The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1776 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I let go of her in total shock. It was a full minute before I could gather my wits enough to speak. “The stone age boy, you mean?”

“Yes, he thanked me for helping him and he told me to make the most of my daddy because he was going to die at age thirty two.”

“But he’s thirty three next week,” I gasped.

“Oh no,” screamed Trish and in moments we were both howling.

I don’t know how long we cried, but I felt awful, my head ached, my eyes were sore and I felt exhausted. I just didn’t know what to do, it was like someone had handed my beloved a death sentence.

There had to be some way to stop it, but how and to whom could I talk. It was nine in the evening, Trish had gone to sleep through exhaustion and I wasn’t feeling much more awake myself.

I looked up my address book and dialled the number for Marguerite, hoping she was in and able to talk to me. The first bit of good fortune, she was there.

I blurted out my story incoherently, whispering at times because I feared Simon might hear me. Thankfully, he was watching the Olympics.

“Now, let me get this right: you’re upset because a boy who’s been dead for five thousand years and only visible to Trish, told her that Simon was going to die at age thirty two and it’s his birthday, next week?”

“Yes.”

“And you expect me to believe it?”

I was taken aback by this. “Yes, it’s not something she’d make up.”

“Not if she were well, but you said she was trapped on a ferry and is probably suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, it can make you imagine all sorts of strange things and you believe them to be true.”

“What if she’s not?”

“Cathy, you’re pretty psychic, did you see this boy she spoke with?”

“No.”

“Did you hear him talking with her?”

“No.”

“But you heard her speaking in tongues?”

“Yes–well she seemed to be conversing with him and in a language I’d never heard anything like before.”

“So she could have been talking pure gobbledygook?”

“I suppose so, but it seemed so real. She described everything in such detail and it did feel quite cold.”

“I’ve seen religious hysterics speaking in tongues and is pure nonsense–it’s a hysterical response to being overwhelmed by what they think is the presence of God. It isn’t, it’s just hysteria. Our minds can invent all sorts of things which feel real when we’re in that sort of state.”

“So you don’t think she saw this little boy’s spirit, helped him on his way back to his ancestors and in return received a warning about Simon?”

“I don’t know, Cathy, I honestly don’t but I’d be very sceptical that it actually happened.”

I thanked her, made myself some tea and did a cup for Simon as well, then we had a little cuddle and it was as much as I could do not to burst into tears. “What would you like for your birthday?” I asked.

“I don’t know, babes, but you always get me nice presents which I can treasure for years–now what did I say?” I heard as I burst into tears.

Despite my exhaustion, I found it hard to sleep. I loved this man with every part of me. I know we’d had our ups and downs, but he’d always been there for me and now I had to be there for him. If the next day or the next were to be his last, then I’d like to make them special for all of us.

I fell asleep cursing the universe for being such a disgusting place which encouraged me to feel happy just so it could destroy it and drop me back into my pit of despair. Well, I had news for it–I wasn’t going quietly.

The problem was to whom could I go to seek advice or help? I’d tried Marguerite, the broadminded lady vicar and she was helpful and not at the same time, being more rational than I usually was. It was just something inside me which niggled away at me which suggested that Trish wasn’t lying.

Who was it I could see who might actually understand what I’d experienced. I woke with one name on my mind, Roger Hansard, who was a parapsychologist and ex catholic priest–who was also happened to be gay.

As soon as Si and Sammi went off to work, I grabbed Trish and we both showered and I tidied her up. Roger, like me, was on summer vacation but he was intrigued enough by what I’d said to give me an hour. He was packing for his holidays travelling to the Pyrenees to do some climbing with his partner Nigel. I didn’t ask for details.

We were with him at exactly ten o’clock as had been agreed, he’d come into his department and we were sitting talking in his office, Trish relating to him what had happened at Cambridge.

He was practically bouncing off his chair he was so excited. When I admitted I was the mystery healer, he was sworn to secrecy, but I agreed to come back to his lab in the new academic year and do some experiments with him. When I touched his arm, he jumped and yelled then after wiping his eyes, he admitted he’d torn a muscle getting down a suitcase that morning and suddenly a pain had shot through his arm and equally quickly had stopped and so had the tenderness from his injury. He moved his arm in all sorts of directions and declared himself fit again.

He was so pleased in finding me as a new project, and possibly Trish as well–he suggested that it was quite possible that what Trish said had actually happened in her reality.

“Does that mean Simon is going to die?”

“I could do a probability calculation but that’s as close as I can get to any sort of answer–it’s bizarre all of this, but you are like all my Christmases come together.”

I gave him a hug and he sat down looking very strange, “None of this happened Roger, have a nice holiday, oh and you came here just to get something you forgot that you’d left in your office and as we’d come in to feed the dormice we just bumped into each other.”

“Yes,” he said in a monotone.

“You’ll wake up in a few minutes feeling really good because you found whatever it was you’d forgotten and then you’ll go home, finish your packing and forget all about meeting me, except for bumping into me as Trish and I went to feed the dormice. Okay?”

“Yes,” was all he said and we slipped out of the door.

“Who was he, Mummy?” asked Trish.

“Another scientist, but he’s worse at it than I am.”

“What sort of scientist?”

“He’s a parapsychologist?”

“He makes parachutes?”

“Something like that, sweetheart. Hang on my phone’s ringing.”