Patient Blue

Here in this place, known by all as the Deep Black storage area. Rosslynne and I travel through time and space. We revisit our shared lives and experiences as well as the lives we had once led whilst apart. We revisit many places and experiences. We change many things and create new realities in this spectral land of endless possibilities.

I returned to my desk at the long gone Real Money, where I once again take the call from Bob Parrett. Only this time I tell old Bob to go fuck himself and say how glad I am that he has lost part of his fucking nest egg and wished it could have been the whole lot. I also speak once again to Les Smith. I’ve met him here actually, nice bloke. This time around I promise him a full refund of his money plus interest and tell him that this refund has been guaranteed by Patrick Drage personally and I will send an official letter confirming it. If for any reason Drage will not honour this agreement, I omit to mention that Patrick of course knows nothing about it. Then Les should immediately contact the Financial Ombudsman, whose details are in the letter.

Back in Patrick’s office where I have been ordered to explain myself I lift the little tosser off the floor by his red silk tie, tear off his glasses and stamp on them. I then officially resign,warning Patrick on my way out that I know where he lives and will be watching him very closely and if any repercussions were to follow I would be paying him a call late at night.

This is of course all petty spite and in hindsight rather childish, but I’ve got to fill my time, this eternity, somehow. As I leave Real Money, possibly for the last time, it’s boring me now, though I may revisit sometime and cause a bit more mayhem. I say goodbye to Rochelle, a really lovely girl, kind, trusting and happy. She is of course here, but in the place of the innocent’s so I haven’t actually seen her outside of my revisits to Real Money. I tell her to keep smiling, but can’t help adding, ‘beware of cannibals.’ She waves as I head towards the door. As I pass Janine, her ear clamped to the phone and avoiding eye contact with me I start singing. ‘You’re the one that I want ooh ooh ooh’, then I break out laughing as I see her mortified expression.

I return to the fancy dress party with Davey where I went as Elwood Blues. Only this time I wore a feather in my Trilby hat, made a big joke of it, moved in on pink tutu girl, I never did ask her name, snatched her away from the Frankenstein monster guy and had sex with her in the hosts parent’s bedroom. She was surprisingly lithe for a big girl and I arranged to meet her again. I think I might actually turn up. Many options are open here, and the one thing I have in abundance is time. I don’t tell Rosslynne of this encounter, not that she would mind, but some secrets needed to remain just that, secret.

Strangely, in the circumstances I never revisit Alice or any parts of our life together, and as she has never visted me I guess the feeling is mutual.

I revisit a wonderful day during a childhood holiday in Devon. My Dad, who I now spend a lot of time with, is looking fit and handsome. He shows Davey and me some trout that are jumping a small waterfall trying to get to their spawning grounds. Mum has brought a picnic, she looks young and really beautiful, nothing like the old and bitter woman she became. She chooses to look as she looked on that day all the time now. I revisit that day over and over and always find new things to delight and fascinate me. I always feel loved cared for and safe with my beautiful mum and dad and my best friend and brother, Davey.

I spend a lot of time with Davey and I know that Rosslynne also loves him, like a brother I am assured by both of them. I asked him when we first met again why he’d committed suicide. He told me that he didn’t think he had, just accidentally took too many pills. He also said that at the end of the day he really hadn’t cared if he lived or died, and secretly, he actually preferred death as his life was bereft and empty, so perhaps it was intentional after all. He deeply regretted the distress it caused mum and dad and especially me. He was watching as I tried to revive him but all the while hoping I wouldn’t succeed. He doesn’t know why he felt so empty and sad in life, as on the surface he appeared to have a lot going for him. He said, ‘It’s just one of those mysteries maybe my brain was wired up all wrong, but I was never happy, not once that I can remember.’ It took him a while to adjust to things here, but he is happy now and I of course am happy for him. I asked if he had ever visited me while I was alive, like a ghost. He had, but only in my dreams and at the edges of my half waking reality, but he stopped when he realized it was freaking me out.

Rosslynne tells me she has also traveled a fair bit, sees a lot of Barbi and Geoge. Goes Back to “Treetops”, where she is fifteen again. Spends lots of time with her parents, tells them she loves them both. She planted a big kiss on her dad and told him that she loved him so much and that whatever transpires he must always remember that. She has also revisited the day she first met Danny Russlin, only this time around she purposely blanked him, they never had a life together, he never beat her up and she was never pregnant with his child. Though, in the Deep Black storage area the spark, the reality of that still born child exists and thrives in the place reserved for the innocents. He knows and loves Rosslynne who he chose to be his mother, and loves her unconditionally. She has never met him. Maybe one day she will.

