PASSING ON

by Richard Banks 

       As he nervously walked up the Pearly Way Harry reflected with quiet satisfaction on the final scene of his life. It had been a traditional, old fashion death, well attended by his nearest and dearest.  He had gone out in style, consoling his wife and exhorting her to marry again should the opportunity arise. As she was nearly seventy-six he hardly expected that it would but Harry felt the occasion demanded a magnanimous gesture. He lectured his children telling them to live good lives, and forgave his sister and brother-in-law for misdemeanours committed so long ago he was at a loss to remember what they were. With his last words, he commended his soul to ‘his Maker’ and then, by some inexplicable process, found himself ascending this strange spiral stairway in his pyjamas. 

         It had been a long climb and Harry was beginning to despair of ever reaching the top when yet another loop in the stairway brought him abruptly onto a small, gloomy landing within four grey walls of unadorned concrete. A light bulb hung limply from the ceiling dimly illuminating two adjacent doors and an overflowing dustbin. 

         Harry took a deep intake of breath. He had never been very fortunate with doors. He remembered, with acute embarrassment, the occasion when he had inadvertently walked into the ladies loo at Geneva airport and been repulsed by a large German woman brandishing an umbrella. On that occasion there had been a sign that should have guided him, but now he was confronted by two almost identical doors. If he were dead, he thought, and that seemed a reasonable assumption, these might, perhaps, be the portals to heaven and hell. They seemed inauspicious portals but the thought carried just enough conviction to make Harry consider his next move very carefully. He sensed that once he opened one of the doors there would be no going back, that he would be drawn inexorably into whatever lay beyond. He remembered a medieval painting he had once seen in which tormented souls were being thrown into a fiery furnace by ape-like creatures wielding tripods; this was definitely something to be avoided. 

         He crept forward towards the left hand door half expecting it to fly open and for someone or thing to rush out at him. Dropping down onto both knees he peered short-sightedly into the narrow gap between door and floor. The impenetrable darkness behind the door was unbroken by demonic bonfires or celestial light. He listened for the singing of hymns or the cry of tormented souls but heard nothing but his own heavy breathing. Crawling across to the other door he made the same observations with the same outcome. For several minutes he remained on all fours, deep in thought and only vaguely aware of the numbing effect of the cold floor on stiff limbs. He struggled to his feet only to find that one of them was now devoid of sensation and unable to support his weight. He tottered drunkenly and with a great flapping of arms fell heavily against the right-hand door which flew open with a resounding bang. To his horror there was a startled exclamation from within and, after the briefest of pauses, the sound of approaching footsteps. A neon light flickered on and Harry found himself staring at two stockinged feet in a pair of open-toed sandals. A bespectacled face peered down at him with unconcealed suspicion. 

         “Can I help you?” she demanded in a tone of voice that suggested she would rather not.

         He sheepishly struggled to his feet. To his surprise the thin, sharp-featured woman of middle years who had towered over him was no taller than himself. While this was reassuring, her appearance, he decided, was less than angelic; he began to fear he might be in ‘the other place’ or at least in a place not much to his liking. “I’m not sure where I am,” he stammered. 

         “Well, where are you wanting to go?” 

         “I’m not altogether clear,” said Harry, the last thing he expected was to be offered a choice. “You see, I’ve only just arrived.” 

         “Oh, so you’re a new entrant then. Why didn’t you say?” Her expression melted to the approximation of a smile. “You had better come in. Take a seat over there;” she pointed to a wooden bench that reminded Harry of a church pew – his hopes were beginning to rise. 

         “There’s just a few formalities to take care of. First of all I need to see your AR1.”

         “My AR1?” he repeated. 

         “Yes, your AR1,” she insisted. “Didn’t they give you one at reception?” 

         Harry fidgeted uncomfortably. He recalled passing an unoccupied desk on a landing someway below; perhaps he should have waited, but then patience had never been one of his virtues. 

         “It’s the pink form,” the woman persisted, “the one headed ‘Application for Residence’. Surely you have one?”

         There was no need for words, the look on Harry’s face clearly indicating that the first link in the paper chain of post-life bureaucracy had been found wanting. 

         The woman frowned heavily. “Most irregular,” she muttered, “I suppose you are on the list? What’s your name? Mr?” 

         “Oldcastle, Harry Oldcastle,” replied Harry, grateful at last to be asked a question to which he knew the answer. 

