The Wheels of Samsara E-Book

Tim Pyke

• Herausgeber: Moonbeam
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 319

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The Golden Age of Man is returning. John is stuck in a rut. With no direction and plodding his way through a seemingly mundane life he is resigned to his boring existence. After being involved in a bombing on the London underground he has a near death experience in which he meets Leela, a divine being. She reveals to him that he has an important role to play in the coming shift of Ages, but he has become lost and must find the right path. Taking up yoga gives him a renewed energy and focus in life. This new path takes him to India where he discovers an ancient temple dedicated to Leela. What he learns there overturns everything he thought he knew. Travelling deep into the south Indian jungle he meets a powerful yogi. With him he learns the secrets of yoga, how to access latent powers through the awakening of his third eye and what his role is in the coming earth changes. Travelling north into the Himalaya John's life will never be the same. Will he complete the quest given to him by the Yogi and help usher in the new golden age?

Leseprobe

The Wheels of Samsara

Tim Pyke

Copyright © Tim Pyke

Publisher: Moonbeam

ISBN 978-3-7375-4711-6

For further information please check my website

Chapter One

Seeing an empty seat John moved quickly, weaving past several people and taking the prize with a relieved sigh. A seat was a rare occurrence on his journey to work; the underground trains in London were always crowded.

He was already late. On arrival at the underground station he realised that he had left his wallet at home. Cursing himself for forgetting it, he ran back. He was sure he had picked it up before leaving, but at his apartment he saw it plain as can be on the kitchen table. Placing it firmly in his pocket he had run back to the station, still adamant he had taken it the first time, but could not argue with the fact it was there at home. Putting it down to tiredness he accepted the momentary lapse in concentration with suppressed frustration. A train pulled into the station just as he arrived for the second time, though now he was quite out of breath.

Hopefully he would not be too late for work, he thought to himself as he glanced at the time on his mobile phone. His boss would not be happy if he were late again.

Picking up a discarded newspaper he flicked through the pages, glancing at each of the headlines in turn; "Car Bomb Explodes in Baghdad...Two US Marines Killed in Afghanistan...Climate Change Real, Ice Caps Melting at Alarming Rate...Flu Pandemic Imminent...Two Men Knifed to Death in Busy Shopping Street...Economic Problems Deepen". He folded the paper shut with indignation, stuffing it behind him. The news was always the same. Bleak stories, only now they seemed more prolific. Reading the headlines was enough, any more would only make his day more depressing, and Mondays were bad enough as it was.

Wearing a slightly worn out blue suit, and a crumpled un-ironed white shirt with accompanying tie stuffed into his jacket pocket, he cut a slightly forlorn figure. His unkempt brown hair, tired blue eyes and the few days’ old stubble on his face only added to the dishevelled look. He did not care though. He did not much like other people and could not care less what they thought of him.

He lived alone in a one bedroom apartment in Stratford, East London. Buying it was his greatest achievement in his twenty-nine years of life. Although it was noisy, grimy and had a high crime level he enjoyed living in the busy environment and his commute to work was significantly quicker than a lot of his colleagues.

Listening to the rhythmical clattering of the carriages, the only noise as the train wound its way to central London, had a hypnotic effect on John. Slouching and with slumped shoulders he took a deep yawn as the train swayed back and forth on its journey. He closed his eyes, thinking back to the weekend just passed.

Meeting up with two friends, Steve and Amit, he had gone for a rare night out. They had known each other since university, where they had all studied engineering together. That was eight years ago now and although they still lived close enough to see each other whenever they wanted, the opportunities to go out were getting more scarce. Amit was married with a child on the way any day now and Steve had been in relationship for almost five years with plans to get married soon. They knew their care free days of youth were fading fast and wanted one last boy’s night out.

They had met in a bar in central London for drinks on the Friday night. After a few hours of laughing and joking they had made their way from the bright lights of the West End to a run down part of South London, to a nightclub that played psychedelic trance music. Arriving just after midnight, they descended into the cavernous basement of a Victorian era factory building.

Discovering the place whilst at university, when they had gone almost every weekend, it was a club they knew intimately. Now however, with different priorities, it had been seven or eight months since they had last been, but the place never changed. The crowd was always friendly and there was never any trouble. The repetitive beats and thundering bass, overlaid with melodic soundscapes, welcomed them back.

Making their way through the thronging crowd of the dance floor to the bar, they each bought a bottle of water. Steve surreptitiously handed the other two an ecstasy tablet. Taking it swiftly, they made their way to a less crowded area.

