The Great Blue Yonder

by Alex Shearer

  We headed up the High Street. Arthur ran straight over the road. But I waited by the crossing for the little man to turn green. Safety first – that’s me.

  ‘Come on, Harry,’ Arthur called. ‘Don’t hang about!’

  And on he went.

  We took a turning along the pedestrian walkway, went on through the park, and soon found ourselves on the path by the railway sidings, the one that runs along by the back of the multiplex cinema.

  I knew Arthur was in a hurry to get back and look for his mum, but all the same I couldn’t resist it.

  ‘Can you wait, Arthur? Just two minutes. Just while I look inside the cinema?’

  He made a face, but stopped just the same and said, ‘Yeah, all right. But get a move on, Harry.’

  ‘Coming in with me?’ I said.

  ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘Seen it before. I’ll wait for you here. But just two minutes, mind. Don’t start watching anything and getting interested in it and then forgetting what you’re doing.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I promised. ‘Two minutes, that’s all.’

  And I went on inside.

  The cinema foyer was all but deserted. Not packed out, like you’d see it on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Two people were at the box-office, waiting to buy tickets. The lady behind the ice cream counter was yawning. The man who ripped the tickets was leaning against the wall and chewing at one of his fingernails.

  I went and looked at the list of programmes. There was a new Walt Disney animation on, one that had just been released. It must have come out since I’d been dead. I decided to go and have a quick look at it, only for a second. I promised myself I wouldn’t get too interested in it, as I’d told Arthur that I’d only be two minutes at the most.

  I checked the screen number. Screen number eight, the board said, and the next performance was just about to start. I walked past the yawning lady and the man gnawing his fingernails, and I floated over the thick plush carpets until I got to the door of screen number eight. I went inside. It took a second for me to get used to the darkness. There was an advertisement up on the screen for a breakfast cereal. I looked around, not really expecting to find many people in there at that time of day.

  But I was wrong. The cinema was packed to the gills and every single seat was taken. The cinema was completely full up – with ghosts.

  They all but frightened the daylights out of me. To see them all in there. No people at all, just ghosts. Rows and rows of ghosts, all sitting there waiting for the film to start. It rattled your nerves. And it wasn’t just that, it made me feel a bit sad too, that there were so many people, with so much unfinished business that they just couldn’t leave the world behind them and move on to new things.

  And I resolved right then that whatever else I did, I wouldn’t become one of them. I just refused. I refused to turn into a sad old ghost who spent his mornings trying to put right his unfinished business and who spent his afternoons sitting in the cinema with all the other ghosts, hoping that the latest film would take his mind off his troubles for a while.

  I saw then that ghosts aren’t really scary at all. They’re more sad and misunderstood, if anything. But that wouldn’t happen to me. I wouldn’t let it. I was going to put things right with Eggy and to say a proper goodbye to everyone and then I was going to see what lay beyond the Great Blue Yonder. I wouldn’t be a sad ghost for ever and ever. I just wouldn’t. I refused.

  As I stood there at the back of the cinema, the door opened behind me and two ladies came in along with two toddlers and a little girl of about five. All the ghosts turned round when they heard the creak of the door, and when they saw that some real live people were coming in, they let out a terrible moan – not that the people could hear it – and they started to complain like nobody’s business.

  ‘Oh, no!’ a big fat ghost at the front said. ‘It’s people! With children! They’re the worst!’

  ‘And they’ve got popcorn!’ a second ghost moaned. ‘And sweets. With cellophane wrappers! I can’t stand the crackle! The noise of it!’

  ‘Those children will talk all through the film!’ another ghost whined. ‘And want to go to the toilet, right at the exciting bits! And they’ll slurp their drinks! And – oh no! They’re coming to sit on me now!’

  I turned to go. I left them all in there, the two ladies with the three children and all the popcorn and sweets, with the hundreds of ghosts around them, muttering and moaning like a real load of sourpusses.

