Patient Blue

I’m not dead, how can this be? I died for sure, there on the floor of the Summer house next to Rosslynne, who I’m pretty sure, barring some miracle, also died. I appear to be in a vast dark space, this I perceive rather than actually see. I can tell I am no longer in the Summer house at Treetops. I am not in pain or discomfort of any sort, quite the opposite in fact I feel remarkably calm and peaceful.

I become aware of sparks moving quickly in all directions like exotic fireflies, though there are no dark insect bodies attached, just sparks silver and gold zipping about hither and thither in silence. Ithink about Rosslynne, wondering where she is and receive her answer immediately.

‘I’m here.’

It isn’t her voice, she has communicated without spoken words directly into my mind. I respond in the same way.‘Rosslynne, thank God you’re OK.’

‘This is weird, where are we?’

‘I don’t know, though I don’t think we’re in Reigate anymore Toto.’

‘Are we alive?’

‘Not sure, aware at least, though I can’t feel my body or anything but I can see or more like sense something, sparks or little lights, all gold and silver zipping about.’

‘Are we dead?’

‘You know, I think we really might be.’

‘What’s the last thing you remember?’

‘The Summer house, the terrible cold, lying next to you in the sleeping bag, closing my eyes and then being here. I don’t know where we are or how we got here.’

‘I can probably help you there.’ Although these words are projected into my mind rather than spoken I can tell it is a male voice, ageless, sounding reassuring and friendly. ‘You too Rosslynne, ask anything you like and I will try to answer, that’s what I’m here for, well one of the things anyway.’

‘Who are you,’ I think this question rather than say it, which seems to be the way to communicate in this place. Rosslynne in the same manner asks, ‘please tell us where we are.’

‘OK Where to begin? It will take you awhile to orientate of course, always does and things are more complex and hectic than normal, what with the big events and the Blue and Pink thing over the last few months, sparks and essences everywhere, lost confused, blooming annoying. I’ve been brought in as a consultant to help out a bit, Jeremiah Googall by the way, pleased to meet you, and you are now in the Deep Black storage area.’

‘The Deep Black storage area what the fuck is that, are we alive or dead?’

‘No need to swear like that, not in front of your lady friend. Of course you are dead, if you weren’t then gyou wouldn’t be here with all the other physically dead things from this here galaxy. Notice the sparks?’

‘Yes,’ projects Rosslynne.

’Dead things. Gold are the higher sentient dead things, Rosslynne for instance and perhaps you Michael just about on a good day, and silver are the lower sentient things, Woodlice,Plankton, Blob’s that sort of thing.

’What the f—I mean what is a Blob?

‘You won’t have heard of them not from your neck of the woods, they’re from another place altogether, Pink to be precise. Appalling things actually, they will most certainly be going back into the Lump for some major reworking or maybe just disposal.’

‘The Lump?’

‘Yes Rosslynne, nice name by the way. I once had a lady friend with that name myself, in France, it was just before the big push. The Lump, you’ll find out all about that in due course, I’ll show it to you soon, you might even get to see the Great Physician.’

‘The Great Physician, who the fuck—I mean what or who is the Great Physician?’

‘You will have to watch that mouth, swearing in front of a young lady, spark or no spark is something that I just won’t tolerate.’

‘Sorry Mr Googall.’

‘Jeremiah please, just lain old Jeremiah, no formalities here.’

‘Sorry Jeremiah.’

‘I used to swear once when I was alive, in the trenches in France and Belgium.’

‘What swear words were those then, things like damn and blast?’

‘No, please close your ears Miss, things like fuck and bollocks. Usually said in a sentence such as; if that public school twat of an officer tells me one more time to; “Just go and have a quick recce in no man’s land Private Googall and see what’s going on, there’s a good chap.” I will stick this fucking bayonet in his bollocks, that sort of thing. Pardon the expression Rosslynne, just trying to give Michael an example that he can understand. But I left all that behind, apart from the occasional lapse, and now so must you, it creates a negative karma.’

‘Understand I most certainly do Jeremiah. I take it you’re an old soldier then.’

