Some Holiday

Some Holiday - a gay love story involving ghosts and death, by Simon Harper -- sharper@inorbit.com

And they all lived happily ever after -- well, it does happen. In fact, it usually happens! After the excitement of the first few years, however many it happens to be, people coalesce. Their lives coalesce and their relationships coalesce and their habits coalesce.

They coalesce.

They calm down. The rivers of their lives converge, co-mingle, fill together, widen, slow and proceed with gentle grace, or ponderously, mouths gradually opening, towards the many-gated delta, the broad silt-table. It is a slow and slowing approach to the final brief ruin.

So their lives ended. Their parts separated and dispersed. They were dead.

Dead people no longer exist, so it comes as a surprise when their ghosts seem to appear, in whatever guise, to the living, like the living, talking, eating and doing things: sitting at tables, watching the TV and laughing, falling asleep, waking suddenly.

When James, Martin and Paul woke they were where their bodies had been, in the three chairs, in the 'long room', as they called it. James looked at Martin, Martin looked at James, James looked at Paul ... and so on. They were scared shitless. James was the first to speak.

"I thought we were dead!"

"We were dead," said Martin.

"Yes, I thought we were dead as well," said Paul.

Until now none of them had moved, not an inch. It would have looked as if they were frozen, except for their eyes and, very slightly, their heads.

"How long have we been here?" asked Paul.

James stood up and stretched.

Paul and Martin copied him. They were unsteady on their feet and turned round like very lazy spinning tops that were spinning too slowly and consequently were about to fall over.

James walked to the door.

Locked.

"It's locked," he said.

"Is it locked?" asked Paul.

Martin laughed in an insecure way.

"Are we dead?" he asked.

"Oh we're definitely dead," answered James, "because we died, but that doesn't explain anything."

He went and stood by the window, looking out onto the blue-grey road outside, the heavy grey sky full of tired, bursting clouds heaped up like loads of saturated toilet paper. A thought occurred to him.

"Perhaps we have travelled back to come point in the past? All of this looks so familiar and all so static, so static it almost seems to be going backwards."

"Can't be going backwards," said Paul.

"Well, none of this is possible," contributed Martin, ever the realist, "which means that anything might happen."

"We aren't dead," said James. "That would be impossible. We must be drugged -- then we might have thought we had died and the aftermath might feel hazy and confused like this."

The point is that death, like nothing else -- even extreme, total and absolute boredom -- travels very, very slowly. The brain measures time in pulses and as the pulse slows so the sensation of time stretches. As we approach death time takes longer and longer -- longer for us, the ones dying -- longer and longer to pass; the final minute feels like and hour, the final second feels like a day, the final tick of death carries on for an eternity, richly experienced, several entire lifetimes piled on top of each other in the pellucid cavity of extinction.

Have you ever tried to wake up in a dream?

That is what death is like. It isn't what you'd expect. It isn't like dying. It's like waiting for the conclusion to a dream.

What do you do to wake from a dream? Do you try to scream? Do you try to hurt yourself or move yourself? Do you put enormous effort into opening your eyes? If you see a chasm in your dream, do you try to jump into it?

James looked at Martin, Martin looked at James, James looked at Paul, and so on.

"We've got to do something," said Paul.

"I agree," said James, "but what?"

"Wake ourselves, get out of this, try to do something."

"Attract attention," said Martin, ever the attention attractor, going to the windows and swiping at them his hands.

"You try," he said.

"I am trying," said James.

He was. He was beside Martin, swiping at the windows with no effect.

In any case, the blue-grey road outside was empty.

"No one can see us," said Paul. This was torture. Paul was used to being seen. He was used to being visible.

"What can we do?" said Martin.

James started running and throwing himself against the window -- with no effect. It barely flexed. It absorbed his force like bedsprings -- and threw him back against himself, like he'd thrown himself into a thicket of meadow grass and been bounced by its glossy filaments back into the standing position, like he'd barely moved, like he hadn't done anything, like he was still sitting, still sitting down, still waking, still confused, but knowing they were confused. Like they were blind, but could see that they were blind.

