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  Perhaps it would have whisked me away if I was not hard fast under the debris. The wind howled around me, a terrific noise, filling my mind. The odd piece of wood, a toy, a kitchen knife, whizzed past, nearly deciding my fate there and then. But maybe it was decided anyway.

  The house, when it fell, had captured my leg. Just another foot or so and I would have got away, but that’s the story of my life. And the blood, the pain, it was unimaginable.

  Maybe, I thought, I should just raise myself as much as I could, and let the next passing object take me to another place.

  Lightning crackled once more, bringing me out of my reverie, and for some reason I thought of my mother. Yea! Maybe she’s going to come and rescue me!

  Tears came to my eyes then, and I think I howled out loud. And then a voice …

  I couldn’t believe it when I focused my eyes. There in front of me was my mother, just as I had imagined. She stood there a moment, crouched down. And then she seemed to beckon me.

  Did this give me the courage I needed? Raise the strength to conquer this thing? Well, I was suddenly filled with renewed energy, and with mighty pull after pull, I tried to release my leg. And bit by bit, it came …

  Well, I got out alive thanks to Mother. And the very next day I went to see her, to thank her. And I was so pleased the storm had not damaged her gravestone.

  LOVE CONQUERS ALL

  How do I describe the events concerning my friend, David.

  How do we rationalise such things; how do we grasp for understanding? We are told, from birth, that some things are impossible. Yet at the same time we have phrases such as 'faith can move mountains', or 'love conquers all.' But can it conquer so absolutely?

  David had been in love with Rebecca from the moment they met. Two beautiful people thrown together by a chance encounter; or was it fate? But which ever it was, love was immediate, and still had room to blossom.

  David and I met often before he met Rebecca - for a drink, for a game of football in the local team. For any reason - we had been friends from school. But my importance soon declined, as it will when one's life partner arrives on the scene.

  I never begrudged his separation from me for an instant.

  How could I when I saw how happy he was - how happy they both were.

  Marriage, inevitably, followed. But not children. They never even bothered trying to discover who was incapable of having children. 'It isn't important,' he told me one night when we DID go out for a drink. 'It will only lead to blame; and we can do without that.'

  Yet I'd never known a couple so capable of handling such blame. But maybe children had never been quite that important. They were happy - totally happy - with their own company.

  Infact, in the five years that David knew Rebecca I never saw either of them without a smile, without a knowing that they were one for ever and all time. Until that car came along and left Rebecca dead in the road.

  Life is a balance and a bitch. For whatever emotion you feel, the same intensity can come to the opposite when that sick cosmic joker plays his games. And David's love was mighty. So it was inevitable that his grief would be total.

  He tried so hard to remain strong through the funeral. But it was impossible for one who had experienced so much love.

  He collapsed, overcome with grief, comatose with the knowledge that Rebecca was gone from him forever.

  'Not forever,' he said, talking afterwards, through the tears. 'I will see her again.'

  Over the following weeks I was deeply worried about David.

  I could not coax him out for a drink, could not make him talk again - to explain what he meant. Over those weeks I saw his grief turn to a kind of determination, and eventually it was he who came to me.

  'Come with me,' he said. 'I'm going to talk to Rebecca.'

  I seriously doubted his sanity as we got into his car and drove off. But eventually I realised what he meant - and wished he hadn't taken me there.

  We all have an image in our mind of the Spiritualist medium as some crank in flowing robes and a mania in her eyes. So when we were introduced to a well dressed, well mannered, and seemingly sane man in his thirties, I was surprised.

  Together we went into his room, and following a preliminary chat in which I was sure David let slip enough hints to furnish the medium with the required information, he attempted contact. 'She was taken from you suddenly, wasn't she David?'

  He answered in the affirmative, and the medium went on: 'You were both very much in love, and Rebecca misses you. But she has a message for you, David. You mustn't grieve for her too long. She wouldn't want that. She says you must try to getback to life. You mustn't forget her, but look for her in others. Look for her, David, and you may find what you had with her again.'

  Later, I had to admit the medium was a clever soul. I don't think a psychiatrist could have eased his mind better. We went for a drink afterwards and I could see him visibly cheer up, as if he really believed Rebecca had told him this. But what goes on in the grieving mind is different to other minds. They cling to the spurious, find hope in that which others couldn't even dream.

  He carried out her wishes with a renewed energy.

  'I've signed on with a dating agency,' he told me a week later as he came out for a drink. 'I haven't been out dating for so long. Do you think I'll be alright?'

  'Of course you will, David,' I said, 'enjoy yourself.'

  Of course, he didn't.

  'She was nothing like Rebecca.'

  I nearly choked on my drink. 'I don't think you've got the idea quite right here, David,' I said.

  'Oh, I have. Believe me, I have.'

  Over the following month he went out with maybe half a dozen girls, none of them fitting the bill. But then we went out one night and I realised another change.

  'She was so like Rebecca,' he said, 'I'm going to see her again.'

  'But it isn't Rebecca, David. It's someone else.'

