naked arm was above the bedclothes and I ran invisible fingers along the smooth white skin. I had watched her before like this, my own body lying empty beside her with my spirit form hovering over us both, wondering at the unique experience. You might think that it was spying, but truthfully, it doesn’t feel like that. Maybe it’s because you’re existing in your purest form and bodily desires are not present. It doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the beauty before you, but there is no lust involved, no sexual pruriency whatsoever (otherwise I guess most out-of- body practitioners would turn into voyeurs and sex surfers). I had once caressed Andrea’s naked sleeping body on a hot summer’s night when the bedsheets had been tossed aside, but because there was no physical contact involved, there was no arousal (and certainly not for my sleeping beauty). You can’t have it all ways, I suppose.
I sat next to her on the bed (no, there’s no strain in standing—weariness only comes with the length of time you’re in OBE—but you tend to follow the normal life patterns), just watching her sleep, making up my mind to pay her and Prim more attention once this new client presentation was out of the way, resolving to take more time off in future, delegate more of the creative work to my up-and-coming art directors and copywriters, when suddenly I was jolted by some awful, sickening dread.
It seemed to hit me like a sledge-hammer, a sudden powerful shock that had me collapsed over the bed, where I stayed, stunned and gasping for unnecessary air. A memory—a scene—flashed through my mind: I seemed to be very small, for I was looking up, looking up at two figures. I recognized one. Mother, smiling down at me. She was different though and for a moment—no, it must have been a nanosecond, because it was all happening so fast, so fast yet so ridiculously drawn out, as if I had conquered time itself—I wondered why.
Then I realized it was because she was so much younger than the woman I now knew, than the image that I had held within my head, the present-day woman. As in the vision earlier that night, she was younger, her smile was sweeter, and she was pretty in a plumpish, round-faced way. Now she was making noises at me, but I heard no sound; somehow—perhaps it was because of the O shape of her lips—I knew she was making cooing sounds at me, baby sounds.
I turned to the figure standing next to her, a man who was also gazing down at me although I could not see his face, only his clothes, his long thin legs, a woollen jumper. I tried, I really tried, to see his face, because I knew he was important to me; all I saw was a blur this time, a soft pink-greyness as if the head had lost focus, but I knew it was the pixel-disguised person I’d seen with Mother before.
The couple dissolved and I was still low to the ground, for once again I was looking upwards and figures were bending over me, a circle of curious heads, and I was choking, something was burning my throat something was stopping my breath. It was hot-potato time all over again. And there was Mother, older than a moment ago, her expression inexplicably overridden with embarrassment rather than concern.
Dissolve, very quick, fade-in scenes coming thick and fast. I was surrounded by other kids, in a schoolyard I could tell, for the buildings rose around us like brick canyon walls and a bell was ringing somewhere, calling us all to assembly, but I was otherwise engaged, me and another boy, a bit bigger than me but with a bloody nose and tears in his eyes as he rained punches at me. I knew I had given him the bloody nose and I was feeling good because of it, even though I also knew I was now going to take a hammering. I felt pain, nasty, powerful pain, but it didn’t last long, for I was in another scene, the story of my life revealed in incidents rather than episodes, and I was watching a girl, a beautiful, dark-haired girl of about fifteen, and my whole body seemed wracked with emotion that I think was first-time love, and this did not last either, but the scenes—the incidents—were changing even more rapidly, becoming a kind of vortex of images, speedy but perfectly clear and, in their encapsulated way, perfectly presented with beginnings and ends. It was thrilling, but at the same time so bloody scary.
And I had to wonder why it was happening.
On it went, more scenes—sorry, incidents, episodes—from the past came and went, and I saw them all as an observer, not a participant. Weird, unsettling, some events leaving me steeped in guilt, while others were totally joyous.
It occurred to me with some dismay that this must be like the death experience some people spoke of, the retelling of their life in all-embracing flashback. But there appeared to be no judgement, only a subliminal and non- specific weighing-up of good and bad deeds committed by me. And anyway, I wasn’t dead, only out-of-body, so whatever was happening was merely some freakish phenomenon I’d never experienced before.
