’t actually feeling any pain until I release the seat belt and gravity took a hold of me and I fell onto the ceiling of the car. Gathering myself up I reached to the dashboard to my phone where the satnav app was indicating I was off track and need to turn around. I found the button to turn on the flash light and the upturned inside of my car was shrouded in the green glow light it was throwing out. When my disoriented vision started to pass I realised I was facing straight out of the windscreen of the car and I turned to see the back seat and check on my friends but they weren’t there. 

I pulled my way out falling in a pile on to the pine needle covered soil and used the tree that had broken the momentum of the tumbling car to pull myself to my feet. Searching around the car I was unable to see where they were. I looked around from a stationary position and saw the wreckage all down the road; the full moon highlighted the white lines and a small area of the tarmac in brilliant chromium white. I walked, following the wreckage back down the road; a solitary squawk from a crow startled me and looking around I could see in perched on a tatty fence post back at the edge of the forest. As if it was stood to attention just where the deciduous trees ended and an open but newly planted field of trees started.

I walked up to and passed the crow, it never moved, I looked on the verge and down the walls close to the road when my attention was caught by a fiery glow in the trees a couple of hundred yards up into the forest. I climbed the fence near where the crow was standing expecting it to see me as a threat to it but it still never moved. Instead it let out a long screeching squawk followed by a small amount of little ones to follow. I didn’t really think much of that until there was what seemed like a distant reply, more squawks coming from the direction of the orange glow ahead of me. I stopped when I heard this and stayed there rooted with pain and the first pangs of fear until I was brought back to life by the flapping of the wings from the near distance behind me. What I now thought was a sentry crow took off a flew passed me very quickly and it was so close that it’s wings actually made contact with my head. This contact made me even more scared than I was and I dropped to the ground and shielded myself from anything else that may want to try and do the same. 

From my crouched position I caught a glance of where the fiery glow was coming from and I could see that the glow was from a large fire in a clearing in the trees and there was movement. I stood up and ran as quietly as I could with high expectations to find my two intoxicated friends playing silly games around camp fire in the post party and post car crash state. 

I reached the edge of the clearing and I could feel the heat from the fire hit my face but I wasn’t greeted by two idiots dancing naked around a fire in the middle of a cold autumn night but in the clearing there were more crows. I scanned the area before moving away and I could see on the far side of the fire was two solid trunks of wood standing bolt upright to about eight feet high. I moved further around and realise that there was rope draped over the top of each trunk and it was pulled taught. Tripping over my own feet I fell to the ground, as I picked myself up I saw that the taught ropes had one of my oldest friends tied and suspended between the two up rights. Quietly moving my position to get a better view I could see there were ropes ties to both ankles and the rope had been wrapped once around the base and tied off to a steak in the ground a few feet away. Although I am no engineer I would say these two ropes had been used to increase the tension so he was unable to move too much. Still moving I was now able to see that he was completely naked and sweat was pouring from everywhere. The start of blisters were beginning to form on his meaty bits, his thighs, pectorals, belly and biceps and it was then the realisation that he wasn’t sweating but it was his fat oozing from his body; He was being cooked. 

My fall and my moving around to get a better view didn’t go un noticed and just a few feet away from me was yet another crow, it looked at me and then threw its head back and let out an ear piercing squawk and on hearing this from about 4 feet away another looked up and did exactly the same thing, threw its head back and squawk, this was then followed by every other crow around and after just a few seconds they all stopped and then simultaneously they all took off flying around in a big circle climbing higher and higher until they were well over the tree line staying in their formation. 

Picking myself up I ran into the clearing and right up to the far side of the fire. Jasper was hanging naked tied by both hands and feet. When I saw this from a distance I was almost correct, closer scrutiny showed that he wasn't so much tied as someone had put pipes through his lower arms and upper legs with harsh rope fed through the pipes. The pipes through his arms must have been implanted through the gap between the radius and ulna using this to take the entire weight without being torn out from the soft fleshy skin and muscle surrounding the bones in the lower arm. His legs had two large metal rings pushed through the skin and looped around the bone on the inner thigh, but I was correct with the tensioner setup, tied tightly to the bottom of one post, the rope was fed through the two rings and around the bottom of the other post, the end then off to another ring and then the steak it was tied to. Primitive but affective setup, it worked for millennia so why not now? 

Jaspers skin was bubbling and being burnt badly by the furious heat coming from the fire, for a very short time I stood so I could see his face and his hanging head and it wasn't until now I became scared for my own life. I stepped back when the heat got too much for me and in the outskirts of my vision, far above my head I could see the circling crows but I could only hear the violent crackling of the fire. I looked directly up to the crows and thought how Jasper was strung up like this, the crows wouldn’t be able to do it and how long was I unconscious in the car. As I looked around the clearing and my glance darted passed Jaspers strung body his eyes were open and his head upright this caught me complete unawares and the shock and fear threw me back and I landed heavily on a fallen stump, "Go now" Jasper said, "Go now before he comes." 

I fell back further until I was on my back and trying to hide as much of myself behind the log, "GO NOW, OR YOU WILL BE LIKE THIS" Jasper shouted with more urgency than someone who wasn't in the position he was, saliva and blood spat from his mouth as he shouted and his voice stopped but he still seemed to be shouting, the blisters exploded one after another spraying a torrent puss out towards the fire. He sharply turned his head upwards and the circling birds, I watched the blackness of the circling birds change to the normal bluer black a clear night sky is, as they started to fly down to the clearing and slammed hard into Jasper, the poles and a large area around him. 

Some of the birds missed their target completely, hitting the ground all around, crow sized flaming balls shot out of the fire, sending embers and fire into the air, the fireballs scattering all around the forest floor and even bouncing off the log I was hidden behind. The piles of burning birds didn’t just stay burning they got up off the floor and started flying and made their way back to Jasper like a phoenix. 

The crows flew around Jasper pecking small bits of flesh off him, he hadn’t moved for a short time now and I took it he was now dead. One by one they started to land on him and peck the beaks wherever they could and tore large areas of flesh from his body. It was almost as if they had taken a number in line at the deli counter. One moved away and another took it’s place, except more and more were starting to land on my friends body until the murderous crows looks as though they could have been a body bag.  

Before this night I was like the majority of people who had never thought about what tearing flesh sounds like and the squidgy sound it takes on when expertly removed in the beak of a crow, but when there is about one hundred crows tearing flesh and muscle the sound immediately registers as one thing that will never be forgotten for the rest of your life and beyond. 

As the clearing was filled with more and more crows circling in a tempest frenzy trying to feast on my friends flesh, the roaring flames from the fire started to burn them and very quickly the fire spread through contact and the tempest changed into what I initially could only be Dante’s inferno and all nine circles of hell spread out before me. 

Watching this spectacle and avoiding the falling balls of flaming dead birds I hadn’t really noticed the single, rather large, crow fly down into the very centre and land directly in the fire. The initial impact threw a definitive fire circle out in every direction, consuming all the remaining birds. It tore at everything it touched and consumed everything including the log I was hiding behind throwing it and me into the air and back a further ten feet. I hit a tree flat across my back and fell to its exposed roots just before the log hit, unable to muster up enough energy to flee the log landed across my right leg. The unnatural cracking sound my leg made accompanied by the searing pain made me physically sick and I blacked out. 

I lay there on the ground as the darkness that took a hold of everything started to lighten, the stars in the night sky gradually appeared, seconds, minutes or hours later, who knows. The deathly silence in the air was then broken by my screams. As the pain centres of my brain realise there was pain and my who body reacted causing spasms to strike every muscle. The second and even louder scream was let free as the log rolled off my leg. 

The embers or the fire took hold to whatever hadn't yet burned away and a small flame danced in the centre of the clearing. All around I saw trees and bushes on fire as well as the burning remnants of the flock of birds who had devoured Jasper. Through my tears, I could start to make out the shadows cast on the trees on the far side of the clearing and saw that Jasper was no longer strung up, the two posts that held him up were now only a couple of feet high and burning at the tops. The flames in the centre of the clearing playfully took hold over more un-burnt wood and as the flames grew, the flickering light it cast was going to be enough for me to painfully get away from there and back to the road. Not believing that anyone would actually stop for me in this condition at whatever time of night it was now, but this was my only choice. 

