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THINK ALL OF THIS IS FAR-FETCHED SCIENCE FICTION NONSENSE? WELL, YOU’RE PROBABLY RIGHT. CARRY ON WITH YOUR LIVES IN THE BLISSFUL KNOWLEDGE THAT NONE OF THE ABOVE COULD EVER HAPPEN. WELL... PROBABLY NEVER HAPPEN.
JUST BE MORE CAREFUL THE NEXT TIME YOU USE A CASH MACHINE.
Chapter 33
Canary Wharf, London
‘Kate? Kate? Kate!’ called Gareth Hastings in an ever louder and increasingly exasperated voice. Kate, shaken out of her musings looked up to see her manager leaning in far too close for her liking.
‘Kate, have you been paying attention to me? I have just been going through my feedback and action items for you to improve your work next year, and you haven’t said anything for the past twenty minutes. You haven’t even made notes!’ Kate, looked at him, having completely forgotten where she was, and gave a small nod.
‘Anyway, as I was saying I have a new project for you. One that should give you a chance to really try something quite leading edge on our system and really let your talents show here’.
Kate’s attention drifted away from his monologue again. Her gazed drifted out of the meeting glass door, down to the working floor below where her colleagues were going about their normal day to day jobs, talking on phones, filling in forms, sitting in boring meetings, and wondered what would happen next.
END
Thank you for taking the time to read my book. Please feel free to comment or review this book on the website that you downloaded it from.
Here's a sneak preview of my new book "Tweet of Faith", which will shortly be available on Smashwords and Amazon.com, I hope you enjoy it.
Tweet of Faith
Location: Unknown
Time: Unknown
The steady, rhythmic beep of the machine was the loudest noise in the white sterile room. The regular beeping pattern was quite reassuring to the medical staff attuned to its pattern but the noise did not register with the comatose patient. The hospital room was neutrally decorated, painted in a bright, off white colour and sparsely furnished, featuring just a simple wooden table and chair, a washbasin in the corner, and the large metal bed with numerous hanging medical implements, sat in the centre of the room.
The patient had been lying there in the room for a number of days now. He was a western male, probably somewhere in his mid 30s and was just under six feet tall. He had dark brown hair which had been mostly shaved away so that the doctors could inspect his head wound. When they had checked his pupils for a dilatory response the nurse present had noted his eye colour as being “Hazel”. The man’s face was severely bruised and a large bandage had been applied towards the top of the forehead where he had suffered a large cut.
His prognosis was for the moment unclear. Despite all of the advances in modern medicine, head wounds often proved difficult to read accurately and the prolonged unconsciousness was a worrying sign. Early scans had shown that there was a large swelling present around his brain and the patient was not responding to any stimulus.
The nurse checked the patient’s vital signs one last time and noted them on the chart hanging from the foot of his hospital bed before leaving the room. She looked down on his bruised face which, apart from the occasional flicker of eyelids was completely still. Oddly though, during the last few days she had decided that he looked quite serene, even happy in his comatose state. She had no basis for this decision, only that she preferred that option to the thought of him suffering whilst his body slowly recovered.
After adding the last note on his chart, she looked around the patient’s room. Whilst clean and recently decorated there was a distinct emptiness about the place. The room was identical to all of the other rooms in the small Bangkok hospital but this one was missing something. After a moment’s thought she realised what it was. There were no flowers or cards or anything personal in the room.
The nurse reached the door to the room, turned the dimmer switch down to darken the room for the night and looked back one last time at the man. She looked once more at the barren room and briefly considered getting him a get well card. However, she soon realised the complication of doing that.
No one knew who he was.
Chapter 2
AMP Club, Bangkok, 2013 (2 weeks previously)
The music was pounding and one of his favourite DJs was spinning records like he was on fire. The strobe lights and lasers lit up the dance floor highlighting small segments of the crowd at a time. All around him, Richard could see huge wide grins, and frenetic dancing. he was ready to party and was dressed in his best black shirt and special non-ripped stone washed blue jeans.
The evening had started slowly, and he’d nearly abandoned the legendary Khao San road in Thailand, writing it off as just another overhyped backpacker hangout but then he’d stumbled in this place and had been caught up in the shared euphoria immediately. Having walked in alone, he’d soon been surrounded by a group of instant friends, despite the music being too loud for them to communicate more than a few bellowed words to each other.
“You want another one?” yelled a tall, slightly burnt man that he’d met only an hour or so ago.
“Yeah” he replied, nodding vigorously as well, as he’d doubt the person would hear him.
He shouldn’t really have another drink, a small part of his brain told him. He’d just reached that perilous stage of being drunk enough to think himself a good dancer, and to have no fear in talking to groups of people and approach women, but was dangerously close in tipping over to the point where he’d act like an arse. His new friend came back shortly after with another ice cold beer which he accepted gratefully.
