Nobody True

  —until I was off again, flying over rooftops, winging through darkness, skimming through shadowed canyons, until, until . . .

  . . . until I found myself descending worn stone steps that led down from the street, then passing through a battered, paint-chipped door. I was inside a dingy, dank room, its only light source an angle-poise lamp on a table covered with newspaper clippings, the dusty naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling switched off.

  A figure was seated there, back to me, long-bladed scissors in one hand, snipping away at a newspaper. The cuttings already taken from other newspapers were set out neatly, without one piece overlapping another, the lines in between precise in their parallels. (I could tell it was a man by the size of his hands and the heavy set of his hunched shoulders.) I was puzzled by the sounds he made, a kind of wet snuffling. Every so often he would reach for a soiled, wrinkled rag lying on the desk and bring it to his face as if to wipe away mucus. Perhaps he had a heavy cold.

  I was suddenly very afraid.

  Why I had been drawn to this place I couldn’t tell, yet somehow I knew there had to be a reason. Certainly, I didn’t want to be here in this sombre room. Through an open doorway I could just make out a narrow cot bed against a wall, its sheets rumpled, unmade. In there the window’s grubby curtains were closed tight, as if to discourage snoopers, even though the flat itself was below street level. Well-thumbed magazines lay untidily on an old sofa, barely leaving a place to sit. There was no cheer here, no welcome; the place seemed filled with threat.

  Snip-snip-snip.

  The metallic cutting sound was eerily loud in the room’s stillness and, if I’d had a heartbeat, I’m sure I would have heard that too.

  I drew nearer, but not willingly. It was a compulsion, an undeniable curiosity, that drove me.

  Even though I was of no physical substance, I was afraid as I peered over the man’s shoulder to read the large print of newspaper headlines.

  POLICE ADMIT SERIAL KILLER AT LARGE.

  MURDER VICTIM MUTILATED.

  WHY THESE VICTIMS? POLICE BAFFLED.

  HUNT FOR MUTILATOR CONTINUES.

  I straightened in shock. These murders had been happening for the past six weeks and the newspapers were full of lurid stories; even the broadsheets seemed to have lost their sense of decorum in their gory descriptions of the crimes. According to these stories all the victims were chosen at random, there was no connection between them. Also, the killings appeared to be motiveless, the unfortunate victims had no known enemies and apparently were not involved in any kind of criminal activity. In fact, the only similarity between the victims was that all three were professional people: the first had been a lawyer, the second an insurance broker, and the third, a woman this time, was a radiologist in the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

  I was no more than a few inches away from the man’s head as he snipped away at a copy of the Daily Telegraph and I became even more disturbed by his odd breathing. It was somehow coarse, guttural, as if his throat were clogged, and I was repulsed by the sound.

  I backed away a step and stared at the back of his bowed head. His scrappy hair was badly cut, bald patches visible even in the poor light from the low lamp that threw his back into dark shadow; what hair there was looked lank and dirty and I was sure that if I had a sense of smell in my altered state, the man himself would be rank, unwashed.

  I realized what else made me feel so uneasy about this person: the perception had never before been this clear as far as others were concerned, but now I could just make out this man’s aura, the glow that emanates from every living thing. Some claim it’s a person’s soul shining from within, while others, more pragmatic, say it’s merely the normal radiation emitted from any material form. Nowadays, I tend to go for the former.

  It was nasty, this aura around him, thick with muddy greys and blacks, their range short, shallow, extending only here and there beyond half-an-inch, and it seemed to me that the phenomenon exuded something foul, something rotten. I backed further away and that was when the man stiffened, the scissors stopping mid-snip. His head lifted and I became still, almost afraid to breathe (not that I needed to breathe at all).

  It was as if he had sensed my presence.

  Yet I’d made no noise – I couldn’t, not in this form.

  He seemed to have felt my gaze on the back of his neck.

  But, of course, I wasn’t there in person, there could be no presence to feel.

  He lifted the scissors and clicked the blade shut. He changed his grip and held them like a knife.

  Then he slowly began to turn my way.

  I retreated even further, hoping to become lost in the shadows. Ridiculous, I know, because I was invisible. In all my out-of-body excursions nobody had ever been able to observe me in this immaterial state.

  Yet he was turning towards me with purpose and I felt terribly exposed.

  And then his black bulbous eyes were looking into mine.

  I screamed. I fled.

  13

  It was horrible, ugly, and suddenly the world was spinning around me.

  I don’t know if it was the shock, or my natural abhorrence that took over and whisked me away from harm, but I left the room fast. I didn’t run away, of course, I merely zoomed off as if yanked by a hook, images and sounds whirling around me. I was out of the darkened room, heading skywards, and then I knew nothing more for a while. It was as if my spiritual form had passed out.

  I ‘awoke’, if that could be the word, in the living room of my own house. There were no lights on, but I could see my location by the street light flooding through the window. I’ve since reasoned that it was instinct that brought me there, that I’d fled to where I felt safest – doesn’t everyone feel safest in the sanctity of their own home? What I didn’t realize though, not until I inadvertently glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, was that a few hours had passed since I’d entered the OBE.