I dragged myself back towards where I had entered the clearing some time earlier and as I entered the clearing, by the light of the still growing fire I could see a figure, a dark hooded figure sat next to the fire. Just sat there, sat there warming him or herself. I remembered thinking to myself it is at this point everyone in those cheap made for television movies thinks that salvation has arrived and they are there to help. I however thought that the vision of someone in a hooded cloak out in the middle of the woods sat next to a fire after what I had just witnessed was far too sinister so I tried my best to crawl away as quietly as I could but the pain I was feeling from my limp and dragging leg was so bad I thought that even the deaf would have been able to hear me. 

I stopped sharply as I heard a relatively quiet, "Squawk". My breathing rate increased and I could feel the temperature drop. I looked slowly over to the fire whilst doing my best to quietly move backwards and the hooded thing was still sat there motionless, again a quiet squawk was in the air. I turned and pulling myself as hard as I possibly could my urges made me look back to the fire and the hooded figure had disappeared. The fear grew within me my urgently now and this spurred me back to getting out of there. Reaching the edge of the clearing I pulled myself up to standing with the aid of a stone wall and stood on my one good leg. The wall plus a good hop will mean I can get the one hundred or so yards back to the road quite quickly. 

Squawk, louder and more definite this time, I couldn't make out where it was coming from. I glanced back to the fire and it was clear. Picking up the pace as much as I could I pulled myself along and hopped as best I could along the wall back to the road. In my haste I felt a pain that any one person should never be subjected to as I caught the top part of my injury on a dislodged stone in the wall. My dangling leg kicked my other leg and I fell to the floor and the pain shot right through my body, I reached down to the main area of the pain and I felt sharp bone and the dampness of blood oozing out of the open wound.
 
From above me I could hear the loud flapping, round and round until a quiet rushing of a large falling object and then an impact of two feet on stone, wood and mulching mud. A large hand grabbed me on one of my shoulders and picked me up roughly. I was man handled up to the head height and looking as the shadowy figure I saw what looked like a hood, the silent figure from the fire, back in the clearing. I was shaking up and down and then stopped but the hood wasn't a hood at all and the cloak wasn't a cloak either. From behind the figure opened two large black feathery wings that it gently flapped as if it was either getting ready to take off or fanning the flames of hell until from the field, the other side of the stone wall was a I heard the shouts of a group of people. I looked over and saw what could only be described as a small army or a large village. The thing that held me turned its head to look over to them and for the first time I saw the silhouette of a black beak and the bleak feature of a man crow, crow man, a damn big crow. 

The thing dropped me to the floor and I fell on top of the dry stone wall. The garrison cracking of many guns echoed throughout the hills and across the moors. There was no large falling of a massive crow to the ground but instead the disassembling of a forest full of crows flying up into the free sky and the gun fire continued and the thud, thud, thud of the dead bodies of normal hell raising crows fell in the fields, trees and even on the road. 

A head appeared over the wall and I looked up to see my other friend the other member of our exciting party night out and the other survivor of the horror that this Halloween has turned into. But it turns out that this wasn't the first time this has happened. I was transported back to the pub up the road on the corner and its original name was The Moors Watcher and it was built to keep an eye out over the moors for the Crow Master who comes out once a year to feast on whatever and whoever it can.

The 21st Century Journal

The intercom rang on Elise Hadsworth’s desk phone, she picked it up and the attendant on the front desk told her that there was a hand delivered package awaiting her to collect.

“Is that Harold” she said to the voice on the phone.

“Yes Miss Hadsworth” Harold replied.

 “Thank you Harold I will pick it up when I pop out for my Lunch.” She said back to him.

 "Not a problem Miss Hadsworth, if I am not here when you go out I just ask whoever is covering me.” Harold replied.

 “Thank you.” She said and replaced her phone on the base and turned the page on the newspaper she had on her desk. The coverage of the trial of a particular violent multiple murderer was across several pages. She had interviewed the accused as part of the prosecution team to produce a professional and unbiased diagnosis that contradicts the diagnosis that the defence team had put forward for the undisputed claim of the murder of his young neighbours.

His neighbours were described as undesirables, the prosecution raised an objection to this, they were also described as unwanted in the community, the prosecution also raised an objection to this, siting that to be unwanted would have to be a unanimous called from every member of the community. A community were they had friends living.

The defence put forward the claim that the deceased felt it was their right to play loud music at all hours and invite the numerous friends to party at their house. This was not disputed as the police had been called nine times in this period to complain. The prosecution stated for the record that, after an eight month period the accused had had about enough and entered his neighbour’s house with a shotgun and proceeded to shoot out the sound system. This too was not disputed and under questioning the defendant had admitted that when confronted by someone who thought the gun was a single shot, he states the second barrel was discharged accidentally and destroyed the shoulder of victim one, almost removing the right arm completely. In the shock and horror he adamantly denies knowing what happened next.

Eye witness statements say that the defendant reloaded the double barrels and put two fresh cartridges in between his teeth, he then shot the neighbours only using a single shot. It was reported by witnesses that the boyfriend had stood in between the gun and his girlfriend but the power of the shot and the close proximity of the discharge meant the boyfriend could not effectively shield his girlfriend and they were both killed instantly. He then slumped to the floor and attempted to shot himself but someone still present had pulled the gun away from him saying, “You are not getting away with it that easily” the gun subsequently discharged into the ceiling and shot one of the party goers who was trying to hide under the bed upstairs.

The defendant was punched and one of the shotgun cartridges slipped down his throat and in his statement he said, “That was the next thing I remember, choking on the cartridge and only managing to get it out by standing up and stumbling forward tripping over one of the dead bodies.”

The defence’s case was built up on the fact that although the gun was registered, he was not the registered owner and the owner had no apparent knowledge that the gun was missing. The defendants friend lived on a farm some distance away and could only summise that the gun was removed from its locked cabinet the last time he had visited, three weeks earlier than the incident. Premeditation and murder in the first degree was the prosecutions charges. The defence had have pleaded temporary insanity, stating that his intention was to scare the neighbours and what happened was a course of events that was not planned but happened, after the first person was shot the defendant had a psychotic episode that resulted in the murder of the neighbours. It was only his fight to save his own life that snapped him out of it.

Reading the article to the end her heart was trying to empathise with the defendant and his uncomfortable situation, but professionally she was split, because she was able to see the argument the defence had put forward but she was also able to agree with the argument the prosecution was presenting. Her job in this case was as the prosecutions psychologist not to state one way or another that defences argument was the one and only argument but to professionally answer the questions put to her and cross examinations from her professional point of view.

She looked up from the newspaper and looked out her window to get her eyes away from the blackening print of the newspaper, she watched the cars pass by below and the lunch time foot traffic of city based employees to that same place they nearly always go to because it is close to their office wherever or whatever that office actually is. She made a double take quickly as she thought she had seen someone right across the street waving at her, she dismissed it because when she looked back to the person she thought it was, that person was now talking and hugging someone on a motorcycle.

Thinking more about the hustling lunchtime traffic she thought about her own ritual of going to the nearest Starbuck to get her skinning decaf latte, ham and cheese baguette and blueberry muffin, her ritual. She grabbed her scarf from the coat stand behind her door and made her way downstairs, as she entered the lobby of her building she was the two people across the road, still embracing but the one on the motorcycle had dismounted and they were both now on the pavement. She made her way through the revolving door at the same time as Harold was coming in the opposite direction. This reminded her of the parcel that was delivered for her earlier, without getting out door she carried on around until she was walking to the reception desk behind Harold. In a joking manner she said, “Does your wife know how good you look from behind Harold.”

The joke taken as it was meant and Harold’s shoulders bobbed up and down from his laughter and as he went around to his side of the reception desk he whispered, “Not as good as yours.” And gave her a coy wink.

“Harold you are incorrigible.” She said.

Harold opened a cupboard that was underneath the desk and pulled out her package, “There you go Miss Hadsworth, hand delivered this morning for you.” And put it down on the glass top and tried to slide it over to her. It didn’t move too readily and Elise picked it up to investigate the reason why and found the sealing wax and then the stamp that had been pressed into it. With urgency she said, “Who delivered this?”

