This entry consists of the first three chapters of a novel called "The Initiate". Basically it is the story of a teenage boy (Tony Moffett)who is initated into a world of spirit and mysticism. It begins with a near death experience on the rugby field, which leads to a series of events including a meeting with a mysterious woman who will eventually become his teacher. Basically it is aimed at a teenage readership, but I trust that older readers will enjoy it too. There are more chapters to follow. Just email me (mailto:marcusadude@yahoo.com.au) leave a comment below and I can post some more of the novel here.Chapter 1 The GameI was 15 years and one day old when I died for the first time. That is one thing I can say for certain, because it happened the day right after my birthday. You don’t forget birthdays too easily, and you don’t forget dying even less, at least for the first time.
So it was definitely the day after my birthday. The chocolate mud cake I ate most of was probably still in my gut. I know it was my fifteenth birthday the day before because today is my twentieth birthday, and I promised that I would not say anything about these things for five years.
This is my story. The story of Tony Moffett. I know you won’t believe half of what I write but it all happened to me, I swear. But I’ve had to change some names, places and details. Too many people just aren’t ready to hear this kind of stuff, and I don’t want to be locked away in the loony again. There are people that I have to protect, and others that I have to hide from. There are things that have to be kept secret. I can’t be too careful. As you read this you might like to put yourself in my shoes for a minute, and then you might understand what I’ve been through, what I’m going through even now. I know that there are people who are reading this. I can feel it, deep within me where The Knowing comes from.
I’m different from other people. I can see things, hear things, and feel things that others can’t. There are things that I know that nobody else knows. But I used to be normal. When did the changes begin? It was five years ago…
******************
The day I died was pretty much like any other day. Sure, there was probably some of that mud cake in my gut, but other than that it seemed perfectly standard. It was a Saturday, June 21st to be precise. The Under 18s rugby game against Nestfield had been penciled right in there on the day they drafted the draw months before hand. We were about two-thirds of the way through the season. It was an important match for us, as we were lying fifth on competition table, and with a victory we had a good chance of moving past West Bay into the fourth place spot. Since only four teams would make the semi-finals at the end of the competition proper, we were really keen to win. Unfortunately we were up against Nestfield, or “Nesty” as we called them. They were unbeaten right throughout the season up till that point. In fact they typically thrashed everyone else. They were bigger, meaner and a whole lot uglier than the other teams in the comp. They could also play too, which was unfortunate for the rest of us. In the first round they had beaten us 32-9, which actually was a good score considering that they had scored over 100 points on three occasions that year, including a 152-3 victory over Stilton, the then-last placed team. Stilton subsequently withdrew from the competition. The joke was that the guy who kicked the field goal for Stilton in that final game to give them the three points was named their player of the year. But it was only a rumor.
The concrete floor of the dressing room felt like ice on my bare feet. I quickly slid on my shorts and black/orange socks so that I could change into my rugby boots. There is something about the feel of plastic sprigs on concrete locker-room floors that lifts my spirits. I don’t know what it is. I kind of feel taller than my 187cm height (I know, I’m a tall bastard) and stronger than my75kg (Yep, I’m a skinny bastard too!). Once the boots are on and the smell of Heat Rub fills the room I switch on. There is a kind of warrior spirit that fills my veins. It just comes over me. Normally I’m shy and don’t say much. In fact at that point in my life I had never had a girlfriend, or even kissed a girl. I wasn’t really what you’d call confident and outgoing. I was kind of dorky to tell you the truth. But once the boots were on I changed.
Which is, I suppose, why I was in the starting line-up that day, instead of on the bench. I play inside-centre, which is a really important position of the rugby field. Some people who don’t really understand the game think that the centers are attacking positions for guys who can run like the wind. But inside-centre is really all about defense. You gotta be able to tackle in that position or you are history. The big guys and the small guys run at you all day. But that was OK as far as I was concerned. I liked tackling. I was good at it. It’s all about timing, putting your shoulder into the guy at the right time. To tell you the truth I’m not that fast, so when our side is in attack I usually just pass the ball to my outside-centre, Jeffery Greenstone, who’s a lot quicker and more evasive than I am. So he makes all the breaks, scores all the tries and gets all the glory. I just run on, pull down the big guys and run off.