  ‘I’m not going to get like that,’ I said to myself. ‘I’m not. Whatever happens.’ And I headed back out to find Arthur. The last thing I heard, just as the film started, was the big fat ghost at the front of the cinema, turning round to complain about the sweet wrappers.

  ‘Oi!’ he said. ‘Can’t you keep those children quiet! There’s ghosts in here trying to watch a film, you know! The least you could do is to have a bit of consideration!’

  It’s people like that who give ghosts a bad name. They almost make you ashamed to be dead.

  I didn’t bother with the foyer this time, but walked straight out of the multiplex by going through the wall. There are some advantages to being dead – you can take a lot of shortcuts. I got outside, and there was Arthur, pretending to look at his watch.

  ‘That was a long two minutes,’ he said dryly.

  ‘Sorry, Arthur,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t believe it. It was full of ghosts.’

  ‘Thought it would be,’ he said. ‘It usually is. It’s why it’s so chilly in there too. They think it’s the air-conditioning that keeps the place cool, but it isn’t, it’s the ghosts. Anyway, not to worry. We should be all right for getting back now. We’re in luck. If we’re quick, we should just about make it.’

  ‘Make what?’ I said, wondering what he was talking about.

  ‘That!’ he said. ‘Over there. There was a shower of rain while you were in the cinema, and that always means a shortcut back to the Other Lands.’

  ‘So where do we go then, Arthur?’

  ‘Over there,’ he said. ‘Come on, quick, before it disappears.’

  And he ran towards it.

  I could see it clearly now. It couldn’t have been more than a hundred metres away. It seemed to glisten in the sunlight like a huge halo, full of wonderful shimmering colours, like in the patterns you might see in a kaleidoscope. It was the arc of a beautiful rainbow.

  Home

  ‘Just follow it up to the top,’ Arthur said. ‘That’s all you have to do. And then let go.’

  I didn’t quite understand what he meant, and it must have shown on my face, because he added, ‘Don’t worry about it, Harry. You’ll know when you get there. Come on.’

  He headed for the rainbow, and I was about to follow him when something held me back. The great arc of the rainbow swept high above us, like the roof of some enormous cathedral.

  ‘Come on, Harry,’ Arthur said, when he saw me hesitate. ‘Come on, I need to get back. I might find my mum. She might be wandering round by the Desk, right now, looking for a boy with a button.’

  But still I hesitated. I felt I couldn’t go back. Not yet. I just couldn’t. Not with all this unfinished business hanging over me. I felt I just had to try and settle it, right then and there. Or I’d be haunted by it for ever, and never be at peace.

  ‘You go without me, Arthur,’ I told him. ‘I’ll wait for the next rainbow. I’ll catch the next one.’

  He got a bit agitated then, as if he didn’t like to leave me behind.

  ‘Come on, Harry,’ he said. ‘Don’t stay here. It’s not the place for us, not for long. It’s all right to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live here.’

  ‘I don’t want to live here,’ I said. ‘That’s just it. I know I can’t do that any more. I just need to settle a bit of unfinished business, that’s all. Just a couple of things I need to clear up. And as soon as I’ve done that, I’ll be with you.’

  Arthur still held back, maybe thinking that he should offer to stay with me while I got my u
nfinished business settled. The rainbow behind him started to fade, and I urged him to grab a ride on it, quick, before it was completely gone. But still he hesitated.

  ‘You sure you’ll be all right, Harry?’

  ‘Of course I will. I can look after myself.’

  ‘Something might happen to you.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What can happen to me now? I’m dead, aren’t I, Arthur? Everything else has got to be an improvement.’

  Arthur looked at me a moment longer, then he shrugged and sort of gave up on me and said, ‘All right then, Harry, if you’re sure. But if anything goes wrong, well – it’s your funeral.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I know.’

  He grinned then, and I grinned back, then he waved and said, ‘See you then. See you up there, maybe.’