Harold replied, “A gentleman earlier today.”

She said, “Was he a courier?”

“No, not at all, in fact I have just seen him outside” he said, “He was getting on to a motorcycle with a younger lady.”  

All four in this series
In Need of an End
The Forever Lecture
Inner Peace Forever
The 21st Century Journal

Inner Peace Forever

I have been in a world all alone for the past eight months now, don’t get me wrong, I am not lonely and I am by no means miserable with it either. Since I decided I was going to make another major change in my life to help me find that one illusive thing I have been striving for so many years, I have found a great deal of inner peace.

Inner peace, always sounded like a thing of enlightenment, the one thing a believer was searching for in earnest to get whilst worshipping to whatever ethereal deity they have in their lives. Granted I have spent many years in monasteries and religious retreats and even at one point as part of a cult until the realisation that the principles of what they taught were just wrong on levels that only a weak minded individual can latch onto.

But when I talk about inner peace, I am talking about how, after my family died so dreadfully in the Swiss Alps, I was encouraged to create a journal of my life. It was this and the reminiscences of what I have achieved in my life that brought me the peace that my life now needed to reconcile myself that I know I have loved for the last time. When my wife, my children and four other people I loved were taken away I realised that she, my beautiful wife, the gorgeous children are the reason I have spent so many years walk on this planet. My soul mate ripped away from me after such a short amount of time only leaving me wanting so much to join her in whatever is beyond.

I find it difficult to think or even rationalise what is actually beyond life, most people probably do. I can say with an over educated mind that I and I alone am the only person who might never find that unchecked box. I have been alive for so many years, had so many identities that it is not a thing I believe to be in my future. Even the vast fortune I have in trust and equities and goodness only knows what, can buy me what I am actually looking for.

I have people I trust and two people I know I have told about my story one who believes me, because he was my an ex-girlfriends son, not my child, when I met Phillipa in the autumn of nineteen thirty nine she was trying to get to safety from Germany and get her only child out of the way of the imminent war. We were infatuated with each other but I never believed that she loved me and in hindsight I don’t think I loved her either. Her son, Hans, was a different matter, not my biological son and he never saw me as a father but after his mother’s death in nineteen fifty three I brought him up. I say I brought him up but he was a young man, we became friends, real friends and as the years moved, we moved apart. His education was important to him; he went to university in America, a convenient scholarship from the Aosta-Bec foundation. He was head strong and wanted to conquer his world in his way and under his own steam. In the late sixties he moved to the UK after getting his degree and became a lawyer, The Aosta-Bec foundation paid for him to do a doctorate and gain his Masters, the top university in London which also gave him access to a subsidised apartment and small allowance to enable him the ability to finish his studies.

It was in the late sixties we met up again and at first it was very difficult, for two reasons, the first being I was still thirty five years old and our ages are very close together and the second one being that he stepped into my role as non-executive director at funnily enough, the Aosta-Bec foundation. 

Stepping back a small amount, when I knew Hans was excelling in school and showed an interest in college or university I set up a foundation called the Aosta-Bec foundation. I gave it the slogan, “History is written and will the future be forever” the foundation was privately owned and had one shareholder, Antoinne Immer. My name before this one was Antoinne Immer, I used my previous pseudonym as the trustee to all my finances. The foundation was privately owned and privately funded, granted I did want to at least break even on the money that was invested in the foundation so there were global offices and a vast fundraising arm of the organisation. Through this I was able to help those who had no help by simply giving money away. We didn’t literally write a cheque for an individual but we build houses for people who had nowhere to live and let them live there rent free for a short period of time to get themselves financially sorted and then charged a below average rent. Blah Blah Blah.
Hans, stood in my office door and when he saw me he was both welcoming and disappointed, I explained that I was an employee and his appointment had nothing to do with me, this wasn’t totally a lie either. I gave his details to the postal department who subsequently passed them onto HR and only minutes prior to this I had tendered my resignation on health grounds. It was six weeks after that I found out that someone who the foundation had sponsored throughout their education had been appointed the position as non-executive director. The youngest they had ever had, which wasn’t hard as I was the first one they had ever had in thirteen years.

Since that time he has remained as the director of the foundation and one night when we had gone out for his thirty fifth birthday, he had asked me how I was still looking as though I was his age after all these years and joked that I should bottle it and sell it on the open market. I then told him the truth and it wasn’t for another ten years that it actually sank in, his swish office party to celebrate his forty fifth birthday was a turning point. Ten years had gone by since I told him my secret, and when I turned up alone he said, “You were telling the truth weren’t you?” and I nodded.

Now that digression to appease things in my head is over, the now seventy four year old Hans, is in no doubt that what I told him all those years ago is the truth. The great thing about all of this is he is the one who helps me change my life as and when I need to. He is the only person I now trust with everything and always have. He was never a son to me and I could never call him one, he is my best friend.
The second person who I have told my story to was the one person I knew would never believe it and will never believe it. She is a professor of psychology and eminent speaker on brain disorders and mental health. She works out of a university in London and she has spent a great deal of time listening to me. She is the reason for me writing sixteen journals chronicling the sixteen centuries I have been alive. She only has fifteen of those journals and whilst I am sat here on the fast train to London writing in the journal I have decided to keep for myself and the journeys I am going to take I have the finished twenty first century journal wrapped in a paper parcel, the paper if it was ever dated will be seen to be over six hundred years old and I have also put an extra little thing on there too. I have retained the sealing wax and stamp from the Abbey of Bec and if she has the foresight to date that, the results will show the composition of the wax is unique to the Abbey and the stamp was unique to one Anselme de Candie Genève, circa 1070.

When I get to London I plan to hand deliver this parcel to her building, there is CCTV but I may not look exactly as she would remember me, it has been almost a year.

All four in this series
In Need of an End
The Forever Lecture
Inner Peace Forever
The 21st Century Journal

The Forever Lecture

Standing behind the lectern on an un-necessary stage at the front of the university lecture theatre she said, “As always I am Elise Hadsworth but not as always, this is the final session we are all having on this interesting case. Over the last eleven weeks you have been briefed on this individual and you have all been given thorough case notes. You have all had your opportunities to ask relevant questions and from some what appear to be irrelevant questions.” Elise looked up into her class and picked out a student and gave a nod and an almost disapproving look.

“Today’s session will allow us all to bring together the facts and discuss a diagnosis, which you will have seen I have omitted mine from the case, you have all probably made your own minds up as to what diagnosis I have made. Just to let you all know as well this is being filmed, so please try and be professional and not play up to the cameras and cameramen that you will see wandering around” again she looked up into the students and picked out a few individuals who she had singled out from day one as the jokers, extroverted individuals who waste no time to make a comment that is supposed to invoke a reaction.

“Ok, to refresh on the case so far, on day one I introduced you to a case I had worked on, a man who had been in a major coach crash in the Swiss Alps, he was the only survivor. He had lost the 5 remaining members of his family and two close family friends. He sustained minor injuries, one of which was a large gash on the back of his leg which dissected the Vastus Medialis, partial dissection of the Vastus Intermedius. The tear was approximately 8 inches long in a crescent moon shape. The bone was not visible and the Rectus Femoris and the Vastus Lateralis were visible under examination. He had no other major injuries, minor cuts and bruising to most of his other muscle groups except above the C3 vertebrae or his cranium. Cuts were indicative of blunt force and glass shards and bruising is common from the extent of the accident.”

“At the scene he maintained he was thrown free but this claim could not be corroborated by witnesses at the scene, who said that they believed he was first seen emerging from the back side of the wreckage after it had settled, no one could say that he had descended the drop off after the crash had happened. Sightseeing video was also in conclusive on this matter.”

A hand was raised in the auditorium and Miss Hadsworth said, “Yes”

“This is an observation not a question Miss Hadsworth” the girl paused looking down at her note pad and then continued, “from the Swiss accident investigation reports, the stipulated that the location of the gentleman’s seat they could see no way he could have been thrown free as the positioning of debris and collision damage would have enclosed his seating area, and also by the positioning of his seatbelt would suggest it had been removed after the coach had come to rest.”