At least that is the way it had worked up until that day, the last day I ever played rugby league.
Fear is something you have to deal with in a contact sport. Nobody talks about it, nobody admits that they are afraid. But everyone is. After all, it hurts to get crunched in a tackle, or have some guy stick his knee in your groin (as sometimes happens in the line of battle) or to be picked up and smashed into the ground if you are a skinny runt like me. You can see the fear on their faces before the game. My teammates that is. They try to hide it, but it’s there. You can smell it, all mixed up with the body odor and the eucalyptus smell of Heat Rub. And that day it was just a little more smelly than usual, on account of who we were playing.
Rusty Vandenberg, our coach was his usual self. Rusty was in fact a social sciences teacher at Dolphin Bay High, but filled in as coach because there was no one else around. He wasn’t a bad coach, but he wasn’t great either. He was really too quiet to be the coach, and he usually only said a few words before kick-off.
“We can win this one,” he said, attempting to believe his own words, because none of us sure did. There was a certain desperate look that crossed his face when he wanted to look worked up or angry. It was pretty much the same look he had in class when he got angry. But it just didn’t work in his case. His face was just too round and chubby, capped with a ridiculously wavy clump of red-gray hair with a bald patch in the middle. Kind of like Crusty the Clown with his head on fire. Instead of angry he just looked like he was constipated and in dire need of a good crap.
“Tony,” he said, turning to me. “You gotta nail that big second-rower of theirs. Don’t go high, or he’ll trample you into the ground. Take him around the ankles.”
I just nodded stupidly. He needn’t have told me. I knew how to tackle, or at least I thought I did. Perhaps it was over-confidence that did me in that day. Or maybe it was just fate.
It was from the first tackle that the tone of the game was set, and I happened to be involved. We kicked off, and that aforementioned giant second-rower received the ball in the in-goal area. That means that he had about 20 meters to wind up his huge thighs before he reached the defense. Those thighs had parted many a defensive line in games gone by, but I was determined to get him. As it happened, he ran in the direction of our half-back, Rick Steel, the smallest guy on the field. Rick was only 14 years old, and about as big as my left thumb. But he was a great little layer, which is why they put him up to the under 16s. The big guy probably ran at him because he was so small, the big bully. It was like a mad bull about to tromp all over one of the Tele Tubbies. But since Rick was standing immediately next to me in the defensive line, I decided to give him a little help. The big guy steam-rollered towards us, size13 boots stomping the grass beneath his feet as he ran. I stepped across in front of Rick, and drove forward with all the strength my skinny legs could muster and drove my shoulder as hard as I could into the big guy’s thighs. It was just one of those inexplicable things. The timing was perfect, and he went down like stack of potatoes. I didn’t feel a thing, but I heard the groan. His groan. It took him at least ten seconds to get up. I’d hurt him bad. He staggered up, groggy on his feet. He barely knew where he was. The feeling of power that comes right after making a good tackle filled me with elation.
After that we were on a role. We scored only a few minutes later, and the conversion was good. At half time we led 7-0.
I don’t think that any of us could quite believe that we were winning as we huddled around during the five-minute half-time break. You could see Rusty Vandenburg was excited. His pale blue eyes lit up as he delivered an uncustomary half-time encouragement speech of at least ten words. Something of a record. Chris Dalewood, the captain of the team, gave me a slap on the back.
“Keep it up Moffett, you’re playing like a champion,” he enthused. Those words meant something to me. I lived somewhat in awe of Dalewood. He was not only the Captain of the rugby team, but school Captain as well. He was pretty much the same height as me, but I’d reckon at least 15 kilograms heavier, and twice as wide. He was one of those guys who is good at everything.
After we’d sucked the oranges dry we ran on again for the second-half. I remember thinking how hot it was as I lined up at my customary position, deep to the left hand touch-line. Their guy kicked the ball off and it floated high and long toward me. As I focused my eye on the ball it crossed the path of the sun. For a moment I was blinded, the ball lost in the sheer white light of the mid-morning winter sun. In that moment something strange happened. As the ball melted into the golden light, I almost forgot where I was. The sun’s light pierced me like an arrow, and time stopped. I knew that you are not supposed to look at the sun with your eyes open or you can go blind, but I couldn’t help myself. I just stood there, motionless, arms outstretched for a ball that I could not see, nor in that moment could even remember existed. It seemed like a minute, staring at the white orb, bleaching my soul with its light. There was an exhilaration that came over me, like the spirit of something long lost but indescribable.