‘No I’m actually a young soldier, twenty three when I bought it. That was at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, day one actually. Mine was the first Regiment to try out one of the new experimental tactics, a stroke of true genius really. Get up leave the safety of the trench and walk slowly in formation towards the enemy machine guns. The experiment was a huge success, for the enemy that is. Fritz was pissing himself, pardon, though me and the lads who were also mown down were none too chuffed about it. In fact later on, about ten years after the ludicrously titled, War to end all wars staggered to an end, he of course died all comfy in his bed, old Field Marshall Haig turned up here. Sheepish, apologetic, kept saying sorry lads. He said he really thought that walking slowly towards a machine gun was a good idea and worth a try, take the enemy by surprise and eventually they would run out of bullets. Anyway, the lads were having none of it. He tried to lose himself among all the other sparks, even tried to make himself appear silver like a weevil or bed bug, but we could always find him. Eventually, in order to escape us he decided to go back to the Lump, take his chances and be reborn as something back on Blue. I heard he actually went back as a Lemming in a burrow at the top of a cliff somewhere in the Arctic. I also heard that he got caught in the loop, which means that each time one Lemming existence ended another one began for him, over and over, the same burrow on the same cliff and the same impulse to leap off it. I should imagine he is probably still doing it to this day.Cataclysmic earthquake, eruptions and new mini Ice Age allowing of course.’

‘I thought that was a myth, Lemmings leaping off cliffs?’

‘In the case of Field Marshall Haig it’s not.’

‘You’ve mentioned three things so far that I don’t understand, The Lump, Blue and the Great Physician, can you tell us a bit more about them?’

‘OK I’ll take them in alphabetical order, Blue first. Blue is the Earth, but far from being an inert lump of rock circling the sun in the cold and darkness of deep space, Blue is a living, sentient entity. Highly intelligent and able to communicate instantly across thousands of light years of distance with any of the other planets that are also sentient. Of course not all the planets can respond and some are more sentient than others. Mars or Red as he is known, once extremely gregarious, is hardly able to communicate at all now. Had the essence of life torn from him and sentient planets need life forms on them in order to communicate. I don’t know why, but it is a fact. The non life bearing planets are sort of able to communicate, but you might liken them to a pet. More to keep a sentient planet company in whatever dark lonely corner of space they happen to occupy, but you can’t hold a sensible conversation with one. A good example would be the moon or Shiny as he is more commonly known. Stars are different again, they obviously have no life living on them as such, but they are none the less powerful and highly intelligent. Because of their awesome power they tend to be arrogant and throw their weight around and need to be controlled carefully. They also give themselves names your sun is known as the Fiery Beautiful Orb by the way. I also mentioned Pink,considered, apparently by those in the know, to be the most beautiful body in the Galaxy. Had the strangest effect on Blue, made him crazy, just as I’m sure Rosslynne, that Michael here gets crazy over you.’

‘Flatterer.’

‘It’s true I was obsessed, still am, the spark is very much still there.’

‘Oh never heard that one before. Anyway, Blues reaction to Pink was major earthquakes and eruptions and his final explosive ejaculation at Yellowstone caused all the real damage. Now here you are with most of the rest of humanity, the treatment worked.’

‘Treatment?’

‘It’s a long story and not for now.’

’So Jeremiah, you’re really telling us that the Earth is alive conscious able to communicate and even have sex with other planets, the Moon is his pet dog and the Sun is alive and has a name?

‘Crudely summarized Michael but yes, though I would liken Shiny more to a hamster or intelligent goldfish than a dog.’

’So how, so who, did all this, made this place and us and everything?

‘In this Galaxy, the Great Physician.’

‘The Great Physician, is that God?’

‘Dear me no Michael, though I’m sure he would one day like to be but he’s a long way down the chain of command I’m afraid, bottom rung of the ladder in charge of one small galaxy, this one and the human race cock up is going to set him back a bit too. It’s GUD by the way not God, GUD, the Great Universal Designer.Think of GUD as the CEO of the universe, this one and the billions of parallel ones, all of them almost identical, but each with a small subtle difference. You for instance Michael, exist in every one, but never really amount to much in any of them I’m afraid.’

‘Great. Not just a loser but a universal loser.’

‘It’s a bugger, but there you go. It could be worse, I get killed walking slowly towards a machine gun on the Somme in every one.’

‘You can think of GP, sorry the Great Physician, but I’ll refer to him as GP, as a kind of junior manager in a not too glamorous backwoods location,’ said Jermiah.′ He’s been trying to take control of Andromeda, that would be promotion for him but he keeps being thwarted by the incumbent, MR, sorry, the Mighty Re-arranger, who although getting on a bit is still very much at the top of his game.′

’The Mighty Re-arranger, I’ve heard that name, could it perhaps be a folk memory, somehow communicated subconsciously across space and time?

‘No I think you might be thinking of the title of that fairly average Robert Plant solo album of the same name, I noticed your Aunt Barbi had it back at Treetops.’

’Oh yes she did too I remember now. Will I be able to see Barbi and George again? Are they here? Are my—are my parents here?