Sipping water whilst they waited for the pills to have their desired effect, they took in their surroundings. No improvements had been made to the structure of the building, which still showed the bare brick walls and metal columns from when it was built. Hanging fabrics displaying strange fractal-like images painted in reds, blues, greens and yellow decorated the walls. With ultraviolet lights shining on them they appeared to glow luminously. A video projected graphics on to a white sheet hanging from another wall depicting a journey through some imagined atmosphere of an alien planet.

The crowd loved every minute of it, waving their hands in the air whilst gripping glow sticks, jumping and dancing. The majority were young people; late teens and early twenty-something’s, many dressed in luminescent clothing glowing under ultraviolet lights. The pungent smell of sweat and alcohol hung heavy in the air. The array of rapidly changing lights were shining down on the crowd, and the green lasers cutting through the smoke being generated from a machine somewhere, had a mesmerising effect.

Waves of energy rushed through John's body as the pills took effect. He and his friends made their way into the seething mass of dancing bodies until they were in the midst of the crowd, where they began dancing. It was as if all individuality were lost. The people moved like they had morphed into a single creature, with a hundred heads and twice as many thrashing arms moving as one, unified by the music. When the DJ mixed in a classic tune the crowd went even crazier. Surges of euphoria coursed through John, bringing on a contented bliss. He forgot his boring everyday worries.

Before they knew it the night was over. Exiting the club they returned once more to the mundane world and the harsh reality of a Saturday morning. The sun had just risen. Everything seemed so alien compared to where they had been. People walking their dogs or going to buy the morning papers gave them disapproving looks, or so they perceived.

They took a taxi back to the sanctuary of John's apartment in East London, talking and laughing about the great night they had together. The highlight of which was when a man in a suit of many mirrors stood on a podium and lasers were pointed at him, deflecting off in multiple directions.

Inside John’s apartment they collapsed on to the sofa, rolled some joints and listened to down-tempo chill out music. The tiredness and confusion eventually took its toll, and Steve and Amit left about midday. John relaxed, smoking cannabis and watching television for the rest of the weekend, as he did most weekends. The inevitable come-down brought on a flurry of depressing thoughts. He felt that opportunities in life were slowly slipping away from him. His friends seemed to be getting on with their lives okay but he felt stuck in a pointless cycle of wanting to be intoxicated when sober and sober when intoxicated. Directionless, he knew he was just drifting through life, but he lacked the motivation to do anything about it.

Opening his tired eyes as the train pulled into a station his gaze was instantly drawn to a woman standing on the opposite platform. With a pretty face and charcoal black hair flowing over her shoulders he was immediately struck by her beauty. Thinking she looked Mediterranean or Middle Eastern, John could not keep his eyes off her. Wearing jeans and a fastened green raincoat that hugged her slight curves, she was perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. In that moment he understood what people meant when they said their heart skipped a beat or they felt love at first sight; his breath was literally taken away.

With a pensive look on her face she seemed deep in thought, her left hand caressing a small stone attached to a necklace. John’s wide-eyed stare became more intense, his whole body alert, and he leant slightly in her direction. Then, quite unexpectedly, she glanced towards him, taking him by surprise. Her alluring almond shaped emerald eyes met with his. Time seemed to stand still as they looked at each other. The world around him melted away until only she remained.

A strange feeling of knowing her came to John, as if they had some kind of deep connection. A distant familiarity stirred in the hidden recesses of his mind but it seemed just beyond reach. Like vague echoes from another time, faint images of her flittered at the edge of his memory, never quite reaching the point of recognition. Quite unexpectedly, a fleeting vision entered his mind of him and this woman sitting around a huge fire. There were many other people, all side by side in a huge circle. He and this woman turned to face each other. As their eyes met he again found himself back sitting on the train looking at her on the platform.

The spell was broken by the bleeping of the closing doors. She smiled at him and gave a little wave. John was shocked; this kind of thing didn't happen to him. Thoughts frantically swirled in his mind. Do I know her? Maybe I met her on a night out somewhere and what was that strange vision? It felt like a memory of some kind, but he knew he had never been in a situation like that. Concluding that his imagination must have gotten the better of him, he put it down to tiredness and the drugs still swirling within his system. By the time his sense returned the train was on its way.

Shall I get off at the next stop and go back to look for her? he thought to himself, but his malaise quickly returned. What would be the point; she would be long gone by then. This is London, what are the chances of seeing her again. Better to leave it at that, a pleasant experience for a drab Monday morning.

The train continued its onward journey towards central London, but he kept thinking of the woman. She looked about twenty-five to thirty years of age and she obviously recognised him from somewhere. Racking his mind, he reasoned that he must have met her at some rave or party, but surely he would remember someone so beautiful. He vowed that if he saw her again he would make sure he talked to her.