  ‘OK, Arthur,’ I said. ‘And thanks. Thanks for helping me and for looking out for me. It’s a bit of a shock at first when you wake up and find yourself dead. It’s nice to have someone to sort of explain things to you and show you around a bit.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’d better go then, the rainbow’s vanishing. If I wait any longer I’ll—’

  And with that he jumped up and just caught the tail of the rainbow as it began to fade. I watched as he seemed to fly along the curve of it, up to its highest point, up to the apex, and then he vanished in a twinkle of light, and he was gone, back to the Other Lands. And I was alone. And I felt alone. More alone than I’d ever felt before.

  I felt suddenly cold inside. I wished I had some kind of ghostly coat to wrap around me. I felt cold and lonely and almost wanted to cry. And it was the first time I’d really felt like that, since I’d been dead.

  But I knew that whatever these feelings were, I couldn’t give in to them. I had to keep a grip on myself and not go to pieces. Because a ghost isn’t much use to anyone at the best of times, but a ghost who’s cracked up and gone to pieces is no use at all.

  I watched for a moment as the rainbow faded from the sky. One second it was there, in all its glory, the next it had disappeared. It was time for me to go too. So I turned and I began to make my way back to the city. And I knew just where I was headed.

  I was going home.

  Now that Arthur wasn’t with me, I seemed to have more time for my thoughts. You know how it is when a friend’s with you, sometimes you feel you have to say something, even when there’s really nothing to say, just to keep the conversation going, and so’s they won’t think you’re boring.

  But when you’re on your own, you don’t have to think of what to say next. You can just let the thoughts come into your mind, however they will. It’s almost like having a bar of chocolate, all to yourself, that you don’t have to share with anyone.

  So I walked back through the precinct. There was Stan, still up the lamp-post, still sitting in the flower basket, scanning the streets for a sign of his long-lost dog Winston.

  ‘Any luck, Stan?’ I called to him as I went by, just to be polite.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not yet. But I’ve got the feeling that today I’m going to be lucky.’ (Though I had the feeling that he had that feeling every day.) ‘Where’s your mate?’ he asked. ‘You on your own now?’

  ‘Caught the last rainbow,’ I explained. ‘Gone back up.’

  ‘Ah,’ Stan said. ‘I see. Right.’ And he turned away from me then, and went back to looking out for his dog. That seemed to end the conversation, so I continued on my way, thinking my private thoughts.

  There were a lot of them too. All sorts of bits and pieces came into my mind. Like what might happen to you once you made it to the Great Blue Yonder, what would lie in store for you there and what you could expect, and whether it was something to be afraid of, or not so bad at all.

  I didn’t really think of where I was going, or of which direction to take, my feet just seemed to know the way, and they carried me along like I was a passenger on a train and they were a set of wheels.

  I found myself going by the cathedral, and I looked up at the clock. Quite a bit of time had passed since Arthur and I had come down from the Other Lands. It was getting on for half-past three now. Eggy would be coming out of school. Mum would be making her way home from her part-time job. Dad worked flexi-time and you never knew what he’d be doing. He might be at work, or he might have accumulated enough hours to let him take the afternoon off. He liked to do that sometimes, to be able to get out when everyone else was working.

  On I went. The schools were emptying. The streets filled up with kids. Kids with lunch boxes, kids with satchels, kids in uniforms, kids in jeans and trainers.

  A ghostly lump came to my ghostly throat. I felt angry and sad and bitter and tearful all at once. For the first time since I’d been dead I wanted to shout and scream and rage and yell out, ‘It’s not right! It’s not fair! I want my life back! I was only a kid, I shouldn’t have had to die. It’s all that stupid lorry’s fault. It wasn’t even as if I was to blame. It’s not as if I even deserved it! It’s so unfair!’

  But then I thought, well, who does deserve it? Who does deserve to have bad things happen to them? Nobody really. And I suppose that things just happen whether you deserve them or not.