I was brought back to reality with the thud of the ball falling into my arms. How it got there I don’t know, because all I could remember was the light, then next thing I was charging up field with the ball, looking at the wave of defenders baring down on me like the hordes of Ghengus Khan. What I do remember is the eyes of the big guy, the giant second-rower as he lined me up. I guess maybe it was Karma or something, considering I’d got him with a big hit from the first-half kick-off. There was revenge etched deep into those strangely small blue-grey orbs. He wanted to get me back. It was pay-back-time. I saw it in that instant just before we met, the sockets of his eyes seeming to jump right into mine. I feigned to move into him, but swerved away at the last moment, something that an old international player had shown me in a pre-season camp when I was a kid. It worked for him because he played for his country. But I was a defensive player, remember? Watching me on the attack in a game of rugby is like seeing the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz flopping about in the wind with the Tin Man’s brain under his arm. The big guy, big as he was, wasn’t fooled by my swerve. He lurched at me with huge shoulders, hate-filed eyes, mouth-guard protruding from his jaw like some great white shark about to devour its pray.
They say that I ran with my head too high. They say that I veered back into the big guy at the last minute, inexplicably, irrationally. My forehead connected with his shoulder some said. Some of our guys said it was his elbow. Many swore they heard a cracking sound, like the branch of a tree snapping off in a violent storm. They told of how my head whipped right back, just like the heads of those crash test dummies in cars as the vehicle piles head-on into a brick wall. Some said my head then slammed into the hard earth after I fell, bouncing back like a rubber ball from the sheer impact. The rest no one disputed. I stopped breathing. Everyone gathered around me. Rusty Vandenburg reached deep into my throat with his fingers and pulled my tongue out of my mouth. They said he gave me mouth to mouth, which I’m really not too keen on the idea of, to tell you the truth. Then the ambulance came. The game stopped. It never started again.
But I didn’t remember any of that, because I was dead.
Chapter Two: The Dying
I don’t recall the tackle at all. All I can remember was that look in that big second-rowers’ eyes as he lurched toward me. Then nothingness.
The next impression I had was that I was looking at a group of people. I was standing with them. Everyone was gathering around to look at something on the ground. I peered down and saw that one of our guys was lying on the grass, face covered in blood, head twisted awkwardly to one side. He looked a real mess. I recall was hoping that he would be OK, but it looked pretty bad. Phil Jenson, our rather chubby prop forward,
was standing right next to me. His face was ashen white, scared.
“Hey what happened to him?” I queried. “I didn’t see what happened.” But Phil wasn’t listening to me. He just kept right on staring at the guy on the ground. One of the Nesty players bent down toward the person on the ground.
The referee grabbed him and pulled him away. “Don’t touch him!” He bellowed like a sergeant major. “It could be a spinal injury.” At that moment Rusty Vandenburg hustled his way through the crowd.
“It’s OK, I have the Red Cross First Aid Certificate!” His chubby face seemed to crease up as he knelt down over the body.
“Jesus Christ.” I heard him mutter, looking up. “Somebody call an ambulance. Quick. He’s not breathing.” Rusty pulled out a hanky and wiped blood away from the injured guy’s mouth and nose. “Come on, Tony, don’t die on us for Christ’s sake.” I heard him say.
Why was Rusty calling that guy Tony, I thought. That was my name. There were no other Tonys on the team.
“Is Tony OK?” Came a voice from behind me. I turned around and saw David Chee, our rather short, bow-legged full-back trying to peer in between the rest of us to get a look. That’s when it hit me. It was like a freight train rushing into my head, so impacting was the realisation. That person lying there before me. That body all twisted like a piece of licorice in a child’s hand, was me. But it couldn’t be me. I was here, standing with the guys. I tapped Rusty on the shoulder.
“Hey Rusty, I’m OK. Don’t worry about a thing. I’m OK. Really.” But he didn’t hear me. I looked over and saw Chris Dalewood. The big guy looked all cut up, his face aged and crooked like a much older man . He turned to Phil Jensen.