You can't test it.

You can't take a measurement to dins out how long death appears to take. It would be like measuring pain. You can't measure pain. Oh, you can take a stab at it (so to speak). You can (well, why not use that example?) stab someone and then say, "Marks out of ten, how painful was that?" and if you make it worth their while, give them money or tell them "That was an experiment", they might say, "It was a nine definitely," or they might say, "There was a slight pin-prick but once the skin was pierced, the knife slid in smoothly and it was quite pleasant. Three."

Do the experiment over and over again, use different people, ask them to rate notional pain, pain from way back, rate it according to the physical sensation and weight their responses according to their mood and personality. Take lots of measurements. Alternate tickling with flagellation; tincture it with humiliation, verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, erotic arousal ... I won't go on. The result would be useless. You cannot measure pain. There is no standard. Same with death. James and Martin and Paul were constantly (or was it every now and then?) in disagreement about how long they had been there? How tedious, how painful it had been for them? Whose fault it was? Who was most annoying? Whether they had tried everything? What to do next?

The fact of the matter was that they none of them knew the answers.

Once, the door opened. And shut again before any of them had a chance to move. It stood open for ages, beckoning their escape, then slammed shut, quietly, softly, with a bang! finally, like it had never even opened. The suspense was daunting.

"If we never get out of here," announced Paul, "I want you to know that the experience, of being here with you, has been truly marvellous... Oh! That didn't sound quite right ... I mean ...

"Thanks for the company?" Martin complete and went up to Paul and hugged him hugely except that when he opened his eyes Paul over by the window and James was staring at the walls and Martin was frightened. They all were. Scared shitless.

And when I eventually found out they were dead (I had been away and I left no address, not expecting anything, not expecting any event) I was told, "Oh they went very quickly, we think, almost instantaneously. It would have been quite painless.

Well, it might have been relatively painless, but how much pain is that? So little pain, the pain of uncertainty and dread, being scared shitless ... not pain at all, to be precise ... but spread over an eternity, unrelenting and continuous?

I wonder if my death will be painless. Do you think your death will be painless?

Andrew met me.

"We were worried about you," he said.

"Why?"

"When we couldn't contact you. You switched your phone off."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"No, of course, no reason, it's just that, in case someone wants to contact you?"

"It can always wait."

"We thought you'd want to know straight away."

"Why don't you come to the point."

Andrew was giving it a big build up so that I might expect something much worse, and then feel better -- better that it was merely that three of my dearest friends had been found dead, mysteriously, in my house, their throats cut, blood soaking into the seating and carpets, looks of complete surprise on their faces. Like they were scare shitless.

"The police will want to speak to you," said Andrew.

"Why didn't you contact me?"

"You switched your mobile phone off!"

"Don't they have ways of contacting you, when it's serious?"

"Apparently couldn't."

"You're joking. This whole thing is a joke. Tell me. You're joking with me."

"Well they are dead. But it was quite painless. And it wasn't your house. It wasn't anything to do with you. That's why you weren't contacted. That's the truth."

"What?"

"I was joking," he laughed. Then he told me how they really died.

"But they were scared shitless," he said," and it looks like that's what killed them."

"Why were they scared shitless?"

"The police don't know. The doors were locked and there wasn't' anything going on... no explanation."

"Are you still joking?"

"No."

I sat down, expecting a chair, and fell onto the ground. Andrew's face changed from one of seriousness ("I'm not joking") to one of surprise ("Are you alright? Are you fainting?").

I was fainting.

When I came to there was, like a nurse, an assistant, looking at me.

"Oh, they went very quickly, we think, almost instantaneously. It would have been quite painless."

"How do you know that?" I said.

"I'm just repeating what your friend said."