  It isn’t fair though, I thought, as I watched all the children go by. They walked around me and through me, laughing and messing about, fighting even, some of them, or just talking to their mates, having some fun and larking around.

  I so wanted to be alive again. I can’t tell you how much. I so, so wanted to be alive. I so wanted to be one of them. And all the ordinary things which I’d always taken for granted – just little things, like being able to kick a football or being able to eat a bag of crisps – how I missed them.

  And how I envied them. How I envied all those children their lives. Oh, I knew they weren’t all happy. I knew some of them were miserable or sad or getting bullied or worried about their exams or had trouble at home or were just plain unhappy – but still I envied them, even the unhappy ones. It’s true. I did. I even envied them their unhappiness. Because at least they were alive. And I wasn’t.

  Maybe this was why Arthur hadn’t wanted to leave me down here on my own. Maybe this was what happened to you. It wasn’t that anyone else was a danger to you, you were a danger to yourself. It was what was inside you that was so dangerous and upsetting. It was you.

  I walked on. I tried to ignore them, all the children passing by me. I kept my eyes down and stared at the footpath as I cut through the park. I could hear the sound of a football game, I could hear the squeak of the unoiled swings, I could hear the sounds of bikes riding by, I could hear the chimes of the ice cream van, I could hear – I could hear the voices and the laughter and—

  Never mind. Never mind.

  I kept my eyes down, following the narrow strip of asphalt which snaked through the park and which wound around the back of the allotments, and which eventually took you through the old churchyard and ultimately to the lane at the back of my house.

  The voices receded, the chimes of the ice cream van were further away. They were playing the Snowman tune.

  The chimes grew fainter as the ice cream van drove off, in search of other hot and thirsty children who needed cooling down, in other recreation grounds.

  I looked up. Safe now. I was out of the park. I was somewhere else. Somewhere I wouldn’t feel myself to be quite such a sore thumb, or so sad at being alone.

  I was in the cemetery.

  I walked slowly through it, going along by the graves, reading, as ever, the inscriptions on the stones. I always used to look for the oldest and the youngest ages. I don’t know why. Just curiosity, I suppose.

  Then suddenly I stopped, and the thought came to me, ‘What about my grave? This is where I’ll be buried, won’t it?’ And I left the path and hurried to the upper end of the cemetery where all the new plots were. I found the latest row and went along it, and there I was, fourth from the end.

  There I was. There I really was. And they hadn’t half done
me proud. You should have seen it! Well, you still can see it if you ever go there. They’d gone and got me this fantastic headstone. Probably granite, it was, or maybe polished marble. But it was such a nice colour, a kind of warm, reddish brown, with an autumn kind of feel to it. You could even have made jewellery out of it, it was that nice a stone. And there was a design on it too, around the edges, a bit sort of curly but nothing too fancy, just nice and simple. And there was my name and the date I was born, and the date when the truck got me. And then there was a short inscription from everyone at home, saying how much they’d loved me, and how they always would, and how they’d miss me always. And there, sunk into the earth by the foot of the grave, was a little container for flowers, and it was full of red roses, ’cause red had always been my favourite colour.

  And there, tending to the flowers, there—

  There was my dad.

  What can I say? I can’t describe it, really, so maybe there’s no point in my even trying. But I’ll tell you this: when you’re alive and someone dies, you feel so upset that you’ll never see them again, it’s just awful. But when you’re a ghost, and when you do see someone again, but when you know that they can’t see you, and that you can’t talk to them, or ever walk down the road holding their hand, or have a game of football with them, or a muck-about with them, or ever put your arms around them ever again . . .

  It makes you feel pretty bad too.

  And that was how I felt, pretty bad. And I’ll say no more than that.

  We stood there for a while, my dad and me, him staring at my headstone and me staring at him, and both of us feeling pretty bad. Then eventually he looked at his watch and decided that he had to go, and he said, ‘Bye then, Harry.’ And I said, ‘Hello, Dad,’ though obviously he couldn’t hear me.