         The woman disappeared into an adjoining room and re-emerged a few moments later with a clipboard to which was attached a list of some twenty names. With evident relief she discovered Harry’s name towards the bottom of the sheet. “Oh yes, here you are. According to this you should have been with us this morning. Your wife has been in the Reunion Room nearly all day.”  

         “My wife?” repeated Harry, “is she here too? 

         “Yes, of course. Doris has been with us for nearly four years. She’s really looking forward to seeing you again.”

         “But my wife’s name is Laura,” protested Harry 

         The woman’s expression changed to one of alarm. “You are Henry Oldcastle of Rochester Way, Bexley….  Aren’t you?”

         “No,” said Harry, “I live in Southend, at least I did until this afternoon.” 

         “Oh no!” she groaned through fingers that had suddenly enveloped her mouth and nose. “You shouldn’t be here. I’m afraid there’s been...how can I put it… an administrative error.”

         There was an uneasy silence. “What happens now?” asked Harry.

         “You will have to go back.”

         “Isn’t that going to be a little difficult?” 

         “Difficult yes, impossible no,” said the woman firmly. “Remember Lazarus?” 

                                                ***** 

         Harry opened both eyes and was immediately dazzled by a bright light from above. For a moment he wondered whether he had made it into Heaven; then he remembered the woman’s last words. He blinked several times dazzled by the translucent glow of the glass lampshade above the double bed on which he lay. At the same time he became aware of several conversations taking place about him. Through half open eyes he noted that most of the people who had been present at his ‘passing’ were still there. He wondered how they would react to his ‘passing back’. It was bound to be a shock, he thought. He considered how best to break the news. After a few minutes reflection he decided to make some small movement or sound that would allow someone to discover that he was not as dead as they thought he was. Then, as they hurried to his side seeking further signs of life, he would slowly ‘come to’ smiling benignly at their anxious faces and expressing his astonishment at his strange lapse into unbreathing inertia. Well, he could hardly tell them what had happened, no one would believe that!   

         He began by moving an arm slowly across the eiderdown towards the side of the bed. When this wasn’t noticed he affected a palsy-like tremor allowing the hand to drop over the side and swing back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. 

         The steady hum of conversation continued unabated. He raised his head slightly off the pillow and took stock of the dozen or so persons conversing in several small groups. To his surprise, none of the conversations taking place seemed to be about him. Young Matt was regaling one group with an animated account of Tottenham Hotspur’s last home game, while cousin George was telling an inappropriate joke about a travelling salesman and his involvement with a young woman of inconspicuous virtue. Occasionally the shrill tones of Vicky, Laura’s older sister, could be heard relating the details of her recent operation to the vicar who was looking wistfully towards the door. 

         Abandoning his previous attempts at subtlety Harry emitted a loud groan just as a collective guffaw greeted the punch line of George’s joke. For a moment he thought they were laughing at him and he indignantly sat up only to realise that they were blissfully unaware of his reanimated presence. It occurred to him that his short excursion into the after-life had rendered him invisible and mute. The thought of being relegated to observer status in some kind of fourth dimension threw him into a sudden panic. “Can nobody hear me!” he bellowed in a voice that was heard halfway down the street. “Can you….?” He stopped in mid-sentence as twelve horrified faces stared back at him in disbelief.

         A loud thud greeted Vicky’s sudden descent onto the floor. Almost immediately she was trampled underfoot by Matt whose attempt to flee the room coincided with Laura’s coming in with a tray of teas. The tray flew upwards almost hitting the ceiling before a mixture of broken crockery and hot tea ricocheted, like shrapnel, onto the heads of those below. Vicky leapt back to her feet with remarkable agility for someone of her age and cannoned into George who, for reasons he is still unable to explain, aimed a punch at the vicar who staggered back against the light switch plunging the room into darkness.

         At this point, Harry reached the unlikely conclusion that his intervention in the melee was needed to restore order. Attempting to step out of bed his feet became entangled in the sheets and he too collapsed, head first onto the floor. Someone screamed, “he’s coming!” and there was a panic-stricken rush to exit the room. Pursuing them down the stairs he arrived at the front door just in time to see Vicky abandon her Zimmer frame for the back seat of Matt’s motor bike.

         “Come back,” he shouted, as the bike careened wildly down the middle of the road, narrowly missing George. “You don’t understand, I’m not really dead. It was an administrative error!”

 

The End

Copyright Richard Banks