Roger’s attention was suddenly attracted by movement. A tall, strongly built man was picking his way carefully through the litter towards the wrecked car. He wore a black and white checked shirt, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, oblivious to the cold night air that clouded the breath from his lungs. A dozen yards behind him a white van was parked askew, its front end partially embedded in the grass bank. A woman leant against the van’s side, her right arm hugged awkwardly against her chest, the limb obviously causing her some pain. Her left arm was wrapped soothingly around the shoulders of a young girl by her side, the youngster’s head nuzzled against the woman’s flank. A wash of red stained the skin of the girl’s face and polluted the pure white wool of her sweater.
“Are they…okay?” The woman called to the man who had now reached the car.
“I’m not sure. I can only see one person in there…a bloke, I think.”
“Is he moving?”
“No. No, he’s not. Oh shit! Maria, he’s not moving!”
The woman took her good arm from around the girl’s shoulders and ran her fingers through her hair before pressing a trembling palm against her forehead, sucking in a long, deep breath of the icy air.
“Mum?” The girl stared up at her mother, confused innocence in her eyes. The woman stroked the back of the girl’s head, her fingers finding a little comfort in the fine tresses. “It’s alright, sweetheart. It’s alright…”
The man was peering through the driver’s window now, straining to pierce the gloom. He suddenly jumped back, fighting for breath, lungs drowning in a torrent of panic. “Oh Christ, Maria. He’s not breathing…oh, fuck…fuck!”
As if suddenly regaining her senses, the woman reached into her pocket, took out a phone and dialled.
“Maria. I’ve killed him. I’ve fucking killed him!”
Roger watched and listened. The man was directly below him and appeared to be shouting, but he could only just hear what he was saying. Syllables that just seconds ago were cutting, keen and crisp, through the chilled still air now seemed as though they were being swallowed up by the night. He listened harder, concentrating. He hadn’t really noticed it until now, but his ears were picking up a constant drone that had been growing steadily louder over the last few minutes. He strained to pick out individual sounds from this sonic melee; the whisper of a breeze through the branches of the trees; the scuttling of tiny creature feet through frost starched grass; the hissings and hammerings of far off factory night shifts; the distance-soothed clatter of a train. All these night-time sounds seemed to be suddenly amplified, absorbing the shouts of the man below him, reducing his cries to barely more than a whisper.
The wail of distant sirens, too far away for their flashing blue lights to be seen, filled Roger’s super-sensitive ears. The strident sound seemed suddenly alien against the background noises of the night, their incongruity stirring a memory.
The accident.
Roger looked down at the shattered vehicle, its nose wrapped around a stout tree trunk, clicking and ticking as its dead engine cooled. In the driver’s seat, he could see a body, slumped lifeless over the steering wheel.
Oh, Christ! That was his car!
The background noise suddenly fell silent, as if nature was holding its breath, waiting for him to make the connection.
I’m dead…
There was no sense of shock, no sick emptiness. Just a simple statement of fact; almost pleasing, like fitting the final piece of a seemingly impossible jigsaw puzzle.
Of course! Everything made sense now.
It was as if Death had been holding Roger in limbo, awaiting his acceptance and, now that he had acknowledged his state, the Reaper was prepared to let him pass into the next world. The air around him began to shimmer; a stirring, windless flux that tugged at his limbs, the shady-greys of night melting away. White light rushed into the colourless vacuum, bright and blinding like burning magnesium as the shifting currents slowed their turbulent motions and settled into a recognisable form.
It was a tunnel.
It was the tunnel: a wide circular rent in the darkness from which star-bright shafts of light radiated invitation. Roger felt compelled to walk towards the opening. He shuffled slowly, his lethargic pace dictated not by fear, or even caution, but by an almost paralysing sense of wonder and awe. This was the tunnel of light he’d seen described in newspaper and magazine articles about people who had been brought back from the brink of death. Near Death Experiences. People who had been medically dead for several minutes before being resuscitated had described their passage to the other side through a bright tunnel of light.
A tunnel of light such as the one Roger was about to enter; a doorway – but to what?
Although his mother had been a regular churchgoer she had never forced her religious views on her family and Roger had chosen to follow his father’s footsteps along a more secular path. But as he edged closer to the almost blinding brilliance of the tunnel’s embrace, he wondered if he would feel any different right now if he did have religious beliefs. Would someone who had believed fervently all their days that they would ascend to Heaven upon their demise be speculating, as he now was, on what lay before them, or would their faith speed them on their way, without doubt, without question, and with joy in their soul?
Perhaps, he mused, it would be worse for them. He had no ideologies or dogma that had steered his path through life, safe in the knowledge that righteousness in this life would be rewarded with a place in the next. Unlike