In an effort to stop obsessing about her he glanced around at his fellow passengers. All were engrossed in their own little worlds. Some were reading newspapers or books, others played games on their phones and many were listening to music through headphones. Nobody talked and everybody avoided eye contact, that's the way he found that people like it in London. People from all over Britain and the world were crammed into this small carriage on their way to work or somewhere else, briefly stuck together and ignoring each other. John found this thought amusing and a wry smile broke his blank expression. Across the walls of the carriage some fool had scrawled unintelligible graffiti, whilst food and drink packaging rolled among people's feet.

Letting out another weary sigh, his thoughts drifted to the tedious day ahead of him. Working at the telecommunications company had been exciting to begin with, but after a couple of years he became bored with the humdrum routine of producing reports and attending dreary meetings. He lacked the motivation to look for something else or to try and progress at the company. When he had been young he always fancied that he would do something interesting like be an archaeologist travelling the world or an astronomer exploring the universe, but life had a funny way of turning out. He fell into this job after university and now with a mortgage, bills and loans to pay he was too financially trapped to drop everything and start again. He resigned himself to this drudgery.

Keeping social interaction to a minimum at work, listening to music on his headphones, he got his work done and was typically out of there as quickly as possible. He did not want to be involved in the petty gossiping and the games that invariably went on in the workplace. He had always been a quiet, observant and dry-humoured guy. His colleagues probably thought he was dull and strange, but other people's opinions had never bothered him. All that mattered was that the job paid the bills, but beyond that he had no interest in being there. Nobody he knew enjoyed their work and this was his contribution to the pointlessness of existence. Secretly he longed for someone or something to show him the way in life, a meaning and purpose to it all, but as time went on that hope slipped away and the direction eluded him.

As the tube train pulled into Liverpool Street station an image of the mysterious woman again crossed his mind. The deep feeling of knowing her again haunted him as if just beyond his grasping perception. A woman had never seized his attention so thoroughly as this in all his life. He had not been bothered to get involved in a relationship for a long time, not since he was studying for his A-Levels when the girl he had been in love with for over a year cheated on him with his so called best friend, humiliating him in front of his classmates. Now he enjoyed being single, and every so often he would meet a woman who was only interested in one thing and that suited him fine. He liked being able to do what he wanted, whenever he wanted. He was glad not to be tied down, nagged at and arguing all the time, as it appeared to be with his friends and their partners. It was probably a fear of commitment, but he preferred to be on his own all the same.

Two young women boarded the train and stood right in front of him, discussing their weekend. They talked about what people were wearing, and they were laughing at how wasted they had been on Saturday night. The train pulled slowly out from the station.

In the next instant a blinding flash of light and an ear splitting explosion filled the carriage. Mushrooming waves of smoke and flames punched John out of his seat, throwing him twisting through the train like a rag doll until he hit something.

It had all happened so fast and been so loud that he was completely disorientated. Now an eerie, deathly silence hung in the air. John lay where he had been thrown for what felt like an eternity. The claustrophobic darkness gripped him in a vice like state of confusion and dread. He could not comprehend what had happened or where he was exactly. Slowly moving his right arm, an excruciating pain shot across him. A large clunking sound broke the silence as the emergency lights came on in the tunnel. A scene of utter devastation was revealed to his terrified eyes.

The carriage had almost been ripped in half. Bodies lay strewn about the place, many with horrific injuries. Intense fear rapidly grew inside John, leaving him gasping for what little air there was. Overwhelmed, he could not even scream, although inside he was petrified. The buckled, twisted metal of the train was splattered and stained with the blood of so many people. The scene looked so surreal that John could still not quite comprehend what had actually happened.

‘HELP ME!’ a man's voice screamed out from somewhere. ‘Somebody please help me,’ the disembodied voice trailed off into despair. He knew nothing could be done for him. There was no help.

Other voices began to yell. Cries of anguish echoed throughout the tunnel. A woman wailing in agony stared with a look of horror etched on her face at her legs, or at least what was left of them. They were now a mass of flesh, blood and bone. A man writhed on the floor clutching his head with bloodied hands, letting out muffled screams. Body parts were strewn about the place. Ripped from their owners, they no longer looked real. So many bodies lay about the place, too many to count.