  His eyes glazed over then, as if he had cut out this knowledge from consciousness.

  A week later, I met his new girl. And sure enough she was nothing like Rebecca. Yet, when I saw her again a couple of weeks later, she was subtly different, both in looks and mannerisms. And she was different in the way Rebecca was.

  'I'm so happy with my Rebecca,' David said a few weeks after that.

  'But David, it isn't Rebecca.’

  'She does everything just as I like it, and we're almost together again …'

  I wasn't exactly sure what David was playing at, but I suddenly felt his new girlfriend could be in danger. And it was my duty to warn her, despite my friendship with David. Hence, that night I secretly went to his house, crept up the garden and looked in the window, checking that his new girlfriend was there.

  She was, so I waited for her to leave, tackle her outside and warn her.

  Sure enough, the time came for her to go and I saw her put on her coat and open the door to walk outside. Ready to speak to her, I moved forward, but ...

  ... she never appeared.

  I stood, dumbfounded. I had seen her walk to the door and open it. But then it was as if she vanished. I began to wonder then if it was really me who was mad.

  I spied on David from then on. I tried to find out who this new girlfriend was. But I drew a blank. It then occurred to me that she only seemed to exist when she was with David. I once saw her in the hall, just arrived, and go to David. But I had not seen her arrive at the house. She just materialised from nowhere. And then there was the transition in her. Bit by bit she WAS turning into Rebecca, as if she were a thought slowly taking shape in David's mind and externalising in the real world when he was around.

  That, or some form of ghost or spirit.

  Which, I will never know. But one or the other she certainly was. For within another week there was no doubt that the vision that materialised in David's living room was Rebecca.

  She was Rebecca in every way. In every mannerism, in every physical attribute. And I couldn't get it out of my min
d that this night there was to be an ending to the affair.

  And how right it turned out to be.

  It was a fire that burned in her eyes as her metamorphosis was complete - a fire that began with a passion as they kissed, and turned almost demonic as her manner changed, as her hands came from his back and placed themselves around his throat, as they squeezed and David's life seemed to leave him. Yet as he fell to the floor, dead, I couldn't help but notice a smile was still on his face.

  I broke into the house, then, not believing what I had just seen. But sure enough, his body was laid, still, on the floor.

  Rebecca - or whatever it was - stood waiting in the corner, and as she waited, I saw David's spirit body separate from his shell. Slowly he walked - floated - across the room to her embrace. And together they smiled, and before my eyes, they disappeared as one, forever.

  I’M NOT ALL THERE

  I couldn’t quite grasp what was missing. I was stood in the middle of the hall, a hive of activity all around me. Public announcements lanced into my mind – directions left, directions right, directions up, directions down. And off people went – as directed.

  The attendants weren’t much help. ‘There’s something missing,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ was the only answer I could get.

  I wasn’t even sure how I’d got here. I knew I was here, in this strange, transitional place, but my memory just didn’t want to work.

  So I just stood there, in the middle of the hall, confused. And a queue of people began behind me.

  The attendants came over, then. After all, I was causing an obstruction.

  ‘Move along,’ they said. ‘Go where you know you’re supposed to be going.’

  ‘But I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  I think they realised something was missing then. After a little head scratching, they directed me in the right direction, I suppose. And it was clear I was not yet ready – hence, the confusion, lack of memory and the knowing that something was missing.

  And as my spirit entered the gateway marked ‘purgatory’, I knew the thing that was missing was my body.

  Death, it seems, has a habit of doing that.

  TO BE FAITHFUL

  I never really understood what faithful meant until I wasn’t. All those years of marriage, and never once did I think of being unfaithful. We were as one, and that was that. Until the loneliness crept in – a deep, melancholy loneliness ….

  I put up with it for a couple of years, but I suppose the time comes when you can take it no more – when you just need something else in your life.

  I met her at one of the functions I have to attend as part of my job. I wouldn’t say I ‘went’ to them, as such. More I just ‘existed’ in them, as if I wasn’t really a part of it, enjoying myself, or anything like that.

  Life becomes this way, with such loneliness. But then I saw her, and something just clicked between us, as if it was meant to be.

  We dated.

  Good grief! We dated. As if I was a teenager!

  The meals were enjoyable. And it was inevitable that one thing would lead to another, and eventually I found myself in her home, kissing, making love, discovering a life without loneliness once more.

  It was during this first love making that I suddenly looked up to see my wife stood by us.

  I jumped, shocked! And as my lover turned to look at her, the full reality of what I’d done struck home.

  My wife seemed incensed. It was almost in slow motion as she bent down, her hands encompassing my lover’s neck, and squeezing the life out of her …

  I find it hard to recall the event, and even harder to explain it. Indeed, that’s why I’m here, in prison, facing a life sentence for murder.

  Well, it was either that or the psychiatric hospital. You see, my wife died two years ago.

  SPELLBOUND

  ‘The subject is called Alfred,’ the doctor said as he leant over the young man on the couch.

