by Ian Hutson
‘I do. They are familiar to me. To us. Father Abbot, before life, after death we still live. I lived before I was born and I shall live after I die. You, me, we, us - we’re just a here and now on a tangled line. The Abbey cat has nothing to do with it, except that I am also him. As are you.’
Edwin chimed in. ‘Before birth we were another portion of ourselves. After death we do not change, but simply experience more. In our here and nows in the Abbey we - I - you - remember little. The less we remember all at once, the more sense it makes.’
‘Sometimes we are tangled closely upon our neighbours and familiar, sometimes the line takes us far away and we live lives that these lives would never have known, did we not now understand.’
‘In what we have decided is past we remembered nothing.’
‘In what we have decided is future we remember all.’
‘Novelty where there should be none. A lack of recognition, until we learn better, nothing more.’
‘An unexpectedly familiar scene or scent or sound, not seen for the knowledge that it is.’
‘We are God, just not at the moment, but we shall be again.’
‘It’s all very simple. We know everything.’
‘Well, we shall, once we’ve looked at it and decided to know it. We’ll get around to you soon enough, and you to us, Father Abbot.’
The Abbot had them confined.
Fond as he was of the Brothers, madness was a serious business and the best that he could do for them was to lock them away forever, never to see the light of day again. As they were bound and as the bolts slid across in their locks, Brother Timothy and Brother Edwin laughed as though possessed, and that at least brought some comfort to the Abbot that he was doing the right thing. The Abbey had to be protected, and Timothy and Edwin would be cared for - away from where they might do harm or disturb the comfortable order of things.
‘Brother Timothy, I am not enjoying our confinement. This here and now is not pleasant.’
‘Nor I, Brother Edwin, but it won’t be for long. Where else would you prefer to be?’
‘I think that I would prefer to be reading about our lives here as though they were just a part of some dim and distant past. Some other life seemingly long-separated from this one.’
‘You will be there soon enough, either go there now or you may simply wait here and that life will come along presently. Think, or don’t think, the end result is the same. Time is a beautiful illusion. You will at some point be looking out from behind the eyes reading the text of our adventures.’
‘At least we know now who was the vandal.’
‘But we do not know yet who we shall be as reader, and that is surely thrilling...’
‘After you, Brother Timothy, you go first.’
‘Are you sure, Brother Edwin? Life is one devil of a complicated tangle.’
Life in the abbey went on, mostly out of sight and out of mind, mostly ordered into a comfortable succession of days and nights. You, dear reader, will have your own brief moment of seeming somehow especially real, soon enough.
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All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental, and should not be construed as appearing in this work of fact.
This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians. The reader should regularly consult a physician in matters relating to his/her health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention. The author rejects all liability for unlicensed astral travelling, an individual’s choice to opt out of competitive evolution and any tendency subsequent to the reading of this book to drink gin and affect an English accent.
About the author
Ian Hutson was born the third child of two, fifth in a family of four, in the fishing town of Grimsby, England at about half-past nineteen-sixty. His father was a deep-sea trawler radio-operator turned Cold War spy, and his mother was a socialite and compulsive knitter of pullovers. Early childhood was spent in Hong Kong and Ian initially spoke only Cantonese, eventually learning to read and write English while living on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. After a long and dreary career working for the Civil Service, followed by a long and dreary career working for a few filthy global corporations he now lives the life of a vegan hippie atheist peacenik church-mouse in a hedgerow in Lincolnshire.
Connect with the author online
Website and Blog:
The Diesel-Electric Elephant Company
Twitter:
@dieselelephants
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Smoochies.