Chapter 1

I want to tell, NO! I need to tell the story of the most incredible events of my life, or maybe anyone's life.

I need to get the story written down before it fades completely. Already some parts of my life feel almost like a dream, or maybe like watching someone else's life on a screen. It's a most unusual feeling. As soon as I began to suspect my past was fading I started testing myself daily, writing down small facts, minor details of my life in the evening, by morning some of them seemed distant, almost gone while other memories are still sharp, but will they be by tomorrow?

Let me introduce myself, I was known as Graham Pearce. The manager of a small branch of a well known bank until I retired eight years ago. I was a widower, my wife of forty years died three days after her fifty ninth birthday, that was twelve years ago now.

I met Maddie when I was a junior clerk in the bank her father managed. We had fallen in love almost immediately, we spent every moment we could together trying to find secluded places we could sit and kiss. Nothing more than kiss you understand, Maddie was a very correct young lady and I was quite an innocent lad.

We were going steady for about a year before I got up the courage to ask her father for her hand in marriage, that's how it was put in those days. Our engagement lasted for about a year during which time I was promoted to chief clerk in a nearby branch.

The wedding was quite a splendid affair, every body in business in Wadebridge, where I now worked and we were to live, knew us and attended the service plus there were dozens of people from our home town present.

The wedding night was a disaster, I knew nothing about how to please a woman and Maddie was taught by her mother to "Lie back and do your duty by your husband". Not a good start to married life, the act was somewhat brutal and to my shame she cried herself to sleep on my chest afterward. That's one memory I would be glad to let fade but it remains as sharp as if it were yesterday.

Our sex life never improved after that. Maddie had been put off that first night, I am sure she didn't even know that she was supposed to be able to enjoy the experience and I didn't know enough to help her to learn to enjoy the act. Back then there was no one you could go to for help and advice, or at least not in the circles we moved in.

Our love life dwindled rapidly, at first she would submit to my desires once a week. But soon I grew bored of the act without a responsive partner. Before our first year of married life was out we coupled less than once a fortnight. Then once a month, by our fifth anniversary we had given up entirely. Obviously the lack of a sex life meant that there were no children and that was something we both missed.

Over the years this lack of intimacy took its toll on our relationship. We were no longer lovers but we were more than friends. So Maddie was my wife but mostly my best friend. I missed her so much when she died, I was alone then, no family, few friends. I wasn't one for socialising or playing golf with business associates. If I had been I would probably have had a more successful career, I was very good at my job but was stuck running a small out of the way branch of the bank because I hadn't made the right connections.

So I lost the best friend I had ever had. It would have been easier to bear if we had been a family, I would have had my children around me, maybe even some grandchildren to help ease my grief.

My loneliness and the restlessness that comes from no longer having a purpose in life had left me depressed. I was no longer a husband and provider, I was no longer a bank manager, I was just another pensioner. The worst thing was the nights, I would lie awake for hours with the listless apathy that comes from having done nothing worthwhile for that day. My doctor had prescribed me sleeping pills but I found they left me feeling groggy and unrefreshed in the mornings. He suggested a short walk of an evening to burn off some of my restless energy.

I took his advice and set out one evening to walk a mile before retiring. That night for the first time since Maddie's death I slept like a log. Gradually I found my walks lengthening, at night the world was mine, there were very few people about in the small town after the local pubs had shut. I could roam the lanes, fields and moorland around me for hours without meeting a soul. After six months or so I got into a good routine, out at ten in the evening and walk until two in the morning. Some days I covered more ground than others but I usually made it back home by two. A quick cocoa then off to bed. I would sleep soundly until about ten the next morning.

The improved sleep helped my state of mind a little but I was still depressed much of the time and if anything even lonelier. If you walk across a moor on your own in the middle of a winters night you will truly understand what I meant by being alone.

One Friday night around one o'clock I was in a particularly embittered mood for some reason. I remember seeing what looked like a shooting star.

"You should make a wish." I thought to myself. Then without really thinking about what I was doing I yelled out.

"I wish things could change," My scream disappeared into the frosty night air. "I wish" My scream became a chocked sob "I wasn't so lonely" I whispered into the night, my voice hoarse. It wasn't a focused specific wish but it seemed laden with all my grief, despair and loneliness. I remember I fell to my knees in exhaustion, I suddenly felt old and very tired.

After a few moments to pull myself together I turned and trudged off home feeling all of my seventy five years weighing heavily on my shoulders.

That angry, grief stricken cry echoed through my head all the way home. What was the use. I was old and lonely, my life would only change when I succumbed to the creeping years. At least then I would be reunited with my Maddie.

I went home to bed and for the first time in months I had a restless night and got little decent sleep.