Through the years of practising the out-of-body state, I had read up on the subject and tried to learn as much as I could about the theory, the control, and other people’s personal experiences, and had been surprised to learn that the spirit essence never quite leaves the body, that there is a kind of silver thread (some preach that it’s golden) always connecting you to your physical form, that no matter how far you leave your body behind, this thread or cord stretches but never breaks the link. This, according to the theories, is why you can never lose your physical self, that nothing can destroy the connection. Well I’d never observed this so-called silver or gold thread or cord, although I’d always felt some kind of invisible bond. But now I felt it break.*
*There is no visible link, although without doubt there is a psychic link. While separated from the host body, the bond between soul and body is too strong and yet too delicate to be broken (think of some of those deep-sea creatures whose flesh is so fine it’s transparent, yet they withstand constant unbelievably intense physical pressure without being crushed; or think of finely spun spiders’ webs that can bear comparatively heavy loads without tearing. I’d say the psychic link between body and itinerant spirit—let’s call this other self that for the moment—is even stronger). This, of course, is not a fact, but something I’ve rationalized as time has gone by and certainly—and this is the important part—I’ve kind of sensed from the beginning; so much in that incorporeal state is sensing, which is considerably heightened in the out-of-body state. Maybe bodiless you’re closer to life’s mysteries. Or maybe it’s some kind of compensation for the absence of one of your other senses: I mean touch, because there is no physical contact anymore, you just cannot feel anything at all material. And believe me, that’s hard to get used to. Your fingers just merge into anything you touch, your body can move through anything solid like liquid through a fine sieve.
I could not see it, I could not feel the link, but somehow I sensed that it had snapped like a long, finely drawn rubber band and the result was that I had been propelled forward, my invisible head almost smacking my invisible knees. It was a terrible, fear-inducing jolt and I was suddenly cast free of myself, the metaphorical umbilical cord that held both parts of me together, body and soul, had been sundered.
I had an equally sudden vision of that man in the darkened room cutting the cord with his long-bladed scissors. Impossible, of course, but somehow I couldn’t shake the image from my mind. I began to panic.
Could you lose the connection with your own body? Could you be cast adrift? I had no idea—I was a lone pioneer as far as OBEs were concerned; I certainly had no knowledge of others who practised it, although I’d read the few books written by people who claimed they had mastered the technique of leaving their own bodies to become entirely spirit; but nothing they’d said covered this eventuality. I was scared, terribly scared, and I wanted to get back to my body without delay.
Normally, that very thought would have effortlessly sent me home to my body within moments; but this time I had to will myself deliberately to return. I flew from the house and along streets rapidly enough, but I had to negotiate the route, will myself along, whereas before there was no conscious effort, I just arrived back in my body without thought or direction. A couple of times now I even got lost, became confused, had to force myself to slow down and think of where I was and where I had to get to. Luckily, I knew the city well, so it was no great problem to return to the Knightsbridge hotel; the difficulty was having to think my way there.
And then I arrived, gliding upwards to the tenth floor, through the thick wall, into a lengthy corridor, sinking through the closed door to the suite I shared with Oliver, coming to a jerky halt in the lounge where all my layouts and Ollie’s copy ideas littered the floor. I felt more fear as I glanced towards the open doorway to my bedroom, wary of going in, deeply anxious about what I might find.
I suppose some kind of homing instinct had brought me here, but now I felt nothing. No, I did feel something—I felt adrift… dispossessed. I moved towards the open doorway.
I’d left the two wall lights on above the bed when I’d half-drunkenly collapsed onto the large double bed and I could see what remained of my body lying there on top of the covers. The blood was horrendous. I mean the amount of it. The human body holds, what? Eight and a half pints or thereabouts, and it looked like most of it had spilt out of me. You know how it is when you drop a bottle of milk? It seems to spread everywhere. In the bottle it doesn’t look that much, but on the floor? It’s like a dam just broke.
My blood soaked the quilt on which I lay and what wasn’t absorbed ran over the edge of the bed to puddle the floor. There was even blood on the wall behind the headboard, great arcs of it, drooling streams, as well as