Roz has been a bit cagey about revisits to a guy she used to know, Jake ‘the Snake’ Hall. She has been there a few times apparently, but tells me nothing about what has gone on between them. I don’t like this one little bit and conclude there can be only one reason why his nickname is ‘the Snake’ and that has nothing to do with being a fucking reptile lover. Though come to think of it, fucking and lover may have something to do with it after all. When I ask her to tell me more about her visits to Jake, she just says, ‘some secrets are best kept just that, secret.’

We have revisited many lifetimes, but mostly just drift as golden sparks and consciousness in peace and contentment in the vastness of the Deep Black storage area. We slowly circle the lump that I can still never think of as anything other than a giant Kebab, and in this way, a thousand years passes in the blink of an eye.

Rosslynne and I find ourselves, our sparks, being inexorably drawn towards the Lump, and absorbed through diaphanous layers of matter, living colour and energy. We begin to take form and defined shape, no longer just golden sparks. We can see rather than sense each other, our bodies held suspended within wisps and vapors of no substance. There are many others as well, male and female, all seemingly couples, young and old all materializing from golden sparks. For the first time in a thousand years I am able to look at Rosslynne in the naked flesh, not just as she was, but as she is now.

‘You look beautiful, young slim, gorgeous, your hair it’s long again, my God you’re amazing, stunning.’ I have spoken these words rather than projected them.

‘And look at you, tall dark handsome, naked I never remember you looking this good either in or out of your clothes.’

‘Cheers for that.’

‘So what do you think’s happening now then? This is different, why have we returned to our bodies? Better bodies than before, but our bodies none the less, I feel great.’

‘Me too I think we’ve been somehow drawn into the Keb— Lump, so that could mean we might be entering some sort of new phase, maybe becoming angels or a return to— somewhere, along with all these others.’

‘You an angel I don’t think so.’

‘Nor you, especially with all those visits to that Jake bloke. I mean what the fu—’

’Hello everyone please listen. The voice a woman’s, is projected rather than spoken. ’I am the Reintroduction Facilitator or RF if you prefer and I’m here to prepare you for your return to Blue. I’m sure you will all have questions but don’t bother asking because I will consider it the hight of rudeness and I won’t answer them. Make sure you pay attention now so there will be no misunderstandings or excuses if you bugger things up again.

There are one million of you gathered in this small section of the Lump, that’s five hundred thousand men and, well you can do the math. All of you were couples in the physical world. You have not been chosen for your intelligence or beauty, in fact I can see that among you there are some doltish looking ugly bastards, but we’re not into any sort of Eugenics here. You just happened to be the nearest million to the lump when the decision was made. Although you appear similar to the way you were before physical death, though slightly more robust and attractive to the eye, yours not mine. You have been modified and restructured in subtle ways. So OK we are interested in eugenics after all, so call me a Nazi.

Once back on Blue, you will live in excellent mental and physical health, barring accidents, the inevitable murders you will commit, or anything else unforeseen, for at least two hundred and twenty years. Disease and especially viruses, there is irony there let me tell you, will have been eradicated. You will want for nothing. As for food, there will be ample fruits, far more exotic than anything you have ever imagined or tasted before, vegetables and for the Carnivores among you, small easy to trap animals that are delicious to eat. They actually look like Guinea Pigs but taste remarkably like chicken. If you are of a more tender nature you can keep them as pets, though they are not particularly long lived, don’t return affection and shit a lot.′

There are clean clear crystal streams of water that are delicious to taste and safe to drink, they are also full of big fat succulent fish that are ludicrously easy to catch. There are vines everywhere always full of grapes to make gorgeous wine, but be careful, once fermented the alcohol content is very high. The temperature all year round will be seventy two degrees in the day and only slightly cooler at night, humidity is zero. There is no other season other than late spring. You will need no clothes as modesty, false or otherwise, will not exist. You will live in cozy caves, or if you are more practical and less lazy, you can build yourselves cabins from the ample hardwood that just happens to be lying around in the right lengths for that purpose. As most of you are probably cretins and will need all the help you can get to survive, you have been implanted with the knowledge of how to do certain practical things, like building and lighting a fire, constructing a shelter, hunting and, fishing. You will have the knowledge to know which fruit and vegetables are safe and good to eat.