  I remembered the horribly dingy basement room and the man inside snipping away at the newspapers, and I remembered him slowly turning round as if he’d become aware of me. I remembered . . . I remembered . . . no, I couldn’t remember the face that had looked directly at me. Somehow the image had been frightened from my mind. I tried to recall what had scared me so, but I couldn’t, I just could not bring it into focus. But I knew I’d witnessed something awful, something that my brain had no wish to recollect. Perhaps later . . .

  It was good to be home, oh, it was so good. Familiar furniture, framed pictures, comfortable sofa and arm-chair, thick wall-to-wall carpet – home, sweet home. A natural response had brought me here, of that I had no doubt: I guess self-preservation has a homing instinct all its own. But where had I been during the intervening hours? It took me some time to work this out, but eventually I realized that my mind – and hence my ‘spirit’ – had just closed down. Panic had set it to flight, and when I was safely away from that . . . that . . . thing in the dark room, my mind had sought sanctuary in oblivion. Why I had not simply returned to my body, I had no idea, but now the impulse to do so was immense.

  As a rule, just the thought was enough to send me gliding back, a journey never more than a second or two no matter how far I had journeyed. But this time I resisted the impulse. Maybe it was the recent threat of danger that had me seeking the assurance of everything familiar and ordinary – what could be more commonplace than your own house? Or maybe I just had to touch base with reality for a while – again, what’s more real than your own place? Before I went back to my body, I had to reassure myself that my loved ones were safe and secure for the night.

  Just that thought sent me gliding into the hall and up the stairs to the bedrooms. Now you have a choice when out of body, in that you can move exactly as you would in real life – one step at a time, that sort of thing – or you can kind of sail or glide everywhere. I usually chose to do both, sometimes taking steps, other times pushing myself along as in those dreams I spoke of earlier. On this fretful occasion I glided up t
he stairs, using my hands to propel myself upwards as though I were beneath the ocean, almost weightless, exploring some undersea wreck. Normally, it was a wonderful feeling, but this night I was too agitated to enjoy the experience.

  Up I went, for some reason terribly afraid for my family. It made no sense at all – the man had only felt my presence, hadn’t actually seen me. And so what? What could the man do? He didn’t know me, could have no idea of where I lived. But still the anxiety sent me gliding purposely up the stairs. I had understood that the man I’d witnessed collecting clippings from various newspapers was wicked, because it was evil that seemed to ooze from his very pores, manifesting itself in the ugly monochromed aura. Yes, he seemed to sweat badness and I’d sensed that even if I could not physically smell it.

  Why should he have been cutting out those particular news stories of a serial killer? My absent heart turned cold, a peculiar experience, I must admit. Foolish too, because there was no way I could be traced back here to my home. Even if the man had actually seen me, even if he had some psychic sense that made it possible, he would not know me from Adam, and therefore could not know my home address. Yet his threat seemed very real.

  I paused at the top of the stairs, unsettled, now definitely afraid for my wife and daughter. What if this person had the ability to follow me? What if he was capable of OBEs? No, not possible. Certainly I, myself, had caught glimpses of spirit people, a kind of faded print of moving images, but nothing I could connect with. If I approached, they merely melted away. They were sometimes picked up only in the periphery of my vision, to evaporate when looked at directly.

  I got a grip of myself and went on.

  Primrose’s bedroom door, as always, was open wide so that we could hear her if she had a bad dream and called out during the night, and I sped through. I hovered over her and regarded her lovely little face, her lips slightly parted, the soft drone of baby-snores assuring me she was safe and well. Her arms were thrown back, small clenched fists resting on the pillow, and her brown curls framed her sweet face. Leaning down I planted a gentle kiss on her cheek and she wrinkled her nose and turned her head aside as though something had tickled her. Without thought I tried to tuck the bedcovers up around her neck, but of course, my hands merely went through the soft material. I lingered for a few moments and imagined I could actually hear the small thud-ups of her heartbeat; imagined or not, it was reassuring.

  Backing away cautiously as if I might make a sound and wake her, I tiptoed out (silly, I know) onto the landing. Again I paused, this time to listen for any extraneous sounds, anything foreign to the domestic peace, and only when satisfied there was nothing to be anxious about did I move along the landing to the bedroom I normally shared with Andrea.

  The lamplight outside the window allowed me to see her lying on one side of our large double bed – she once told me that, out of habit, she never invaded my side when I was away – and she, too, looked peaceful. Her skin was pale in the cold glow from the street, and her features were beautiful and unlined. We’d had our problems during the marriage, particularly over the past year – I was the guilty party, work had eaten up so much of my time that Andrea was entitled to feel neglected – but I’d never stopped loving her and I hoped it was the same for her. I still found her exquisite and inwardly, and constantly, blessed her for giving me such a wonderful daughter. Her 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 b
efore.

  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.4