“Is he OK? How bad is it…?” Phil just shook his head, face ghostly white.
“I can’t look at this.” He walked away, distress etched deep into his brow.
I followed him. As he knelt down on one knee, just a few metres away. I went to him. He was saying words under his breath. “God, don’t let Tony die. Please help him.”
I laughed nervously. “Hey, Phil! No need to get all religious. I’m right here. I’m not gonna die. Cheer up mate.” I put my hand on his shoulder. Again, he didn’t seem to hear me, or even know that I was there.
“Tony!”
The voice called me. Or was it really a voice? It sounded like a voice and yet there was no sound. The idea of it just seemed to force its way into my head. I looked up, stood up. The winter sun burnt into my face, again, just as it had done moments before during the game. But this time it didn’t hurt my eyes at all. I looked at it deeply, transfixed by it. An indescribable feeling, like the longing for something long lost in one’s childhood, made me forget about what had been happening all around me. I stepped forward; a single step, two steps. Then I was running, running toward the sun. I could feel the souls of my bare feet caressing the grass and my normally ungainly running became an effortless grace. My feet seemed to caress each blade of grass with an athlete’s graceful stride. It was funny, because I couldn’t recall taking my boots off.
The sun beckoned me, all warmth and caressing light. My strides became longer and longer, impossibly long, until in a single moment I was lifted up, gliding effortlessly forward. I could hear the sound of something like the wind, as it carried me forward. It held me like a mother might hold a first-born child. I knew that I was protected by it, and that no harm could come to me. Don’t ask me how I knew. I just knew.
The flying changed. It is not easy to describe what I was happening, but I was no longer flying forward, but outwards, in all directions at the same time. Everything was happening within the one moment within that one place. I was dying, and I knew it. But it was not as I’d ever imagined dying might be like. I was evaporating upon some cosmic wind, disappearing into forever, and it was beautiful. It was something that words just cannot describe. I was everywhere and nowhere. I was everybody and yet nobody. There was no time as I had become time itself.
I became aware of some images. It was not so much like seeing something on television. It was more like a dream, but different because everything that I saw I also felt. I felt it because I was it, and it was me. The pictures. The people. The places.
A baby cried. I saw the room, the hospital and the doctor, a woman. I saw it all. I saw my mother, and felt her love for me. I felt it like that love was my own. But I saw more tan that. I saw a story. My life unfolded before me, every last detail of it became known to me. I saw myself as a two-year-old fall and stub my toe. I saw myself as a six-year-old hitting Bill Dea’s sister because she said she didn’t like me. The images passed in and out of my awareness; some pleasant, some very painful.
A single tear appeared before me, and I melted into it, then out of it. It expanded till I saw the tear rolling down the face of a seven-year-old child. I knew the child was me. The scene unfolded from that one tear. The solemn faces, my father in his good suit with a black tie; the stained glass on the church windows that seemed to transform the sun’s light into muddy hues of despair. I saw my mother’s casket paraded out of the church, carried by my father, my uncles and some other relatives. The pain of that filled me again. I was a tear itself, and I was the pain of that scared little boy seeing the cold face of his mother in that casket. I felt my father’s pain too.
It was as I looked my father that I became aware of someone beside me, a presence as I watched this in that strange void. It was a woman’s voice.
“Forgive him”, she said. The woman gestured in some invisible way for me to look. I say invisible because I couldn’t see any person beside me, but the strong idea of being directed came into my mind, and I followed that feeling. I looked at my father, and I suddenly felt deep inside him to his pain. I saw that after my mother died that he blamed himself. His guilt ate into him. I saw that every time he looked at me, he saw my mother. His decision to leave me with Aunt Joyce was because he simply couldn’t bare to look at me anymore. It was not that he didn’t love me.
A hand took mine, and I was led away from all that. I left it, and I left the sense of grief too. Somehow, even though I’d seen it, the feelings passed right through me, like water passing through a gauze and out the other side.
Some other images opened themselves up to me, as if they were deliberately communicating with me.
“This is the future.” The woman said to me. Her hand closed more tightly around mine, compelling me to pay close attention.