Miss Hadsworth continued, “That is correct, it would appear from the investigation his seat was vacated after the coach had come to a standstill, this can be seen in the way the seat was vacant of expected debris and how the seat belt was positioned as though it had been opened and discarded on top of the glass and passenger personal possessions.” A slight pause as the slides from the PowerPoint presentation rotated through different scenes from the crash, impact points and then to the seating area where the man was designated to have been sat.

The presentation stopped on a slide that showed front and rear outlines of the human body, showing a directory of the injuries sustained. This was a vast list and each one of the injuries had accompanying text as filled in by the paramedic on site. Accompanying the injury list was the discharge notice from the hospital dated and signed the same day, all of the patient specific data had been removed from all the documents.

As Miss Hadsworth turned the page on the large file that was being used to provide all information for the seminar, there was the collective sound of pages being turned by all of the students. From this point on all of the pages had been completed by Miss Hadsworth. A comprehensive file had been kept as from the first moment she had spent with the man and the revelations she had been told on the plane journey back to Britain she knew this would be something the University could use as a very good case file to help the future brains the department of Psychiatry to study. She even got the subject to sign a waiver allowing her the authority to do this.

Page by page the file was discussed and just before the break for lunch they had come to the end, four hours for going over the file partly for the documentation on film and also to recap on the case that had been discussed in depth for the last eleven weeks.

Returning an hour later, Miss Hadsworth said, “You have all had this file for eleven weeks and we have quickly refreshed our brains on all parts of the case.” A door opened sheading light into the lower right of the auditorium and one of the students came in apologising that she was late, as she reached her seat Miss Hadsworth said, “I am going to open the floor up to initial questions or observation from you, please may I request that you leave any details you have about your own diagnosis’s until after this afternoons break.”

The late girl was making noise in the back and everyone silently looked around and when she finally looked up she nonchalantly said, “I have a question?”

Miss Hadsworth said, “As everyone is looking at you anyway we may as well start with you.”

“Thank you” taking a short pause to compile herself she continued with, “Miss Hadsworth you interviewed the subject and spent many sessions with him, if we forget about psychiatry and everything that lays basis on the diagnosis you came to, do you believe that the man was immortal.”

“I am able to answer that in two ways, firstly from my position here at the University I am not allowed to make any personal observations like that. I am here to make a psychiatric diagnosis under the guidelines that define varying scales of mental illness. Secondly, the subject was plausible and undeniably he was able substantiated the claims he made very well and was passionate about what he said, but the way he was able to substantiate his claims was via sources that could easily be able to be picked apart. Granted he was very knowledgeable and undoubtedly he was intelligent but when you ask a question or you are presented with a question like this you need to be able to not pick holes in the story. I was able to pick very large holes in a story that would seem to have been scripted by a calculated mind over a great deal of time.”

“His primary source of information throughout our conversations was internet based. From these snippets of information and looking into the histories of some of the lives he claimed to have been, I was able to find no details that could link his claims in historical fact.” Miss Hadsworth said.

Very quickly responding to this the girl said, “Surely you can’t rely on history books, if you look at history as it is written, this is the viewpoint of the author of that history. The reason I bring this up is didn’t Constantine the great have people who rewrote history to omit things, like his natural son for instance and my overall point of this is, surely history itself is a good source of inaccurate information or at very least the source of a single viewpoint. Back in the days of King Arthur there are no known records to prove he existed, there are also no known corroborative sources of information that prove he didn’t exist, yet the folklore that surrounds the name is a greatly told story. Surely a true belief structure is based on fact and that the facts of a belief structure come from history and the writings of many individual viewpoints all brought together to paint a picture from all the different sources as one. Isn’t the bible a good example of this, many books of the bible telling a story which is primarily about one individual and that individual is known throughout believers as the son of god which surely is something that can’t be proven, flipping the coin it also can’t be disproven.”

“I think you are trying to think about this too much.” Miss Hadsworth started to say before the girl interrupted her, “Surely it will be my job to apply the necessary thought to any case I have been given.”

Touché, Elise thought to herself. “Ok I accept your comments but returning to this case in point, from the details that have been presented in the file can you prove or disprove anything that has been said.” Pointing up to the girl in the audience she said, “We will pick this up again later, if that is OK with you. I do want to get feedback from as many people as I can in the time we have available. Please can I ask for you all to remember that this case is about a man who claimed to be immortal, he presented me with corroborating evidence of his immortality and also has been verified as the man that had been fished out of a lake and was declared dead by a coroner in America?”

The afternoon panned out with roll playing of a client and psychiatrist, showing the verifying evidence of the claims that had been made and then showing how recently this evidence had been amended, in-depth discussion was made about the area that was supposed to be where the subject was born and grew up in the early 6th century. History was investigated about Anslem, the Aosta Valley and the Abbey of Bec. But it was also pointed out that there are great gaps in the full history, someone chirped up about a person recorded in an ancient manuscript found in Tibet about a man who had turned up on foot who it had been said was on a pilgrimage looking for life, the name attributed to this short statement was Anselm and was from circa 1300 but this manuscript could not be substantiated as authentic but the carbon dating was from the approximate time.

The break came in the afternoon and everyone had been involved in the discussion except the girl, the shadowy girl sat at the back who was either waiting for her chance after the break or who in her eagerness to talk about this subject had said everything she had on the subject a little too early in the day.

The cameras still rolling and three cameramen wandered around the students who talked excitedly and animatedly about the case whilst drinking tea out of porcelain cups. The clink of cups could be heard in the ears of the sound recorder who winced every time it happened and wished the cameramen would get so close. The girl descended the steps and filled her own thermal cup from the coffee flask on the table, she then reached into her pocket and pulled out sachets of coffee and added four extra to her cup, two sugars and a good amount of milk. She then picked up several packets of biscuits from the table stuffing them in her pockets before returning to her seat without talking to anyone, but she did manage to catch the eye of Elise Hadsworth who smiled at her.

After the break, Miss Hadsworth said, “I am now going to open the floor to everyone, to discuss diagnosis’s, it doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree, based upon the evidence presented to you. Firstly how many of you believe that this man was in a state of mental anguish which lead to him taking his own life?” nearly all the students hand went up, she chose a few people at random to suggest why the subject had come up with such an elaborate story, and the answers she was given supported the conclusions she had made.

“Do any of you and can I ask you” pointing at the girl, “not to partake in this bit yet as I believe you are in this group and I want to hear from some of the few left over.”

No one made any move to put their thoughts forward, “Although you don’t need to answer here or have your say, this is your ideal place to make your point of view heard, after all this is what you future career is going to be about.” Miss Hadsworth said. Still no one came forward so she picked on one after another and when one of them did talk he said, “All the evidence does point to a grief stricken man wanting to concoct a story that is not believe able to make sense of what he has just gone through, but it is something to say you are immortal and provide evidence to say you are, have this evidence disproven or at least have a shadow cast upon this evidence to make some believe that it may not be true. But as the girl over there” he pointed somewhere behind him, “did come up with a point of view that just because it is possible to disprove something doesn’t mean that the alternative theory is correct either.”

“Thank you for your input; I guess you are going to go away sitting on the fence on this then.” Miss Hadsworth said with a hint of disappointment in her voice.

“You have all probably guessed that my diagnosis what that a grief stricken man who had miraculously survived a crash in the Swiss Alps that killed forty one people, was undergoing mental breakdown that led to him making up an elaborate story to help with his grief. He subsequently committed suicide in a place that he and his family loved to go and he had very good memories. One in particular being was that this is where both of is children had been conceived and played.”

No before we finish, the girl at the back of the auditorium stood up, “What if it is possible for someone to fill in a few of the gaps in his story. Would this change your mind on you diagnosis?”

Miss Hadsworth said, “Under the guidelines that define the mental stability of a person the diagnosis will stand as, no one will be able to prove immortality is possible.”