  It was the early 1920s and psychoanalysis was all the rage. Although the doctor’s present series of experiments were perhaps not what Dr Freud would have hoped. But seeing he had kidnapped the young man, and afterwards he would remember little of the experience, he was sure he was safe.

  His assistant, Constance Muse, approached the couch. She didn’t smile. She simply said: ‘Should I begin?’

  The doctor replied in the affirmative, and Constance laid her hands on the subject’s head and concentrated …

  It was to be decades before the phenomenon of ‘false memories’ would be known, and no one would ever know of Miss Muse, and her brilliance. Indeed, the idea of purposely placing false images in the mind during hypnosis would have been thought of as nothing more than a witch placing a spell. But scientific research was all she was interested in – the morality of it didn’t appear on her radar.

  With the doctor in attendance, she placed a series of imagined images in his mind one by one, and half an hour later, she was finished. And from that point on, all she had to do was wait and see if the experiment was successful and played a part in his life.

  The subject, of course, would remember little of this. Indeed, his only conscious image was of a strange, cold unemotional woman.

  Alfred grew into an obese, balding man, his mind full of images. Upon leaving the ‘institution’ he drove a while and decided to spend the night in a motel. It was a pleasant gentleman called Norman who showed him to the room. He did, of course, feel somewhat grubby after this experience he could hardly remember. But for some reason, he just could not face going for a shower.

  A PERFORMANCE

  The old actor felt funny stood on a stage after so long. At first, he felt nervous, but soon his confidence returned and his voice boomed around the theatre.

  It was as good as ever, his lines perfect, his acting masterful. He wished it would never end. He was born for this, and knew he was nothing without a performance to give, an audience to applaud.

  Would the critics love me still? He thought.

  The spectator stood in the aisle, looking up to the stage, his face a picture of amazement. He, too, had not been in this theatre for such a long time. And as he stood there he could only remember the good times, the inspiration that this actor gave him in his youth, implanting, in his mind, the idea that he, too, would be a great actor. And indeed, he was.

  But soon he realized it was time to go, time to move on, the memories of this old, now closed and ramshackle theatre fading.

  The old actor sensed this end to the performance and at first did not realize he was just a memory, having died many decades ago.

  With this realization he was sad, but as he disappeared and returned to the memory of the spectator, he realized that he was no longer merely dead, but in his remembrance, immortal.

  DOING WRONG

  How did it come to this?

  Well, stupid question. I’m stood in the apartment and it’s obvious. The signs are all around me – in the pictures, in the flowers, in the choice of furniture, of carpets, of curtains …

  It began, I suppose, as soon as we were married. Some marriages are just not meant to be. Okay, we can think we know a person, but we don’t until we have to live with them – until we have to put up with them.

  And of course it was all my fault:

  ‘You never pay me any attention,’ she’d say. ‘Look at me! What kind of clothes do I wear? What’s my hair like?’

  She noted my blank stare. ‘You see? You haven’t a clue.’

  And on and on it went, only lessened when she or I went out, or when her friend – that damn friend – came visiting.

  I feel numb as I stand here, now, in the apartment. I see my wife all around me – in the ornaments, in the choice of books, in the lack of dirt or mess …

  Except …

  Except for the mess on the floor, and all over my clothes.

  I’d had enough! I could take no more! So I waited for her, and as she walked through the door …
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  What to do now, however, I have no idea. If only I could just ignore it, but there was that body, face down, on the floor, the weapon I’d bludgeoned her with by my feet. And, of course, a final reminder.

  She materialized soon after she was dead. I couldn’t look at the chair again. Not where SHE was.

  And I suppose that was the biggest shock of all, seeing my wife’s friend’s face staring at me like that.

  And now, of course, I’m stood here, waiting, for another, a ghostly stare my only company.

  THE EXPERIMENT

  The man approached the gate with an air of curiosity. It seemed such an ‘official’ sort of gate, yet, at the same time, unobtrusive. Rising some eight feet into the air, and cutting off the road, it seemed, to him, a total liberty.

  Rattling it forcibly, he noticed the security guard approach from a small hut at the side.

  ‘I need to get through,’ said the man. ‘You can’t cut off a road like this. It’s not right.’

  The guard scratched his chin. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but it’s for your own safety.’

  The man offered a questioning look. ‘And why is that,’ he said impatiently, as if he needed to be somewhere fast.

  ‘This whole place was the site of an experiment,’ said the guard. ‘An experiment that went wrong.’

  ‘I see,’ said the man. ‘So there’s some dangerous microbe, or maybe radiation, through there. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said the guard. ‘It was more a social experiment.’ He paused, uncomfortably. ‘The scientists wanted to know how certain drugs would affect a small community.’

  ‘I see,’ said the man. ‘So what happened? Did they all go mad?’

  ‘Of a sort,’ said the guard.

  The man watched a couple walk by the other side of the gate. Realization seemed to come. ‘You mean they did – and they’re still in there?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said the guard. ‘Mostly it just wiped out their memory recall.’

  A knowing came to the man’s face, replaced, a second later, by a blank stare. ‘I need to get through,’ he said ….