I saw myself climbing a hill. It was quite steep hill. Ahead there was a snow line. The idea came to me that I did not have the appropriate clothing or gear to get through the snow, and certainly not the experience to do so.
“These things will come to you.” The voice said. I knew that the woman could read my mind. Even as questions formed in my mind, she responded. I thought that this was quite cool, and wondered why I couldn’t normally read people’s minds.
“The mind must be quiet, resting within the moment, to hear.” the voice responded.
“To hear what?” I asked.
“To hear minds,” she said.
Some faces came before me, they seemed to be above of me on the mountain. The faces were unclear.
“These are those who will help you.”
The faces drifted in and out of the mist. An older woman with brown-red hair. A girl with dark hair, perhaps my age. There was something different about her, but I could only sense it vaguely.
“Help me with what?” I asked, not understanding what was being said.
The answer came immediately. In that place, every thought seemed to bring an answer immediately. Unfortunately the answer seemed just as confusing as the questions.
“You will be helped.” The voice simply said. In that moment great Light came too me again, smiling on my soul. I wondered at that for a moment, but my attention was being drawn back to the images. As I watched I saw great storm clouds gathering on the horizon. They wee making there way closer to the sun. I realised, as I watched that they would soon cover the sun. They came closer, and a chill filled my spirit. There was the crack of thunder and lightning snaked across the sky in brilliant rivulets. As I looked at it there came an awareness. The storm was alive. It wanted something. The sense of that filled me with fear. I could feel the mind of that storm. It was like something I’d never experienced. It wanted to come and take me, to take my mind.
“Enough” said the women. The sun and the storm disappeared. There was a space, a pause after that.
For a moment I saw her, the voice, in that world of shadows and dreams. The wisps of cloud parted and I saw the woman, not clearly, but I saw her. She was young, less than thirty, with dark hair. There was a sense of kindness that came to me much more clearly than the image of her. And there was one other thing. Somehow, somewhere I knew her. But I didn’t know where, or how we had met before.
She sensed me looking at her, looking into her, and in that awareness the image clouded over.
“Why are you hiding from me?” I asked. “Who are you? I know you from somewhere. I know.”
In that very instant a wave of thought came over me. I knew I wasn’t allowed to know that.
“In time beyond time you will know,” came the soft reply.
Suddenly there was a pulling away.
“It is not your time yet, Tony,” the woman’s voice came to me. There was a tearing, as I was thrown backward violently, pulled sucked, thrust away from that place. A deep sadness came over me.
“Don’t leave me,” I pleaded. The pulling away continued. I fell and collapsed. I fell from everything into one small thing. Tony Moffett. Me. There was one last impression as that world disintegrated.
“I never left you,” she said.
And that was all.
Chapter Three: Back To LifeSomewhere in the hazy distance I heard a garbled voice.
“He’s coming to.”
My eyes opened groggily. Everything was covered in a think foggy haze. It hurt to look. I cold make out the silhouettes of several people standing over me.
“Oh, Tony! How are you feeling?” I recognised the shrill voice. It was Aunt May.
“Terrible” I answered meekly, which was about the most honest answer I could manage. I could barely keep my eyes open. The glare from the light hurt my eyes, and my brain felt like it was about to burst out of my cranium and deposit itself at random nearby locations.
“Where I am I?”
“It’s OK Tony, you’re in the Western Suburbs hospital in Sydney.” I knew that voice too. It was my father. What the hell was he doing here?
The figures became clearer as my eyes adjusted to the light. I could see that I was in a white room. There was a fan on the ceiling. I seemed to be lying on a bed. I say seemed to be because I felt too week to look around..
“Hospital?” I said puzzled. “Why am I in hospital?” There was a slight feeling of pain, like the moment that you wake up from a bad dream and don’t know where you are.
“You don’t remember?” Helen said, worried.
“Remember what?”
“The game and everything,” she said.
I went to shake my head, but found I couldn’t move it. It was like it was in a vice or something.
Aunt May put hand on my chest. “Don’t try to move.” I’ll call the Doctor. My head was spinning so much I had to close my eyes. A feeling of great exhaustion came over me. I slept.
Something sharp pricked my toe.
“Jesus what was that!” I yelled, opening my eyes. I tried to jump up, but something was holding me in a rigid position, like a vice was all around my body. Two hands pressed down on my chest.