“But surely you can only prove something if you are in a position to disprove something to. Don’t these things need to go hand in hand? Just because something is said and cannot be proved doesn’t mean it is not true.” The girl said.
“If you examine your statement, from your point of view you will need to prove it to make your point to be valid.” Miss Hadsworth said.
“1. The Abbey of Bec in the Aosta Valley have records of a man who they welcomed in to their order, a 27 year old Anselm. This was in 1060; in 1079 he was ordained as Abbot of the monastery and became, Anselme de Candie Genève. In 1093 he became Archbishop of Canterbury under William the Second until 1109. But there is a point of exile in the middle, this was planned as it was starting to be noticed he was not aging, when he came back off exile it was under a different King. This gave him a few more years of grace before he had to make more changes; in 1109 he had died on Holy Wednesday. There is a drawing that was included in a book by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, who was the Dean of Westminster and who had pages omitted from the History of Christianity that suggested that the drawing was of Ansleme on his death bed as a 30 year old man.

2. In your file you have copies of photographs that include Winston Churchill during World War II that are of him with troops and one of the troops is a young man who your subject professes to be, this photograph bears a resemblance to the drawing done 900 years earlier. Coincidence, faked or real, well in the British archives at the museum they have the original photographs in their archive and there is a picture of the same troop on the same day taken just before the visit of the prime minister. Four men, one of them was Martin Nathanial, a man who bore a striking resemblance to the man in the other photograph that contained Winston Churchill and also to the drawing. This man's death certificate was fifteen years ago on Holy Wednesday.

3. When historians and archeologists where on site in the 1930’s in a place called Wegberg in South Western Germany they found the burial site of families and also the remnants of a battle they could date through soil samples, clothing fragments and timber habitats to the fifth or sixth century. They also followed the river and found another settlement of only two or three dwellings that contained the skeletal remains of a three women, the subjects mother and two sister and three men, a few miles away was a cave that had shown the signs of being lived in, it was well hidden and was found years later but this matches the statement of your subject. One unUsual thing about this was didn't he say he had three sisters?

4. From the eighteenth century there is a paper trail exchanging ownership every 20 to 25 years from one person to another and some of the land and properties have been included in the title transfer which includes a lake front house in Virginia in America, where six months ago a man committed suicide.

5. Six months ago when you were in America after being notified about the suspected Suicide of someone you were treating. If I am not mistaken the date on his death certificate would be know this year as Holy Wednesday.

There is compelling evidence that the subject in this file is the same man who throughout history has been getting more and more careful about whom he is.”

All around the room the silence was engulfing every word the girl was saying. Elise Hadsworth said into the microphone on the lectern, “Very interesting. Can you come to my office tomorrow first thing? I think we should talk more in depth about this, you have really caught my interest now.”

The morning meeting will never take place, the girl in the lecture theatre, the girl with a great deal of things to say on the subject and the girl who had returned from the lake front property in America six months earlier just got up from her seat in the lecture theatre put on her leather jacket, picked up her motorcycle helmet and walked out.

The girl, the one surviving sister of a man who claimed to have survived a devastating coach crash in the Swiss Alps by trying to convince someone he was immortal, the girl who knows the truth behind the story and shares a secret, she hasn't seen her brother in sixteen hundred years just wants to see him again.

All four in this series
In Need of an End
The Forever Lecture
Inner Peace Forever
The 21st Century Journal

In need of an end

If we were able to see how a day was going turn out we would do everything we could to change the elements we didn't like. Two weeks ago today, if I could have seen what was going to happen I would never have got out of bed. I have been around family members before when they have died; I have grieved for my loved ones on far too many occasions. But for the last two weeks I have been forced to grieve for the final seven members of my immediate family including the one woman who, in all my years, I can say is my soul mate and our two children who I live my life for. Today is the day I am going to bury the seven most important people to me.

 

Today is the day I want to die.

 

I was the only survivor in a tragic coach crash in the Swiss Alps where forty one people died and I walked away from the tangled mess of metal with minor injuries. I did everything I could to help get people out of the wreckage, but when the coach had plunged face first off a road over a sheer cliff, hit something hard and after, it fell to the side and rolled what seemed like an eternity down a slope and came to rest on top of two cars parked in a lay by next to the road on our very route we had been on before it happened. Fortunately for the families of the two cars they had been tourist and missed the commotion because of a pair of binoculars and the immense beauty all around. I remember how beautiful it was, it was very beautiful and I noticed this whilst I pulled body parts from the wreckage.

 

The smashed glass nuggets, mangled metal bodywork, electrical wiring, material from seats, clothing and luggage lay strewn all over the lay by and partly in the carriageway as I heard the sound of the emergency services coming to the scene. I looked back up the hill, towards the cliff face and saw the devastating site of people lying in amongst the carnage. The road was closed even though it was almost clear of wreckage in both directions. Police cars rallied up the hill to the next safe junction and set up road closed barriers and park their cars across the intersection barring the way whilst their piercing blue flashing lights and brilliant orange bands warned of the closure and strongly hinted of a fatal accident further down the road. I am only guessing this is what they do as I was still trying to help people that may have still been alive. I think human nature kicked in and in reality I was looking to try and help my family so I had been looking for them.

 

All emergency services arrived at scene within minutes and the amount of police, fire and ambulance services gradually increased. A paramedic dragged me away from the wreckage and escorted me to a close ambulance and asked me a few questions in very good English whilst asking me to remove my blood soaked shirt to attend to my injuries. The look on the paramedics face when she wiped away the blood from my chest only to find minor injuries, I did point out to her that I had quite a major cut to the back of my leg. She asked me to lie down on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance after I had removed my jeans. There was a large chunk of flesh about eight inches in length flapping in the shape of a crescent moon. She irrigated the wound and placed a bandage tightly around my thigh. She then pulled out a clipboard with the dark outlines of the front and rear of a human body, she then documented my injuries in little lines and circles showing cuts and bruises with approximate sizes. She wanted me to wear a splint so I couldn't move my leg and tear the wound any more but I refused, I wanted to get back out to search for my family.

 

I was not allowed to search some more the police and fire service made me stay back and finally got me into an ambulance and then on to hospital. I was discharged later that day and went to the British Embassy where they told me that there were no survivors. My entire family had died; this had been until now the best twelve years of my life and the happiest a person could be to fill a thousand lifetimes.

 

The funeral of my entire family is in 1 hour and I am sat here in my house on my own, I am only alone now because I told my closest friends I wanted this time. They have been pulling together and have my best interests at heart, I just want to be alone and remember those perfect times, those time that define love and happiness. Those times you will never forget they will live with you through death and onto the next whatever. I have lived a lifetime in the last two weeks, I have revisited the day I ask my wife to marry me, the days m children were born. The many times I have been starting work early and coming home late not seeing either of my children awake for days on end. Settling down beside them and seeing in their sleeping faces the fun and laughter they have had. Their closed eyes saying, "Daddy, today I built a castle in my Lego and there was an evil man attacking it until the police turned up and ran them all over." Knowing this is what had happened because the remnants where all over the floor downstairs for me to trip over and swear under my breathe.

 

I know people are going to be coming around in a few minutes as the funeral directors will be here for me in fifteen. Seven grave stones, five of which you can say that they at least had a life however short it was but two children, my two children, taken away from me and from the world. Both have spent a combined 6 years on this miserable planet, their laughter echoes around in my numb head, their smiles making my eyes water and their tears flowing through me run down my face and fall from my chin causing wet patches on my trousers. I have made a small shrine in my pocket with the last photographs taken of them all just the day before the accident happened. With all of this I want to know how to die so I can be with them all again so I can again see the light they have brought me and the rid me of the pain I will hold with me forever. I wish I could find that one way that will end this suffering for me for all the life time I have lived in this last two weeks remind me of all the life time I have actually lived. My name is not Connor MacLoed, I have never been to Loch Shiel and I was not born in 1518 but I am immortal and know of no way that I am able to die.