Unfortunately it also came with the offer of a small pill, complete with a smiley yellow face on it which his new friend was most insistent he try. As soon as he took the pill he knew he’d crossed a perilous line between being in control and out of it. From that moment onwards the evening became a blurry montage of stumbling into girls and tripping on the dancefloor.
After a few hours he stepped out of the club to take in a breath of fresh air. Luckily the effects of the pill were starting to wear off, and he decided that he would soon head home. He took a few unsteady steps along the pavement in front of the club, testing his own ability to walk in a straight line. Satisfied that he was now suitably in control he turned around just in time to see a very pink-coloured taxi mount the curb and zoom towards him before making sudden and very painful contact with his body.
Then, the lights simply went out.
Chapter 3
East London, England, 1999
“You’re late again”, the history teacher yelled as he took his seat at the back of the lecture hall. Not being a huge fan of history, Richard, aged 18 had recently adopted the tactic of arriving late, sitting right at the back of the classroom, then leaving as soon as he could. Why history studies? Strewth, there were 101 things he would rather do on his Wednesday afternoon than sit here and listen to facts and figures about dead people. Today’s topic: World War II. Wow, how original.
All through his school life people had been telling him about World War II. He highly doubted that today would unearth anything that hadn’t been already covered a 100 times before. After the history teacher had finished glaring at him, Richard sat back, relaxed, and sneakily checked his phone for new Facebook updates.
Mr Constable gazed at Richard for a few seconds then continued his lecture.
“During the second World War, over 100,000 men were forced to work on the so called Death Railway link between Thailand and Burma in appalling conditions. A huge number of men died during construction of the route..”
The room started to go blurry for Richard and he idly noticed that his head was rocking slightly backwards and forwards - oh, he shouldn’t have stayed out so late last night.
He thought he’d make it through his lecture day with several strong coffees but it was definitely payback time now. Mr Constable already hated him, and had often threatened to fail his academic year if his grades didn’t
improve so he really ought to stay awake. However the compulsion was too strong, the monotonous tone of the lecturer pulling him in, inviting him into a long awaited world of sleep.
“Thailand”, “labour camp”, “malaria”, the words came drifting in and out of his subconscious, and before he knew it he was drifting into a long overdue sleep.
He knew there would be hell to pay when Mr Constable marked his next assignment but Richard drifted away listing several different things in his head that he would rather be doing than sitting in a history lecture.
He wanted to see the world. He wanted adventure. He wanted to meet the love of his life! None of these things were going to happen in this lecture hall.
As the lecture continued the one word that kept looping through his mind just before he fell asleep was “Thailand”. Without realising it, he’d just been introduced to a country that would change his life forever.
Chapter 4
Location: Unknown
Date: Unknown
Time: Unknown
I’ve seen lots of movies where people are suddenly mortally injured and they have this wonderful replay through their life during the last few moments alive. On some of the Hollywood blockbusters this fleeting overview of your life is complete with a stirring soundtrack, pulsing lights, and beautiful actors and actresses appearing in your line of sight as you move towards the afterlife. Whenever I see these movies I always wonder who experienced one of these flashbacks then came back to life to tell Hollywood producers all about it.
My flashback experience was much more mundane, perhaps I should ask for my money back! All I remember thinking as I span through the air was “Why are the taxis pink here in Thailand”? Hardly the stuff of Hollywood legend I grant you, but then again, I was rather distracted at the time.
I don’t recall the initial impact hurting as such, although it must have in reality. All I remember is taking off from the ground, and then after experiencing what it must be like to be weightless for a few seconds, everything faded out. No beautiful actress or actresses weeping over me, no crowd of well-wishers gathered around with candles chanting whilst the orchestra played on. As I said, mundane. Then, I found myself in this empty space, stretching in all directions all around me. No furniture, no people. Not even a magazine to read.
I’ve never really been into religion but if this is the afterlife they’ve got it all wrong - I mean, regardless of which religion you believe in you’d expect that your respective god wouldn’t leave you guessing whether you were actually dead or not?
So, here I am in this room, trying to figure out what happens next. I’m not sure whether I am standing or sitting, it feels more like floating really. There are no points of reference, just a whitish thick mist everywhere which makes it difficult to see more than a few metres in either direction.
No-one to see and no sound in this place. It’s just a lot of emptiness and even though there are no discernible sounds it’s not exactly silent. There’s a gentle hum in the air.
I guess I should be feeling scared but this environment doesn’t feel hostile to me. It’s actually kind of mind-numbing, in a relaxing meditative way. After a few moments I began to relax a little and this wave of calm washes over me. My initial outrage at being dead starts to lessen and this strange sense of contentment begins to grow. After all if this is the eternal afterlife then I may as well try to stay positive about it.
END OF PREVIEW