“Relax Tony. Everything is OK.” It was the rather soft voice of a woman. Not a bad looking one at that. She introduced herself.
“Hi Tony, I’m Doctor Handy. I’m your doctor here.”
I almost made a quip like “Very Handy, I’d say!” but fatigue got the better of me.
She smiled rather dryly, as doctors tend to do. But doctors don’t tend to be young and beautiful. At least not in my experience. I relaxed a little.
“Everything seems to be going fine. Your recovery is right on track.”
“Huh? Recovery from what?” I asked. I wasn’t understanding her at all.
Doctor Handy looked at me with indifferent compassion, something else that only doctors can pull off. “Tony, you are in the spinal ward of the hospital. You hurt your back and head playing football.” I looked at her. I looked down and could see the white cylinder of the brace on my neck jutting out from under my chin.
“I, I don’t remember,” I said dumbly.
Doctor Handy placed a clipboard under her shoulder. “You suffered severe concussion. You were unconscious for four days.”
“Shit!” was all I could say. There seemed to be something solid sitting in my stomach, but I knew it wasn’t anything I’d eaten. It was my fear.
“What, what’s gonna happen to me.” I choked. “Is it bad?”
The doctor paused for a moment, but there was something in her pretty brown eyes that made me trust her. “You suffered two cracked vertebra in the base of the neck and a fractured skull.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Other than that you are fine.”
“That’s fine?”
“Well it’s as good as can be expected in a case like yours. The EEG shows that your brain is fine. Tests show that your spinal cord is OK too. But we’ll need to run some more tests to be sure.”
“So I’m not going to be a cripple?”
“Tony, I have to be honest with you. Each person heals differently. But from what I have seen this last week, I think you will almost certainly recover fully.”
That was a relief to hear.
“Of course it would be very unwise to run out onto a football field again.” That wasn’t so good to hear. “Unless you like the feel of a wheelchair, I’d hang up my boots if I were you.”
Aunt Helen and Dad came not long after. I was seeping, but they woke me up.
“The doctor says you are doing real good,” said Helen. Dad just nodded. He looked vaguely concerned, but as usual didn’t say much. Helen did most of the talking. After about five minutes he spoke.
“Ya got medical insurance son?”
I looked at him. In that moment I saw where his real concern lay – in the hospital bill. I was tempted to tell a lie, but didn’t.”
“Yeah. It’s part of the sign on fee. I don’t know the details though. You’ll have to check it up.
“Good” he said, as he gave a nervous cough.
In the following days I was subjected to just about every test imaginable. They stuck pins in me, rubbed me in every conceivable place (yeah, even there), and put enough x-rays through me to make me glow in the dark. I felt really tired, so I spent most of my time sleeping, and watching television. The most exciting thing was when I got the nurses to scratch my body, wherever I felt itchy (no, not there).
A week after I came too, I got a surprise.
“There’s someone here to see you, Tony.” One of the nurses announced.
“The prime minister? I joked.
Almost immediately a pack of noisy young men had piled through the door. They were my teammates. They were raucous and full of laughter.
“Hey, you look like crap!” Phil Jenson bellowed with his big frame. “Which is a great improvement on last time I saw you.”
Dave Chee leaned through the pack . “Yeah, you’re just as ugly dead as you are alive.”
“Stop, you’re making me laugh” I said. ”It hurts like hell with my ribs.”
“Better get used to it” Chris Dalewood chirped. “We didn’t come here for a funeral, did we?”
“Hey, what’s it like to die, Stork? Someone else ventured. There was a slight moment where they waited to see if I’d be offended by that one.
“Oh its nothing really, I retorted.” “But you know, dying isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Rusty Vandenurg leaned forward, his chubby face glowing in the fluorescent light.. “So, did your life flash before your eyes or what?”
The words came to me, and there was something in them that stirred me. I paused for just a second or so, something trying to come forth from somewhere deep inside. But I pushed it back down.
“Yeah, I saw it all again. The worst part was when I re-lived Jack missing that dead-cert of a try against Franford in the first round again when he dropped the ball when he was over the line.. It kept repeating over and over. I thought I was in Hell.”
Everyone laughed.