 

~~~~~~~

 

Ten days ago I walked away from the graveyard wiping the remnants of the earth from my hands with a tear soaked tissue. I have just thrown the first handfuls of soil into the grave of my only family members the only family I have unnaturally grieved for. I was the only survivor of a coach crash in the Swiss Alps and I have just buried my life. My name is Nathanial Forever, it is a name I gave myself some time ago and I am looking for a way I can end my life. My real name is so old I can barely remember when I changed it, my real name is Anselm I am more than sixteen hundred years old and I am immortal.

 

Since the crash I have been seeing a psychiatrist, kindly assigned to me by the British Embassy in Switzerland. My shrink was kind enough to return with me back to England and continue with my therapy. Unfortunately for me my grief is not the only therapy I need to deal with, so we can keep the things in context the psychiatrists name is Elise and on the flight back over here she managed to get out of me my story in a nutshell, I am pretty sure she didn’t believe a word and I am even more sure she is humouring me by asking me to write a retrospective journal of my entire life. However I get more of a feeling she had other things to get back to, namely her husband and little girl.

 

Over my years walking this world I have gained a whole lot of experience in nearly everything, I have seen the science of psychiatry grow up from a few people making assumptions about a few things, until out of a small purse of knowledge was brought a wealth of experience by some of the best minds now known to humanity. Although I wasn’t born when Hippocrates theorised about mental disorders but when the doctors actually practiced in the eighteenth and nineteenth century I was able to help with the theories they now have as the basis of modern psychiatric principles. I used to go drinking with William Battie and Sigmund Freud was on my Christmas card list, although a great many didn’t like him very much, so I can consider that I had a helping hand in the way mental disorders are treated.

 

I met up with Elise on a daily basis telling here stories and recounting a few of the parts of my life I can consider the best and only on one occasion, since being back in Britain did we talk about the one heart breaking experience I have had. I have known people die before but because they have all been either in violent battles of due to natural causes I resolve those experiences as a natural course in life but twenty four days ago is the only occasion that has ripped the heart out of my body and made me realise the only thing I want now is to end this existence and be reunited with the one woman I have ever truly loved. My wife, my soul mate died in the crash along with my two children who were my other reasons to exist.

 

I don’t believe for one minute I will ever convince Elise of my story but in an attempt to put my life in an order that can be understood I decided to do what she asked of me but I don’t think I will be able to remember everything in order, as there are a great deal of stories that could be told. But I gave Elise some points of interest, points in history that she could corroborate my existence. However she could investigate these instances and say I spent a fair amount of time on Google to make up things to immerse myself in to help my grieving process. I also need to do this to remember the people in my long past who did understand and the people who knew from their beliefs how and why my life is what it is. Those beliefs might give me an insight into how I can die and if so maybe I will be able to pull it off. In my vows to my wife I took out the bit that says “Until death do us part” and I replaced it with Forever, unfortunately people thought it was funny because it is my surname.

 

My entire story began the first time I was supposed to have died. I was born in Germany near what is now the border with the Netherlands, the village I grew up in was situated in a large forest with wood and mud huts built around the base of trees. In hindsight this was stupid as the fires made for heating and cooking regularly burnt the huts and trees to the ground.

When I was seventeen our village was invaded by other villages from the surrounding areas around ours, our village was seen to have good resources to make a community survive for a very long time. We had good sources of wood for fires and buildings, a river for water and great fish, surrounding fields for agriculture and rearing of animals for food and work. During the attack my people were either killed or run out of the forest splitting our peaceful community. What seemed like a large army, walked across the succulent fields and waded across the river, walked right in and killed whatever stood in their way. I was one of those who stood up to fight.

 

My family were farmers growing crops, raising animals and cutting wood, I stood in front of the people attacking us trying to stop them from getting my family when the men charged me and I was impaled with a large wooden stake. It went straight through my body and the sharpened end came out the other side. I fell to the ground in such an amount of pain my eyes misted for a few seconds until very quickly it cleared. From the ground I looked as the men walked towards me and I could hear the screams of my mother and sisters from behind me; I got to my feet and roared an adrenalin filled scream as the men stopped right in front of me. Taking one step towards them with the stake pointing out right in front of my body and swung the axe I was still holding. The long handle of the stake fell to the ground and the men watched it fall and as they looked at it hit the ground I attacked them with the axe. I took my mother and three sisters out of the forest and away towards the area that my brothers and father were working.

 

After that point, with my family reunited and a new home built I was treated more and more like the devil walking the earth, my mother wouldn’t speak to me and I had been made to live away from the rest of the family. After a few weeks my wounds had healed and the pain went away and I was beaten by my brothers in the night and left lying face down in a stream tied by both legs to trees on both banks, whilst the blood was washing away, I attempted to turn myself over to breathe air. After two days lying there being constantly turned over to lie face down I was cut free and my limp body floated effortlessly downstream and away from the lives of the people I loved. Little did they know that I had set up home in a cave that I built a wooden frontage to just six miles away from them and three times a month I would go and check on them at night? After what I believe was about twenty five years I found out that my mother had started to become more and more ill. Wanting to be close to them, I made a successful attempt to get a job for my family and because they had aged with the years that had passed and I hadn’t, they never knew who I really was a new name, twenty five years and my still youthful life allowed me to pass as a poor worker. I watched my mother and father grow old, my brothers and sisters had married and made their own families until finally my mother died, I had a short moment with her before she did and told her who I was. She held my hand and stroked my face before she said, “My son died in an attack on my village many years ago”, and I could only watch on and grieve away from the families. My father died a short time after I can only believe was from a broken heart. My brothers and sisters, their spouses and families left the area soon after that and I was left on my own to live whatever existence my life could give to me.

 

This is obviously the abridged version of those events, most I have probably forgotten or have decided to wipe from my memories but after sixteen hundred years I still have fond memories about my family and never once blamed them for the way in which they treated me after that attack on our village. After all how can you accept such a faith shattering thing as not being able to die, it goes against everything nature has got for you to believe in.

 

After a week of me going through the broad details of my life and compiling a series of sixteen journals, one for every century, I met with Elise again at her office in the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London. Her assistant called my name from her desk in the outer office and showed me through to where Elise was sat behind her pristine desk; she pulled down the blind on the door as she left me. Elise shuffled together a few papers and pointed for me to sit on the ox blood Chesterfield next to the open fire. For a second I thought this was a romantic setting until she wheeled over a TV unit and a low table on castors. On the table were papers, photographs and other artefacts that made up 7 days of research that she had been doing and said to me, “Firstly can I have you permission to record all of our conversations and copy any other media that is produced during our sessions?”

 

I replied, “That completely depends on what you want to do with them.”

 

To which she said, “I want to publish a paper about your problem, all the research material is confidential and your information will be protected under doctor, patient confidence.”

 

Why should I care if she does this, I have spent many years perfecting how to change my identity, “I have no problems with this as long as you allow my solicitors to review a contract prior to anything being published.”

 

Elise started the consultation by pointing out a great deal of information she had attained over the last week regarding the points of interest she should investigate to validate my story. As I expected her too she said that it took her longer to print the pages from various sources than it did to find them in the first place. I said to her, “How often do you get handed a torch in darkness?” She threw a puzzled look at me so I elaborated on my comment, “I could have just said to you I am sixteen hundred years old, I am immortal. You would have thrown me in a padded cell where the only way I would have been able to prove it to you, would have been to still be there on the day that you die of old age. I gave you the specific things to look for I didn’t tell you where to find them. I do know of a few places that the information resides, because I used to help validate the finer details of past events. However I can see a photograph on the table that proves my existence in one movement and I didn’t know it existed.” I stood up and walked around the table and placed my finger on one particular photograph. A black and white photograph of Winston Churchill talking to troops in World War II.

 

Elise stood up and looked down to the table and said, “What am I supposed to be seeing here?”

 

I said, “Look at me and then when I say, look back at the photograph.” And she did, she looked me in the face and I said, “Look now.” She looked down to where my finger was still touching and she said, “Sorry I don’t see you point.” So I moved my finger she gasped and picked the photograph up and said, “When was this taken?”

 

