Any moment now.
Yet in spite of the anticipation, nothing happens.
So we ride the train down to the end of the southbound line, get off and head back again.
"What time do you make it?" I ask the Professor, looking at my own watch.
"Twenty five to eight. It's almost time James. Almost time. Are you ready?"
"I don't know. I think so." I reply, unconvincingly.
"And what if it doesn't happen? What if…" but when I hear myself starting with the 'what if's' again, I shut up, and turn back to the door.
"Relax, my boy. It will happen. And soon." The Professor says as he gets up from his seat and crosses over to me, holding out his hand. "James, if Old Henry is right, it's going to be any moment now. Any moment. We might not get a chance to say much more to each other, so I just wanted to say 'Thank you,' and 'Good luck' to you!"
I take his hand and shake it warmly, but pull my hand quickly free again, remembering the experience with Jane when time stopped with her hands wrapped around me, and me being unable to break free.
"What have you got to thank me for?" I ask, facing the doors again, and watching the signs on the tunnel wall appear as we begin to pull into Waterloo.
"For all of this. It's been fun. Exciting. And if it happens, I will at last have made the discovery of a lifetime. You will have given me something which I can spend the rest of my life working on. To theorize about and try to understand. Can you imagine how jealous all the other old eggheads are going to be?"
I can't help but smile back. At least there will have been some purpose to all this misery.
We ride in silence now, the stations outside, whooshing past, arriving, and whooshing away again. Anticipation, nervousness, disappointment, relief, regret, a cycle of circling emotions that spins around within me as we shoot along the deep underground tunnels, from light, to blackness, and back into the light again.
Quarter to eight.
Tunnels, stations, tunnels, stations.
Five to eight.
Tunnels, doors open, doors close, move, stop, doors open, doors close, accelerate, decelerate, tunnels, blackness, people getting on, getting off.
Eight o'clock.
Nothing.
Two stations past Marble Arch, we get off and head south again.
Both the Professor and I are looking worriedly at our watches. It's ten past eight. It's not looking good.
Neither of us speaks.
Green Park. Charing Cross. Then Waterloo arrives.
Then Lambeth East. Alworth Street. Then New Cross Gate North.
New Cross Gate North. The sign conjures up the sudden memory of the first time I saw those words, that sign, almost a year ago. I remember the feeling of rising panic that I experienced as I realized for the first time that something very wrong had happened. And then, in a moment of surprising clarity, I remember, clear as day, the vision of Keira and Nicole waving to me as I walked out of our house that morning for the last time. The last time I saw them...
A tear runs slowly down my cheek, and I step up closer to the door.
Suddenly I begin to feel something…It's going to happen soon. I can sense it. At the next station. And in an odd way, it makes perfect sense. This is where it began, and this is where it will end. At Lewisham North.
The doors close and the train begins to pull away into the next tunnel.
"James! James!" I hear a voice. It's Sarah, calling to me from my memory. Reaching out to me. Encouraging me to do what I have to do. To take that one step towards her.
A funny tingling sensation begins to work its way up my back, and I recognize the beginning of the feelings that I have been awaiting for so long. My heart starts to beat even faster and I take a step closer towards the doors.
"James!" The voice again. This time louder. Now closer. I close my eyes, trying to conjure her up in my mind.
"James…Stop, wait!" she shouts. "DON'T DO IT!"
I open my eyes. The voice is not coming from within inside my head. It's here. Close by, beside me, …inside the train carriage.
I turn to see Sarah running down the carriage towards me, the door connecting the other carriage from where she has just come swinging shut behind her, tears streaming down her red, sad, face. She is about ten yards away from me now, hurrying towards me, dodging in and out of the few people who are between her and me, separating us.
"I believe you!" She shouts. "I BELIEVE YOU! I've been looking for you for hours. Searching every train on the Jubilee Line, one train after another, carriage by carriage,… trying to find you. I have to tell you something…"
The tingling sensation on my back has now reached my head, and I am beginning to feel a little bit light headed. I sway to my right, and nod to the Professor just as the train begins to slow down, light flooding into the carriages again from the new station outside.
Lewisham North.
The doors are opening now, and Sarah is beside me, grabbing hold of me. Kissing me.
"JAMES, DON’T DO IT! PLEASE…"
Dizzy. I am dizzy. This is it. It's going to happen. I can feel it. Stronger this time than any of the times before.
…It's starting…
I look up at the sign on the wall, and push myself gently but firmly away from Sarah.
"Sarah, please. Don’t hold on to me…"
"James, don’t go. Don't go. Jamessssss, I'mmmmmmm…"
But already it has begun to happen, and the 'Lewisham North' sign on the wall has begun to shimmer, to fade and blink in and out, and dimly I hear Sarah's speech beginning to slur, the word 'I'm' getting deeper and deeper as time begins to slow, and like the Doppler effect, her beautiful female voice becomes more like a man's.
I step away from her, the tube doors immediately in front of me, open, ready, clear, the final word in Sarah's sentence grinding to a halt, the last letters stretching out, incoherently, the meaning of the word almost frozen into the air between us.
"…ppprrrrreeeeeegggggggggnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn………………".
And then, in an instant there is perfect quiet around me. Time has stopped, and Sarah is lifeless, a wax dummy, her eyes glazed and dull, her lips, solid and motionless...and perfect..., her hands reaching out to me, a single, solitary tear caught frozen on the side of her cheek and sparkling brightly in the light.
Now. Now is the time. I must go. I must make the jump. My final chance to go home is here, just as the Professor promised. I must do it NOW!