‘They are here and Michael’s parents and Davey and Barbi and George, you can meet them at any time you want, just think of an occasion you were together and happy, or a time when perhaps things were said and shouldn’t have been and you will be in that time and space. It can all remain the same or you can change anything about it, make it perfect, put things right. You can live in that life whilst living in any number of lives and experiences for as long as you wish. As I said, space and time is meaningless here.’

‘Is Davey really here I think he committed suicide and I thought that suicides were damned to Hell.’

‘That’s bollocks of course, beg pardon Rosslynne. All the people, apart from one or two major and obvious exceptions, that commit suicide are here. No one is punished for unbearable anguish and despair.’

‘So I can see him again?’

‘Of course, you can see anyone you want.’

‘Does God, sorry GUD, know we exist? Have you seen him?’

GUD is aware of every atom in every Universe at all times, but one thing is certainly true, the ultimate plan and purpose of GUD remains very much a secret. In fact the expression GUD works in mysterious ways is very apt. I have not seen GUD and using the term him for such a powerful force is incorrect. He, it, is not some old man in a long robe, with flowing grey hair and beard, firing sparks from his fingers, if you were GUD would you be? Humans are not built in the image of GUD, more in the image of GP, which is why his vanity was hurt when humans went so spectacularly wrong. Though he could have wiped us all out just like that, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He won’t quite give up on us, will rework and remodel and maybe send some of us back to repopulate Blue once again. That last bit, repopulation of Blue is only a rumour but one that’s gathering pace.′

‘So can you tell us more about the Lump?’

‘The lump is, as the name would suggest, a vast lump trillions of tons in weight, of genetic material that has been provided by GUD to be used with foresight and care by the, let’s call them managers of each Galaxy, to create life, sentient and non sentient to populate those Galaxies. Every organic thing there has ever been throughout the entire history of the Universes has come from these Lumps, one for each Galaxy. After physical death everything eventually goes back there to be remodeled reshaped and reborn. The Deep Black storage area, this place, is a mere holding area for those higher sentient beings that need to make the decision, the lower and non sentient get the decision made for them.’

‘Decision, what decision?’

‘The decision Michael, as to whether to stay here or go back to the lump get remodeled and reborn. Though for obvious reasons that is suspended at present for humans. Most, though by no means all the people that decide to go back to the lump are reborn as humans, taking their chances that they’ll be re-birthed in a life that isn’t too crap. Sometimes, as is the case with old Haig, there is an intervention.’

’Who by, GUD, the Devil some other fucking giant entity like a huge spectral prick shaped head called DH.

‘Language please, I’ll explain. Humans always referred to The Devil as Old Nick, that name is almost right though it’s not a single thing with horns and a pitchfork and a big evil laugh. It is more a collective and known as Iron Nick, don’t know why but that’s what they’re called. To be honest I believe it’s actually a play on the word ironic, but they’ve jazzed it up a tad to give it a bit of weight and gravitas. There’s a lot of irony here and a good example of the way they work would be as I said, the rebirth of Haig as a Lemming.’

‘Hey Rosslynne, do you remember that episode of the Simpsons when Homer somehow ends up in Hell? I think he sells his soul to the Devil for a donut which of course he eats, goes to Hell, is sent to this room I think it might have been called ironic punishments division or something and there’s this demon guy force feeding him donuts as a punishment. But Homer, being Homer, eats them all and then asks for more and the demon guy looks well pissed off.’

‘Yeah I remember that one. Then, doesn’t he go back to Springfield with a ring donut for a head and someone takes a bite out of it I think that’s the same one but may be another episode, classic.’

’Moving on, but yes that’s the sort of thing that can happen here, but without donuts or humour. For example, people often think they can beat the system of random selection and as they enter the Lump they ask to be given a specific life. They will say things like; I want to be reborn with looks like Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, or Kylie Minogue or Angelina Jolie, or they will say I want to be a multi billionaire or talented artist or superstar performer. Lot more of that lately I blame the X Factor and that bloke Cowell, Iron Nick have been taking a very close look at him since he arrived here I can tell you. So, whenever this type or request is made, Iron Nick is always quick to pick up on it and the force of irony takes over.

So, instead of going back looking like Brad or Johnny they would end up as the odd smelly fat bloke mumbling to himself at the back of the bus that no one wants to sit next to. Or maybe the prematurely balding gimp with man boobs eating a McDonalds on a park bench, or the really fat ugly girl with mousey thinning hair, speech impediment and chronic Halitosis.′

’Or, I add, ‘Mick Hucknall, but without the musical talent.’