I said in reply to her, as I sat back on the Chesterfield, “1942 or 1943” I reached into my bag and pulled out the journals she asked me to keep and put them on the table, she was still looking at the photograph and looking back at me. She had printouts and I had sixteen identical leather bound journals each of them containing a two or three page synopsis of which part of my life I am planning to fill the pages with. She looked at the journals and said, “Starting a library?” that I can only believe was an unintentional response to the confusing thoughts she probably has racing through her educated mind.

 

She then said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.” She looked back at the photograph and continued, “It is just that it is a remarkable resemblance to you.” I said back to her comment, “This is how I have managed to get away with it for all of these years, people have come up to me in the street, mind I am talking about people I haven’t seen in forty or fifty years, I have seen them stop and shake their head and carry on. I have been asked if I am me and I say no, I am sorry. I believe that people pass me and reconcile it in their heads that I have a remarkable resemblance to someone they knew in a different life.” She nodded her head and gestured that I should sit on Chesterfield and I looked at her until she realised that I was already sat down.

In the way only a typical psychiatrist could do, she sat back in a chair, crossed one leg over the other; both hands fell naturally in position, one on her face with the finger pointing up by the nose with the fingers almost covering her mouth and her other arm fell limp on to the arm of the chair and I said to her, “You are not going to ask me how my relationship was with my mother are you?” to which she replied, “Did I just turn into a psychiatrist or what, even if I tried I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull that off again, but in a way that is exactly what I wanted, that photograph is on my mind. I can see that the person in the photograph is predominantly you but obviously that was over 60 years ago an you haven’t aged, therefore all of my training, my experience is telling me that there is no way it can be you. I could write this up as a convenient doppelganger and this is how you wanted this to play out.”

At this point I would have hoped the agitation was starting to show in my face and ever changing mannerisms, but she seems preoccupied as though in her heart she believes in my story but her training and experience she thinks I am crazy. By using the word crazy I am not talking about a genuine mental illness but the classification of someone might just throw around to identify a person that is more forward thinking or just thought in a different way to the normal. Just by not conforming to what is generally accepted as normal doesn’t make you mentally ill but can make people throw that word crazy at you just to make their own normality equal. Non-conforming people can be very imaginative and extremely convincing which is how they are able to go through their lives not being questioned outside of the group whose normality is in line with the equilibrium.

 

Elise placed everything she was holding back on the table and made some conforming piles just in front of her and picked up a jotter and her pen. She also pressed a button on a remote control handset and a small red light on a recording system over her shoulder blinked to life. She said, “On the plane back from Switzerland two weeks ago you said to me you were looking for an end. You also told me you were immortal, both are the reasons why we are having these consultations. I am bound by client confidentiality and you have allowed me to record these consultations for future use on the understanding that your identity is hidden. Do you agree with this statement?”

 

I replied, “Yes.”

 

Elise continued to say, “The dictionary definition of immortal in its lowest common denominator is, not subject to death or decay; having perpetual life. So are you saying you cannot die?”

 

I replied, “Yes.”

 

Elise said for the tape, “You are identifying yourself as someone who cannot die but you wish to, in your own words you said that you were looking for an end.” She pressed a button on the remote control again and the red light died behind her and she said to me, “Sorry about this I need to get this for your safety and for mine too. I need to know that my research and questions are initially bound by this statement and therefore anyone who starts to listen to them outside of this is also bound by these statements. Formalities over, what year were you born?”

 

“I was born in 505AD” I replied and she responded, “Where were you born?”

 

“I was born, as modern geography goes, in South Western Germany” I said, “at this point do you want any more details?”

 

“If you can add anything extra that you may think about, no too much, but something that may allow me to substantiate what you tell me.”

 

“If you look at a modern map the area I was born in is now called Wegberg and a British forces hospital now occupies some of the area where my tribe created their community. The Roman Empire was advancing over much of Europe but we managed to miss a lot of this until the migration into the western lands happened towards the end of the 6th century”

“Do you know I have looked up on the internet a specific timeline from 500CE to present day and do you know what I found? Well, being a rhetorical question I will tell you I too found information to do with the Migration and the advancing of the Roman Empire through Europe. So this can be placed into the grey area which is easily proven because it is information that is readily available.” Elise said with her sceptical head screwed on nice and tight.

 

I replied, “If you look into this and I am guessing some of your information came from Wikipedia, you will find that this entry was edited by a specific person. Part of my life’s endeavour is to make historical references as true as possible, because I was there. We all know that Wikipedia doesn’t have the best track record for displaying accurate information which is why I am an editor on it. Oh by the way you said you started in 500CE what does CE mean?”

 

Elise said, “CE is a reference to Common Era, because of the nature of my job, I have to have a non-scientific Bias, a non-religious bias, a non-political bias and other non-biases. I need to and try to remain neutral to everything and everyone.”

 

I replied to this in a way that throw doubt into the non-bias her job requires, “So you need to make sure you do not take a single side but see the stand point to both sides or more sides if more exist. However you remain sceptical about my statement that I am immortal. Isn’t that your bias, if you asked me to prove it I could, however I would refuse, simply because like you and the next Joe Bloggs around the corner I still feel pain in the same way as you do and the next Joe Bloggs around the corner. So you are able to sit here in front of me and discount what I am saying.”

 

"The only reason I discount it is because it only exists in Myth or fiction.” She said.

 

“Are you aware of a process that exists in Biology called, ‘Regeneration’? There is a Sea Star that can regrow its arms, certain types of geckos and other lizards can regrow their tails. Even in the human body we are able to regenerate at a cellular level, granted human cellular regeneration takes seven to ten years to complete the entire body. But did you also know that many cancer cells are considered immortal.” Elise looked at me as if she was trying to swallow then entire Wikipedia website, “If I had one cell in my hand and that cell divided so I had three cells but the first cell died there are now two cells that are exactly the same as the original. I believe, but I will stand to be corrected the concept behind something called the immortalised cell line.”

 

She took a long gulp on an old cup of coffee and pulled a strained face until she had swallowed it all, I do believe that if I wasn’t present she would have spat the whole mouthful back into her mug. She replaced the mug onto the table but she placed the small cork mat she would have ordinarily put the mug back on, on top of her cup to remind herself not to drink any more of it. Elise said, “OK science facts about regeneration and immortal cells, I will look into these further before our next session, this however from what you have said still puts my point about immortality, what I mean to say is, the point that a human can be wholly immortal in its own right is still the basis of Myth and of fiction. At the moment I am still lacking the evidentiary proof that belies fact, everything in life can be categorised as a myth or as fiction until the evidentiary proof has been substantiated.”

 

“Try this one, in 1060CE I moved in the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps, this was the first time I had decided to become reborn and after years of living there in a monastery with a legion of Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Bec the monks realised that I wasn’t aging or dying and I told them my story, I was then officially named Anselme de Candie Genève and my life was then written. I kept my first name as I had no need to change it that was until people started to realise that ordinary people could think for themselves. In 1079 I became Abbot and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury under William the second and Henry the first.” I said.

 

Elise looked at me again with yet more questioning disbelief, “Archbishop of Canterbury?”

 

“Yes”

 

“You really expect me to believe that you were the Archbishop of Canterbury to William II and then to Henry I?”

 

“Elise I don’t expect you to believe anything of me, I provide you with the facts and you decide that I am a complete fruit cake and that is it, I was originally here for you to help me through my recent loss and because I said to you I was in need of an end. My grief will always be with me and I am tired of my existence because my life, the one I have waited a number of lifetimes came to an end in Switzerland and I want so much to be with my family again.” I started to talk aggressively and the anger followed the aggression and then I was fighting back the urge to break something to release the pent up, bubbling grief that every second of my life is filled with. “I don’t care if you believe me and I wish I had never said what I said on the plane journey back here, if you want to substantiate anything then follow the money!”

 

With that outburst I got up off the Chesterfield collected all my belongings together, threw them unceremoniously into my back pack and left her office, maybe for good.

 

Two weeks later I had decided to fly over to Vermont and stay in a lakeside cabin in the woods to work on the journals I had been asked to keep. When I say the woods it is a three bedroom tree house with a full height glazed aspect overlooking the lake and because it lies on the western shore of the lake I see the full sunset every night.

 