I step towards the open door, the sign on the tunnel wall beyond, now reading Canary Wharf.
Canary Wharf!
I lift my foot to make the step, to step off the train, to cross from this world back to my own, from this life back to my real life. To my real family.
"James, I'm pregnant!"
Sarah's final words come rushing together in my mind, my subconscious speeding up the long drawn out syllables and sounds, and replaying them back inside my brain at normal speed.
"James, I'm pregnant!"
My body freezes halfway through the door, paralyzed by the revelation, and I am left standing at the crossroads between my two lives.
Sarah is pregnant!
PREGNANT!
Ohhhh, ...sssssssshiiiiiiitttttttt!
At the threshold between my two worlds, between the two women that I love, …I hesitate.
What to do? What to do?
Quick man, move. Don’t stop. Don't wait. Go now! Go. NOW!
GO. GO. GOOOO!!!!!!!
Another moment of hesitation. And then the voice within me again, shouting at me, my heart pounding in my chest, my eardrums pulsing with the blood pumping in my head.
Go MAN, GO! Before it's too late…
I turn a little, glancing quickly at Sarah, my eyes running from her face down her body to her stomach. Her womb. The womb where she will nurture the third child she will bear for me. My third child!
A realization dawns on me now, a sudden understanding, and my heart quickens�
��
Sarah will bear for me in this life, the child that she could not give me in the other! Our third child together.
And then another thought. One that shakes me to the core…
What if it's a son?
A son!
What if he's the boy I have always yearned for?
What if he's my son… Peter!?
And then another.
What if something happens during the pregnancy, …like before…? Can I go through all that pain again? ...What if I stay in this world, and then the baby does not survive...?
But what if he does survive?...
What if…?
How do I make a decision? How do I balance one life against another? My family in the other world, versus my future family in this one... How do I chose?
I look back through the doorway and glance into the other world beyond.
I see a woman walking along the station platform, away from me, her back turned, two little girls in tow. Two little girls, beautiful girls, just like Keira and Nicole. Laughing. Happy. Their father nowhere in sight.
The elder one…Keira? ...Is it truly Keira???…looks over her shoulder and for a moment our eyes meet. We stare at each other for a second in time that seems to stretch itself out and stop, and in that instant something is exchanged between us.
Then she smiles.
And in this moment of absolute clarity, I know what to do.
I close my eyes, block out the 'What If's?' that have brought me to the brink of destruction and taken me from one world to another, and take one simple step.
I take a step away from one world, towards the other. Into my future.
And when the doors close a few seconds later, I am home.
In the world I belong.
..
The End
If have you enjoyed this book and you would like to find out what has happened
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A Personal Note from the Author
"Hi,
Thanks for reading this novel. I am really flattered that you chose one of my books to read, from all of the millions of books on Amazon. I hope you enjoyed it. I would love to hear from you if you did! You can contact me on [email protected] .
Before moving on, may I ask you if you know anyone who has dyslexia? If you do, you may wish to let them know about “Who Stole My Life?”. For some reason, people with dyslexia are able to read this book. Over the years I have been contacted by many people who read this book when it was called “London 2012 What If” and who do have dyslexia and have never been able to read a book before…until this book. This was the first book they have ever read and it has changed their life! I don’t know exactly why this book has that special power,…maybe it’s because of the short sentences and descriptions of places and scenes that help paint a picture in a person’s mind…I don’t know…but it does work. So, please, share this with anyone who might benefit from it, and please ask them to write to me if they do read it and enjoy it!
Moving on, I am a relatively new author, and some of you may not have heard of me before you purchased this book. If you did enjoy it, may I ask you personally if you would consider writing a review on Amazon, telling others what you thought? Positive reviews can really help new books and new authors succeed and could really help others to decide whether or not to purchase a book. Writing a review is easy. All you have to do is go to the Amazon book page you bought the book from and scroll down to where it says, "Customer Reviews: Write a Customer Review".
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Good luck with your next choice of book!
Kind regards,
Ian C.P. Irvine.
P.S. Please email me if you did enjoy the story!
Question to debate with others in your Book Club
Who Stole My Life? is an ideal novel for book clubs to debate and discuss: it touches upon many themes, and raises many questions. Readers are affected by the story in many different ways, depending upon their individual life experiences.
If you have enjoyed Who Stole My Life? the following are a list of questions or themes that you might want to debate or discuss within your book club. There are no correct or incorrect answers, but if you do come to any conclusions and would like to share them with the author, please email him your thoughts and book club's conclusions at [email protected]. Alternatively, if you would like a list of these questions in a word document to share with your friends, please email me and request it.
Q1: What happened at the end of the book? -"I take a step away from one world, towards the other."- In which direction did James step?
Q2: By the end of the story, which world was James's real world?
Q3: Where should James's priorities lie: with his existing family and two daughters, or with his as yet unborn son?
Q4: Given that the scenario of “Who Stole My Life?" is possible, does sleeping with Sarah in the new world constitute being unfaithful to Sarah in the other world?
Q5: What should James have done? Should he have stayed, or should he have made 'the Jump?'
Q6: What would you have done, if you had been in his shoes and you had to make that choice?
Q7: We all dream of other lives. Is that healthy?
Q8: Both worlds shared a common past. What year did the two worlds diverge in? Can you work it out?
Q9: What do you think happened to the James in the old world? Where did he go...?
Q10: If you were Sarah, in the old world, and James disappeared for a year, and then suddenly turned up again, would you take him back?
Q11: Do you think that parallel worlds exist?
Other Things for you to think about…
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Who Stole My Life? Page 46