’Or, says Jeremiah, ’like The Empress of a third of the world, Queen Victoria, only short fat, humourless and married to a Kraut. Oh wait I forgot, she already was. She incidentally, outraged and not even faintly amused at just being a humble spark with all the other peasant sparks. Decided to enter the Lump and request that she should be returned as something royal, or at least titled. What she was actually returned as was a latrine emptier in a Bombay Leper hospital. I think she managed to really piss off Iron Nick.

‘Mumbai’

‘Sorry.’

‘Mumbai, Bombay is called that now.’

‘Bombay, Mumbai, potato, potaato’ whatever it’s called It won’t make a latrine emptier in a Leper hospital smell any sweeter.

We both laugh at this revelation. ’I notice you have a wicked sense of humour there Jeremiah. Do you have a title by the way, other than Private that is?

‘I am a consultant, new arrivals can consult me. The Leper colony thing is true by the way, she lived that life three times and actually did really well, compassionate not complaining. Iron Nick were impressed, took an interest and eventually her last and final return was as Mother Teresa.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘No not at all, there is the Indian connection and they were similar heights.’

‘Fuck me.’

‘Keep that up Michael, and Iron Nick will very definitely fuck you and without Vaseline. Pardon the language again there Rosslynne.’

‘Sorry.’

So Jeremiah, you are a consultant, is that a kind of play on words, like Google? Your name Googall, sounds like the internet site, ask any questions and you can find the answer, that is before the Wang Pulse screwed it up.′

‘No Rosslynne I only vaguely know what an internet site is and the Wang Pulse is as much a mystery to me as it is to you, Fiery’ s idea, though it sounds like something rather rude. As far as I know my name is of old Yorkshire extraction even though I was born and bred in London, and I really am a consultant to the newly arrived.′

‘So could me and Rosslynne go back into the Lump and be reborn, and if we were would we get to know each other again?’

‘Not at the moment, as I said returns to the Earth are currently suspended. As humans were considered a catastrophic failure, almost certainly any future returned will be managed far more closely and the returnees will have been altered and modified .In the past though, if you had both opted to return you would have been destined to meet again, but any subsequent outcomes from that meeting would have been down to the two of you.’

‘So are we here forever?’

‘Not necessarily, you may be chosen to enter the lump be remodeled and returned. Even if you’re not, you’ll be happy. Here time is meaningless and you can go anywhere you want in your past and relive it or change it, make it better, right any wrongs.’

‘How do you mean?’

’Well I’ll try to make sense of it for you, please bear with me if I take a circuitous route. Einstein was regarded as a genius but erected an intellectual barrier to faster than light travel and therefore time travel. It became a kind of taboo to disagree with that theory or even try to explore it, at least until Star Trek, but that was fantasy. I mean warping space, little mobile communication devices, yeah like that’s going to happen.

‘Little communication devices, mobile phones that has, did happen.’

‘Whatever, in my day it was pigeons and I’ll stick with them. Light does actually have a speed limit that much is true. But travelling thousands of times light speed is possible, here it is anyway. Michael, think about your twenty first birthday party.’

‘OK, I got a bit wasted, but I had a good time, even managed to grope Linda Applegate.’

‘How long did it take you to get back there to that party? A fraction of a second, you crossed fourteen years of time and space in a fraction of a second.’

‘But that’s not really time travel or faster than light travel, just a mind game.’

‘But from here you really can travel to that party, the real thing. An event that left Earth at the speed of light, an imprint of an event travelling out into the Universe and with just a thought you could be there back in that room groping Linda Applegate. Not only that, you can change the event, do more than just grope her for instance, or choose not to get drunk and instead discuss the latest episode of the Next Generation, Captain Picard as a Borg, I liked that episode, or the new Oasis album with her—’

‘High Flying Birds.’

‘No those sparks up there are a pair of Ferrets.’

‘No I meant— never mind.’

‘Or you can just not change anything at all, keep everything the same and observe events as they actually happened from the corner of the room.’

‘Like the Ghost of Christmas past.’

’Almost, but Dickens got it wrong when he talked about altering the future on earth. That can’t be changed, but here you can revisit and change an event that has already happened and put right whatever wrong you want, though only you will be healed by it. Anyone else, Linda Applegate for instance, will visit her own scenarios and alter things to heal herself, and that may mean not getting groped by you.

‘Can any, all of us here do this?’