I have not been answering the phone to anyone in my house in Britain and I have learnt to route incoming calls from specific numbers on my mobile straight to voicemail, Elise had phoned me twenty one times in the last two weeks. Modern technology also allows me to retrieve my voicemail over the internet. On my first night in the cabin I stood in front of the window and looked at the lake, the last time I was here my wife and children were with me and that room was filled with noise and fun. Now all I could hear was my shoes squeaking on the highly polished floor and even the sunset filling the wide open space with pink champagne coloured evening light was audible.

 

My heart lay as low as I ever though it possible to lie and my memories were the only things I had shooting through my head. My children racing around the lower floor on push along tin cars laughing and shouting, “brrmmmm” and “screachhhhh” as they took corners and mimicking the sound the tires made. My wife, my beautiful wife handing me a glass of wine after putting the children to bed and cuddling up to me as we watch the summer sun disappear over the canopy of the trees on the far side of the lake as the shimmering glints on the almost still water vanish for the evening getting ready for all the work they have to do another day. We settle down on the comfortable sofa and she cuddles up to me further and before too long we make love under the evening stars and sit watching the fire crackle whilst draped with an itchy blanket but it doesn’t itch enough to make me want to lose the memory.

 

The next morning I got out my laptop and connected to the internet and review the entries on Wikipedia I spent so much time updating. I could see from my admin login that the quite a few of the pages I was an editor of had recently been viewed a few times over the last fourteen days. I believed that Elise had been checking the fine details of all the information I had given her in our last few visits.

 

I had a little window appear in the bottom corner of my screen, you have one hundred and fifty seven emails unread, I clicked the box and my email program opened and I sorted the junk from the legitimate ones. A few from business, one from my oldest friend and my solicitor, there were many from Elise Hadsworth (e.hadsworth@lon.edu.ac.uk). I started from the bottom of the list and read; the first one was an apology and a little long to keep my attention from the start. As I read and got to the top and the one dated two days ago, from the way she was writing I started to believe she had hit upon that one little piece of information that corroborates something I had told her. I don’t believe for one minute she could follow the money as she is a psychotherapist not a forensic accountant.

 

I click the reply button on the email I had received from Hans, my only true friend and solicitor and just said to him, “It is time to move on”. I hadn’t seen him since the funeral and he was aware about my state of mind and he expressed his concern in one of the ways I believe someone in that position could, “Come and stay with us for a while, you need your friends around you at a time like this.” I declined and walked away alone and lonely. After that he had tried to call me every day but I wasn’t taking any calls from anyone regardless of who they were.

 

I never returned any calls and just now when I read his email I knew I had to cut all my ties and move on to whatever life has to offer and being here in this cabin with the memories I have I am filled with the feelings that defined my life and the way my life will be for however long it will now last. My life disappeared on the winding roads in a beautiful country many miles away from here; my life as it was is lying out in this room and the memories of the last twelve years.

 

I have now spent two weeks writing down what on reflection will read as the most fictional set of events a non-writer could ever have dreamed up. I decided to dedicate the final journal to my hand written epitaph. I can only manage a single page of this one and it has taken me a whole day of thinking and have only come up with this, “Life deals you the cards that no imagination can deal, the heart breaks in ways nothing can heal. It’s time to move on.”

 

I click reply on the last email I received from Elise and just wrote, “I have finished the Journals, they are lying in chronological order in my cabin.” I gave her the address and added, “PS time is up” and clicked send. I went down to the lake front took off my deck shoes and socks, climbed into the row boat I have tied up on the jetty and rowed out into the middle of the lake.

 

Elise received the email on her a few minutes later, she happened to be in America attending a seminar in New York. She made a few calls and made arrangements with the British Consulate to travel to Vermont to the address in her email. The consulate had made arrangements on her behalf to have the police and the letting agent to be there when she turned up.

 

She entered the cabin and she saw the immense window that over looked the lake she went down the few steps and passed the kitchen and dining table into the main living area. Just because it was in her nature to examine things she felt the log burner to see if it was hot and said, “Cold” Elise walked up to the window and looked out, “Wow, I can see why he comes here.” She spent some time looking out over the lake and around the trees that enclosed the cabin in perfect solitude. On noticing the jetty down below her she let out an inaudible gasp. In her head she looked closer as if the camera deep inside was trying to zoom in, “Does this cabin come with a boat for the lake?”

 

“Yes, it is only a small rowing boat but yes it does.” said the letting agent.

 

“Is it kept in a boat house when unoccupied?” Elise enquired.

 

“No it is always tied up on the jetty, there hasn’t been any crime around these parts for years, this is part of the attraction and also in the agency fee we arrange keep a patrol company on the roads and on the lake. Mostly it is window dressing” the agent was saying when Elise cut off her conversation, “So where is the boat now.”

 

Elise quickly left the cabin and ran down the steps to the jetty and right to the very end. She came to an abrupt stop just by the deck shoes still on the side on the jetty next to a post with a big steel ring bolted to the side. She moved out to the very end of the jetty and looked forwards and then scanning left and right. There was no sign of the little rowing boat anywhere, Elise turned to the Agent and said, “I think you had better get your window dressing patrol company to do some real work.”

 

The agent looked at her with a very puzzled look all over her face, Elise pointed down to the deck shoes, pointed at the empty ring that had no little row boat tied to it and then shrugged her shoulders looking around. The agent took a little bit of time staring at Elise looking around still shrugging her shoulders until finally the penny dropped, “Nooooo” the agent said disbelievingly and got her phone out held down one of the numbers to speed dial the entry that the number is setup for. She put it to her ear and started to talk to the person in an office somewhere else. Elise walked up the wooden steps back up to where the consulate car was parked. The police were still waiting up next to it and she explained what she had found. One of the police men pick up the radio and called it in.

 

Within two hours the place was teaming with police and the patrol company had boats on the water. Elise thought to herself that is probably the most amount of work they had ever done. The row boat was found about a mile or so down the shore with a jacket inside, Elise ventured inside and after the police had catalogued the contents including fifteen leather bound journals and the laptop she signed a receipt and took possession of everything under the authority of the British Government. She handed over her business card and wrote the number of the embassy in New York that made all the arrangements. She asked for a little help to get everything packed into her car and set off.

 

Three days later she was in her office back in the university in London awaiting the delivery of the journals and the laptop from the home office. When they eventually turned up she signed for the boxes and cut the tape that help the lids in place. Removing the journals she started by skim reading the first few pages when the phone on her desk rang, it was official communication from the sheriff in Vermont to say they have found partially eaten clothing in the middle of the lake but as yet they haven’t found anything that they can completely substantiate as the body of Nathanial Forever. However they are running tests on a certain amount of biological material that has been recovered along with the clothing. Early indications are that they are human remains and were found in the lake near to where the boat had been recovered. She continued to look through the journals until the very last one, on the cover had been a crude branding saying, “Twentieth Century” and was filled with scribblings dates and paragraphs of text from the first page until the very last.  On the last page it said, “Another new millennium!!!”

 

Elise, the psychotherapist who had a biased view on what Nathanial had told her in their meetings she had with him and had made up her mind that he was suffering from grief, that together with information gained out of the Wikipedia offices that a great deal of entries had been edited over the last four weeks on the website using a login that was registered to a validated account owned by a Mr. N Forever, from an address in Bexley Heath, Kent. This was the same address Elise had for him, she almost cried when she thought about how much he truly loved his wife and how the grief had made up this imagination of immortality. In her notes later that day she made a comment on the initial page simply stating innocent grief induced psychosis.

 

Elise packed the journals into a bag, turned off the lights and left early for the day. She made it to the underground station down the road in a matter of a few minutes got onto a train and got off at the station local to her house. Her children were still with the sitters for another hour so she stopped off in the brasserie around the corner and had a glass of wine and started to read the journals more closely. After thirty minutes or so, the waiter came over to her with another glass of wine.

 

She said, "What is this?"

 

"It is a glass of Chablis from the Abbey Of Bec in the Aosta Valley, Italy" The Waiter politely replied and told her that the person at the bar had asked him to take it over to her and when she looked over to the bar she saw the back of someone leaving through the front door. She quickly got up to run after them only to see the anonymous benefactor of the glass of Chablis, put a helmet on and ride off on a motorcycle. She stood there and watched the bike turn a corner and away from her sight.

All four in this series
In Need of an End
The Forever Lecture
Inner Peace Forever
The 21st Century Journal