In that first week I was tired, really tired. I barely had my eyes open, other than when someone was visiting me. I slept a lot . Mostly it was a deep dreamless sleep, but there was a dream that kept coming to me. It must have happened five or six times, and each time it happened there was a great sense of deje vu, like I was experiencing the same dream over and over again. In the dream I could see Doctor Handy walking slowly towards me. She would be smiling a deep smile. It was kind of a deep dopey smile, like on those statues of the Buddha; like she was carrying a secret that was very funny but which she just couldn’t share with anyone. It was a strange dream, because in the dream she would bend over me, and place her hands around my neck, so that they completely circled it. Yet there was no sense of danger. In fact her hand’s felt really soft, like the gentle touch of a mother holding a child. Typically I would drift in and out of this dream, but I could feel the hands there, even when I was half awake. It was like I was the baby and Doctor Handy was the mother. I’m not sure what Dr Freud would make of it, but it sure felt nice. I thought that maybe I was falling in love with that pretty doctor. That was until the last such dream that I had.
She entered the room, and I saw her, walking closer and closer, until she was right over me. I felt that same peaceful feeling that I’d felt the times before. Then the thought came to me that I was sleeping, and that I should wake up. That was strange, because I really was sleeping, and you don’t normally know you are sleeping when you are sleeping. So I opened my eyes. I realized that I had never actually looked at her face in the other dreams. The moment I looked up I realized that this woman standing over me it was not really Doctor Handy at all. This woman’s hair was darker and longer, the skin too, like she was partly Asian or perhaps a Pacific islander. But I couldn’t see clearly, her face and shoulders were hazy like a mountain slope caressed by wisps of mist. Yet there was one thing that was so clear that it will stay with me forever. Her eyes. They were not eyes like I had ever seen before. They were blue, but unlike any blue you could possibly imagine; two blue diamonds that pierced me, cut into my soul, leaving me naked and exposed. There was something unearthly about them that terrified me.
I awoke with a shock, sitting up and catching my breath. The room was dark. It occurred to me that the sudden movement might damage my spine. I sat down again gingerly, my heart racing inside my chest. I was half expecting to have some sort of seizure, but none ever came. After a while the image of the woman with piercing eyes faded from my mind, and I relaxed into sleep.
A hand tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up to see Geek and Andy grinning at me like Cheshire cats.
My progress was good. Doctor Handy came in a few days after that. She pulled out a couple of large x-ray sheets, and propped them up in front of me. I was sitting up comfortably by that stage, so I grabbed them for a closer look.
To tell you the truth I was trying to look down her top, but it was too tightly zipped at the top. I was pretty sure she didn’t notice. I’m pretty good at that kind of stuff. It’s all in the peripheral vision. I read it in a book somewhere once. Most people only use the cells at the front of their eyes, but in fact you can develop your peripheral vision deliberately by looking at things either side of you, whilst staring straight ahead. It definitely works. By that time I’d had a few solid years of practice behind me. I could look at any chick without actually staring at her. Call me a pervert if you will.
There were two x-rays, close ups of my lower neck and shoulders from side-on. Holding up the first x-ray photo, Doctor Handy pointed to the base of my neck.
“This is the x-ray was taken a week ago. You see those lumps on those two vertebrae?” she asked. I nodded. “There are significant fissures in both, as you can plainly see.” Sure enough you could see the darker cracks through the bone. It didn’t look pretty. She held up the second x-ray.
“Now this one is the result of the x-ray taken today.” She then held up the second x-ray photo. I peered at the picture. It was pretty much the same as the first one; y head and shoulders from side on.
“Notice anything different?” She asked.
“The cracks in the vertebra. I can’t see them in this picture.”
“Interesting isn’t it? Not a sign of calcification and no fissures visible.”
“Is that normal?” I asked.
She looked at me with a whimsical smile. “To tell you the truth I haven’t been working so long here, but this is freaky. You’ve got more than a few of the guys back there wondering what the hell is going on here. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
A rather dumb “Oh” was the best response I could manage.
They let me out of the hospital two days later. Aunt May came to pick me up. She wouldn’t let me carry my bag, but I insisted. They booked me in for some test for a month down the track, but basically they said that I was a free man. As far as anyone could tell there was no brain damage or long term spinal complications. I was lucky… or so I thought.