‘Most, a murderer or child abuser or say a wife beater can all revisit the scene of their crimes and if truly remorseful can put it right. Bring love instead of hate, change the way it was and make everything right. But if they are not truly remorseful, Iron Nick will force them to revisit, only this time they will be the victim, facing the pain and fear being inflicted on themselves by themselves.’

‘What about children, say those murdered or killed in a war?’

‘There is a special place for the innocent here, and remember this place is for every form of existence in this entire galaxy not just humans, but for each innocent thing, whatever it is and from wherever it comes, it has a special place, that’s all I know. There are some whose crimes are so heinous that Iron Nick takes control of them as soon as their spark arrives at the Deep Black storage area, Stalin or Hitler for instance. He has to revisit a certain place for a certain length of time, three days actually, over and over. That place is a long goods train pulling fifty cattle trucks full of people in Southern Poland on its way to Auschwitz. At each visit there, he inhabits the body of either a terrified child or the parent of that child and he travels on that train for three days until it is off loaded. He is then whipped and kicked by screaming, psychopaths with vicious barking dogs, into a gas chamber where he dies. His spark then returns here and is then sent back to that train, to the body of another child or parent over and over again. There are a thousand children on that train and many more trains to follow so he has a long way to go yet.’

’So he’s not an ant then? In a hill near a schoolyard with kids zapping him with magnifying glasses?

‘No, but let me ask you Michael, if you were Adolf,what would you prefer, ant and Magnifying glass or three days on the death train and a gas chamber?’

‘Ant and magnifying glass.’

‘Me too.’

‘Can we see the Lump?’

‘OK Rosslynne, there it is.’

Through the twinkling mist of billions of silver and gold sparks we begin to perceive a shape, an object of huge dimensions that is emanating a soft pastel light of a colour I can’t quite name. It is both dazzling and beautiful. The object is vast and its distance from us cannot be judged, a mile or a thousand miles, its presence is overwhelming and awesome.

‘Michael, Rosslynne, the Lump. This is where you came from and where you will, at the appropriate time, return.’

Although awesome, vast and alien, there is a familiarity about it, and then it hits me. ‘Kebab, it looks like that thing, that glistening lump of grey whatever it is turning on a vertical spit in Tony’s Kebab and Chicken grill window in Bognor Regis, near Butlins. The thing you would only ever dare eat if you are tragically drunk or stoned and have the serious munchies. Jeremiah don’t you think it looks like the Kebab meat thing? I mean the shape of it and it’s glistening and look even slowly turning.’

‘Sorry but Kebabs are a bit before my time, Turkish aren’t they?. The only take away in my era was sea food, Whelks, Winkles or Jellied eels and you’d have to be almost comatose and being force fed through a tube rather than pissed before you ate that crap. But I can assure you that the Lump is no Kebab, whatever a Kebab is.’

‘Jeez, that certainly explains the human addiction to fast food and why we’re all getting obese. Do we have to go back into the Keb—Lump I mean? and return to earth, when it’s up and running for humans again if we don’t want to? I think I’m starting to like it here and I mean Earth it’s finished anyway, nothing to go back to.’

‘You don’t have to, though you may be invited to.Did I say by the way, that as a consultant I can move through time? Not just as you will be able to, revisiting things that have already been, but back and forward at will. I have to leave you soon and meet a couple and their children who died an hour after you two. ’

‘That’s not time travel though.’

’Ah Michael, but it is. Tell me how long do you think you have been here now?

‘Since we met you? I would say about an hour at most.’

‘Actually it’s been one hundred years, time as I have already said means nothing here, and in fact doesn’t actually exist in this place. You only live in the moment, beyond that it is another mysterious way that I cannot yet fully explain to you.’

‘A hundred years, that’s impossible.’

‘More than possible a reality in fact, and in that time the Earth has faced a cataclysm and the whole human race, apart from about ten thousand people mainly scattered on islands in the Atlantic and deep Brazilian Rain forest were wiped out. Blue by the way is now fine, lots of sympathetic reshaping and climate control, lust for Pink is also under control, in fact that has started to cool a bit. Now as I said I’ve heard rumours that GP, still rather smarting from the last debacle with humans, has already started plans to atone for the cock up. Maybe try to impress GUD, jockey for position should Andromeda ever come up for grabs. It could be that he is close to being ready to return a modified version of you lot at some time over the next thousand years. But hey you know how time works here, so that means imminently. So for any willing spark in the right place at the right time, well to coin a phrase, it could be you. Still until that possibility occurs, go off and enjoy yourselves. Visit any part of your lives you like and change it if you want, make it better or just turn up and observe, get out there and time travel. Now I must go back and meet the Brains, charming people, she was a psychiatrist.’