"Why?"

"Because you asked."

"What did I ask?"

"You were asking about the deaths."

"Was I?"

"Yes ... look, you've had a shock and you've reacted very badly. You're confused."

"How do you know?"

They smiled indulgently.

"Why are you sitting on the floor? Why did you vomit? Why were you shouting about throats being cut?"

"Was I?" I asked.

"I think you need to sit for a while."

Very nice person.

Andrew dropped me off at my place. I let him pay for the taxi. I didn't want any company but he deftly followed me into the flat without being asked of asking. I went straight into my bedroom and sat down. Then I lay down. Andrew stood in the doorway for a second then went to the kitchen. What did I care? He could stay as long as he liked.

But why was he hanging around? I wasn't in such a bad way. Mainly, I knew, I was tired from my journey. The deaths of Paul, James and Martin had come as a shock to me, a surprise, but it didn't shatter my world.

Presently Andrew came in with a cup of coffee. It occurred to me that, still, his behaviour was magnifying still further the seriousness of everything. The coffee was hot, milky and very sweet.

"Wewh," I joked. "How did you know I take 12 spoonfuls of sugar?"

"Do you? I added lots to lift your spirits."

Considering how my system might struggle to metabolise such a heavy hit his action could be interpreted as misadventure.

Andrew sat looking at me, like he was looking for signs of trauma reaction, tears, shaking.

"Can I ask you something?" He said, sitting down on the bed and smoothing out a bit of it with his hand.

I held still.

"Do you think it's strange?"

"It's certainly strange. People usually die like that. It was very strange."

"That's what I think as well. But the Police don't. They told me not to worry."

He looked at me steadily as it I might read something in his eyes.

"That's strange as well." I said. "Possibly they simply think that you worrying isn't going to help particularly. Are they investigating."

"Oh yes. There is an investigation."

"They don't know. All anyone could tell was that they died suddenly. It would have been quite painless."

"Look I wish people would stop saying that."

Andrew looked wounded. I had let my voice get angry.

"Why?" he said.

"Because it's a platitude. We just don't know what death feels like. It might never be painless. It might always be horrible."

"I hope not. The Police seemed quite sure of themselves. They said it was all so sudden. Do you think they died of shock? They looked scared shitless."

"What shock?"

"I don't know."

"You found them?"

"Yes I did."

"How?"

"I was there. They weren't answering. I thought it was odd."

"Perhaps they didn't want to be disturbed."

"Perhaps, but not, because I found out eventually, and they were dead."

"How did you get in?"

"I just went in."

"So the room was unlocked."

"It was unlocked. The doors wee all open -- except for the one to the room. That was locked."

"How did you get in?"

"I didn't."

"You didn't."

"No I didn't."

Andrew drifted off, he was reliving those moments and he got a bit tearful. I guessed he might want a hug. I put down my coffee and reached out to him and gave him a hug. He hugged me back and we held that position for some time. Then he twisted round and lay down beside me, his head on my chest and his arm around my waist. I started to get a hardon. Was this appropriate? His breathing was shallow and so was mine. We were both waiting for a sign of what might be the next thing to happen. I suppose he wanted something. It seemed to be clear. And I could have done with something, generally.

Nevertheless, I decided that the safest course of action, in the longer term, and in the scheme of things, might best be to extricate myself from this situation as soon as I could, politely.

Then his hand started moving.

Hard as it was, and trembling with restraint, I nonetheless considered, at the time, that the best course of action, in the longer term and in the scheme of things, might possibly be to desist from all encouragement. Which should have meant -- not wishing to remove all comfort -- to lie perfectly still, loosen my grip on his shoulder (I had my arm around him and was digging my fingers deep into the meat of his right hand deltoid) and thus impress upon us both the purely humanitarian nature of our embrace.

"How did they die, again?" I said.