‘Can I ask a question?’ It was a florid faced man with a bushy beard.

‘No, shut up or sod off. Sparks are ten a penny round here and you can easily be replaced. And may I just add that beard is fucking ridiculous, do yourself and your partner there a favour and get rid of it before it attracts vermin’

’Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, you will know how to ferment the grapes to make wine and which herbs can be used to cure a range of diseases, and let’s face it the inevitable hangovers that will no doubt plague your lives once you have made your first batch of wine. There will eventually be one pair of humans per ten square miles of habitable land. All of this land is a long way from the numerous dead zones and toxic wastelands caused by nuclear reactors that have melted down, what a species you really are. There are still a few scattered survivors from the last batch, dotted here and there on small islands and in jungle clearings. They are a diverse bunch, these originals, or perhaps aboriginals is more apt. It is highly unlikely that you will ever meet them, which is just as well for their sake. You are the first batch to be reintroduced, it is envisaged others will follow. You will be returned to an area that is familiar to you.

Why, you may ask, are we doing this, going to all this trouble to set you up in a really nice prime piece of real estate with everything at your fingertips? The answer is twofold. GP for some reason created you in his own image and feels a certain affinity. Also, the previous human race giant fuck up, necessitates the need for GP to be seen to be making amends before his big interview, sounds inscrutable, it is don’t ask, especially you, the bearded wonder. But to ensure it all goes better this time around, there are some checks and balances built in. The “Trees of Life”, and it’s very important you listen to this. The Trees of Life are a vital ingredient. You will each have one in your ten square mile patch. They produce a certain set of chemicals and subtle emanations which will regulate human behavior and believe me, you need all the regulating you can get. The trees will ensure that you feel no aggression or anger, there will be no violence or lust. Although you will all be running around naked you will not feel aroused and will only feel the need to have sexual intercourse when it is time to procreate. You will know when this is, as the males will wake up one morning with a hard on. This will have been triggered by the subtle scent of the female ovulating, rather like an animal on heat. Up will waft the scent and around will come the boys, ugh! It really doesn’t bear thinking about. It is calculated that in order to keep your numbers manageable and to avoid damaging the general well being and health of Blue you will have no more than two children at the very most, but ideally just one. We can’t allow billions of you multiplying and polluting all over the place again. So make the most of any sexual urge you may have as it won’t happen often. Also the Trees of Life control the climate and overall ambiance. If the trees go, your nice little slice of paradise turns to shit, and then GP, nice enough Deity but terrible temper, with a real soft spot for Blue, or his successor if GP has moved onward and upwards, will pull the plug once and for all.

Now Listen carefully. The Tree’s of Life only bear one fruit in their lifetime, looks like a large golden apple and contains the seed for the next tree. This fruit must be allowed to ripen and fall to the ground next to the parent tree where it will rot, the seed inside will grow into a new tree that will replace the old one, which will begin to die as soon as the fruit is dropped. It only ever produces one golden apple in its lifetime and its nutrients will encourage the growth of the new Tree of Life. You won’t fail to recognize them, they look a bit like a giant Oak, normally over three hundred feet tall with large bright red leaves at least a foot across. They are rare and as I have already said, you will only find one of them in each ten square mile area, coincidence? No. Do not, I repeat do not, interfere with the trees or especially the golden apple, or the seed will not develop and the trees will die. The balance will be lost and the wrath of something very mean and very angry will descend very swiftly upon you and it really will be bye, bye, vir— I mean human race.′

I hope this has all sunk in and the message is lodged very firmly in your tiny craniums. Because for you to survive and prosper you must make your children aware and understand all you have been told and they must tell their children and theirs and so on. I personally have my doubts that this is going to work, but hey, who am I? Just a minion after all and doing a crap job, talk about a celestial glass ceiling.

It is now time for the return, travel arrangements have been taken care of. When you awake back on Blue it will be your twenty second birthdays. So this is goodbye and good luck from all of us here at the Lump. Oh and just a word of warning, Iron Nick has shown an extraordinary amount of interest in this little, let’s call it an experiment, so please, pretty please, don’t fuck it up again this time.′

‘What was that bit about the apple tree again?’ asks Rosslynne.