Looking back at various photos of myself on social media, itwas clear I had a fair few pounds to pile on yet. My middle-aged spread was afact of life I’d have to live with. Hopefully one day I’d be young and fitagain.
So, there was nothing I could do to change the past: I wasdestined to begin every day at the fixed point it had begun in my previouslife. I established fairly early on, by sitting up all night a couple of timesthat the changeover point occurred at precisely 3am.
The only way I knew this was by sitting with my eye on theclock. The next thing I knew I was waking up the previous day. I wasn’t awake,because presumably I hadn’t been awake at 3am on that day. In fact, I hardlyever was.
So the past was fixed, but what about the future? I had freewill on the days I was living in, so how would changes in my actions affect thefuture? It was a future I was seemingly destined not to see, but I realisedthat anything I did could and would affect the future lives not only of myself,but also of others around me.
I didn’t want to do anything rash that might affect myfamily, at least not to begin with, but I still needed to find out how muchpower I had when it came to changing the future. The only way to find out forsure was to do something that would have very clear results on the day itself.
An opportunity came up to test out my abilities in themiddle of November. The local news coverage was full of reports of a major firethat had broken out the previous day at an out-of-town furniture store on oneof the retail parks on the Oxford Ring Road.
I was sufficiently well enough by this time to go out andabout, so I availed myself of as many facts about the incident as I could andmade plans for the next day.
It wasn’t entirely clear what had started the fire, but whatwas quite apparent was that, had it been dealt with sooner, it would not havedeveloped into the huge blaze that had been filling my TV screen on thefollowing morning’s news.
I picked up a copy of the local paper which covered the firein detail and discovered that the fire brigade had been called at 2.47pm, bywhich time the fire had already taken hold.
So, on the day of the fire, I set out at lunchtime for theretail park to get there in good time and parked up outside to get a good viewof proceedings. Driving posed no problems for me at all. It was another one ofthose life skills that I had acquired in my past life which had stayed with me,one of many I had rediscovered over the past few weeks.
During my exploration of the house I had been delighted tofind a rather smart Mercedes sitting in the garage, and this was the first timeI had taken it out for a spin. It felt quite exhilarating and I upped my speedmore than I should have done as I whizzed around the bypass.
Then I cursed, as I saw a speed camera flash in my mirror.Seconds later I laughed. One of the advantages of living my life backwards wasthat I’d never see the speeding ticket arrive.
I thought about this more as I sat in the car park. Werethere really no consequences to my actions? As I pondered and looked around, Inoticed that there was a burger van parked on the edge of the car park. To mysurprise, and also delight, I actually found myself feeling incredibly hungry.I had eaten very little in the latter stages of my illness, but now my appetitewas returning.
I opened the car door, bracing myself against the chillyNovember wind and immediately smelt the gorgeous, sizzling, fatty bacon waftingacross from the van. I had to get myself some.
It was a dry, windy day, one of those where the fallenautumn leaves blow around in small circles in the breeze. I braced myselfagainst the wind, and headed for the van.
“What can I get you, guv?” asked the proprietor, a man ofsimilar age and shape to myself. He clearly enjoyed his food as much as I did.
I looked at the menu, crudely chalked on a blackboard on therear wall of the van. As far as I could see, it consisted predominantly ofburgers, bacon and sausages in various combinations.
“What’s the monster?” I asked, looking at a £4.95 optionnear the bottom of the menu.
“It’s four rashers of bacon and four sausages in a giantbap,” replied the man. “That’s my favourite, as it happens.”
It shows, I thought, but I could hardly talk. I hadn’t gotto be the shape I was dining on lettuce. The phrase “no consequences” came intomy head once more. And why shouldn’t I treat myself? I’d been through a prettyhorrible few weeks with the cancer. Now I was hungry and I wanted to indulge.
“Make mine a monster,” I said.
I took my monster back to the car, where I sat and munchedaway, savouring the gorgeous flavours of bacon fat and sausage in my mouth. Itfelt good, and I wolfed it down in no time.
Little drips of fat dropped onto the front of my jumper, butI wasn’t bothered. They wouldn’t be there after today. I almost fancied goingto get another, but I really needed to concentrate on the task in hand.
Clearly I was no stranger to eating in the car, as I hadnoticed earlier when I got in. The floor beneath the passenger seat waslittered with burger wrappers, fried chicken boxes and more.
Every day that went by now provided me with more of theselittle clues about my life. The car was two years old and only had around 7,000miles on the clock. So I didn’t drive