Andrew lifted his head and looked me in the eye, our bodies separated, my hand fell to the pillow, his hand pressed on my chest, supporting his weight.

"I've already told you about that," he said slightly defensively.

"Yeh, I know but I just wanted to talk about it a bit because what you said just doesn't quite add up."

He looked at me without saying anything and moved away a bit more so that he was sitting up. The spell of our closeness was broken, thank goodness.

"You say they died of ... what, shock?"

"Seems like it. I mean, that's what it looked like."

"That's mad."

"That's what the Police said."

"The Police said it was mad?"

"No they said it was shock of some kind. They're still looking into it."

"What shock?"

"That's what I said," said Andrew as if I'd just said something terribly interesting.

"You said they died of shock."

"No, you said they died of shock, remember. I'm just agreeing."

"But what do you think?"

"I don't know. I can't see how you can die of shock, unless you have like a weak heart or something. Do you have a weak heart?"

"No!" I said.

Andrew looked at me up and down as if that was one way to assess my heart condition.

"No I don't think you do," he said.

In those final moments -- fractions of seconds of death -- how must the brain struggle to comprehend what is happening to it. How it must struggle. After all, no living breathing thinking thin can possibly imagine death, as such, in all its reality, logically, since death is not to breath and not to think.

That having been said, as the pulse slows and draws to a halt, a brain has aeons of time to invent an explanation, a possible description of the nullity that is to come. It has plenty of time to construct multiple scenarios and theories; paint and over-paint, start from scratch, again start again, amend, postulate over and over what death, nothingness, might feel like. What it might be ... aeons to guess and never get it right.

"Andrew," I said. "Weak heart or no, shock or not, there must have been some other circumstances, something else prompting ... their demise?"

"They certainly looked..."

"You saw them? When? I thought you said you couldn't get in."

"I went round the front when the door wouldn't open and looked in the windows. They were kind of in their chairs leaning back, gripping the arms and they looked petrified."

"They were dead then?"

"Oh yes they were dead. Definitely, because their eyes were wide open. Alive people don't look like that. They were looking. Like there was something terrifying up ahead."

"Jesus, you must have been freaked out."

"I was sort of."

"What did you do next?"

"I decided to alert someone."

"You phoned the Police?"

"I guess. Look, why the 20 questions?"

""I'm just confused that's all. I want to get a picture of what happened."

"Can't it wait?"

"No. I need to know."

"Why now? Things'll become clearer after they have had a thorough investigation."

"Haven't they finished yet?"

"I don't think so."

"I wonder what's going on."

"They were asphyxiated."

"Asphyxiated? That's news."

"Yes. Well, it happened at the very end, just before the final moment."

"How do you suddenly know that?"

"I don't know. They said."

"You said ..."

"They just said.

"I think it's time we went down stairs," Andrew said, standing up and offering me his hand. Suddenly I wanted him back in my arms and huddling close to me.

"Where are you going?"

"I think we have to go downstairs."

He bent down and took my hand and gently tugged it like a dog might tug his favourite blanket. I felt uneasy and scared.

"What's going on?"

"Come on."

"Why don't we stay? I need to sleep."

"Plenty of that later," he said sadly, his large eyes sorrowful and empty with resignation and hopelessness.

He led me slowly downstairs and then sat me down in my own seat. He sat down in the seat next to me.

"Don't worry," he said, holding my hand, which seemed to close the gap between us. I looked straight ahead and then I shut my eyes. I could hear the juddering of the plane, the wild erratic vibration -- the noise -- and, eventually, the screaming. Who was that screaming? Was that Paul? Most likely he would be the one screaming -- or one of the other passengers?

Some holiday.

As the fuselage broke in two and the oxygen masks, belatedly, fell out of their hidden, secret compartments, and the air rushed out with like a bang! Andrew gripped my hand and I gripped back like it was all we had ever wanted and I'm guessing I suffocated. I'm not really sure, but I do know that I was scared shitless.

End