As the realisation of what had happened came to John, he looked down at his right arm. A shard of metal had gone right through it and was still embedded there. Another gasp of panic and John slowly got his breathing under control by taking long deep breaths. The lifeless bloody body of one of the women, who minutes earlier had been discussing how drunk she was at the weekend, lay over his legs. An intense throbbing pain began to radiate from the back of his head, increasing with each wave. Lifting his hand to that point he touched the area where the pain seemed to be coming from, a violent spasm shook his entire body. Grimacing, he brought his hand back down. It was covered with blood. His blood. The paralysing fear again tightly gripped hold of him.

At the other end of the carriage, flames licked at what remained of the train, slowly filling the area with thick, black acrid smoke. John knew he had to somehow get out of there. He pushed the bloodied corpse from his legs and pulled himself over to where the blast had ripped a hole in the carriage. As he crawled towards the opening he tried desperately not to look at any of the bodies. Blocking the shrieking from his mind, his whole being was concentrated on getting out of there. He pushed the guilt of not being able to help anybody from his mind. It was all he could do to get himself away from the choking smoke and overwhelming scene of devastation.

Battling through the waves of pain, he pulled his bloodied body across shattered glass, out over the mangled metal and wires, and then, after a small drop, he was laying on the floor of the tunnel. Seeing that the tunnel was quite wide at this point provided the briefest feeling of relief, because at least he could get away from the suffocating smoke. With the last reserves of his strength he hauled himself as far as he could away from the carriage, perhaps two or three meters. The pain was becoming almost unbearable but once out of the buckled carriage and away from the choking smoke he found he could breathe a little more easily.

Lying there on the hard concrete floor he wanted to scream, but the energy was ebbing away from him, draining out into the surrounding darkness. His eyelids felt heavier and heavier and tears ran down his cheeks. He didn’t want to die.

With his consciousness slipping away, a gentle vibration began emanating from his chest, rapidly gaining momentum. Perhaps it's a heart attack, he thought to himself, brought on by the trauma he had just gone through and had witnessed. He could feel his heart beating faster and faster until he thought it might burst out of his chest. Sweat streamed down his face and all over his body. It was becoming harder to breathe again.

A buzzing sound consumed his attention, but he was unsure exactly where it was coming from. Laying there in a state of confusion, he was unsure if the sound was internal or external to his mind. It became louder and faster with each passing second. Images of his life flashed through his mind like a slide show, rewinding back through his memories.

He saw himself moving into his apartment, getting his first job, drunken nights and lazy days at university, going to school, messing about with friends, being at primary school, a whole range of emotions he had felt - and the emotions he had made other people feel, both good and bad - surged through him. Then the realisation that he had done nothing of any usefulness or interest came to him. Now that I'm about to die, what a waste I've made of my life, he thought calmly.

The buzzing sound had built up so much that it was now more of a roar, as if he were next to an enormous waterfall. Briefly he thought he could smell some sweet floral fragrance, but dismissed it as delirium. Then, with a deafening sound akin to a bell ringing, his body convulsed and he found himself - or at least his awareness - at a point several meters above his battered body.

John's disembodied awareness observed the body below him, his body. A strange calmness and sense of wellbeing was all he felt. It was if he were watching a movie, and none of what he saw looked real. He was able to know what was happening in all directions. Instead of seeing things through his eyes as normal, in this state he was able to look into everything all at once. Focusing at one of the bodies laying in the wreckage he instantly knew the person’s name was Colin. An author, he had come to London to visit a friend for the day. He had a wife and two children. He was not going to survive his injuries. It was too disturbing to look at anyone else so he focused back on to his body. John could see a large gash across the back of his head and the shard of metal still protruding from his bloodied arm. He looked away quickly. He was drowning in information coming from everywhere. It was too much for him to cope with.

The sounds of the approaching rescue teams reverberated along the tunnel. Just above one of the dead bodies he noticed a small flash of light, then another over a different one. Somehow he knew that these were the souls of the deceased departing from the world. I must be dead, he thought to himself, but the idea did not scare him, in fact all the pain and fear he had felt previously was now gone, replaced with a tranquil calmness.

His attention was then drawn to a light which appeared to be coming from every direction at once. It was racing towards him, coming so fast that within seconds it consumed him and with a large flash he found himself accelerating through a strange kind of tunnel. The walls were made of what he imagined to be a pulsating liquid light scrolling in a kaleidoscope of colours. It felt as if he were descending on the fastest rollercoaster imaginable. The speed was overwhelming. Then in the next moment he felt that he was soaring amid dancing colourful fractals. The shapes were repeating in a flowing motion, surrounded by millions of stars, glistening like shimmering diamonds.

Adrift on this ocean of light, all concept of time escaped him. He had no idea how long he had been in this dimension of changing geometric patterns. There was no way to distinguish between a second or eternity. Soon everything slowed down until there came a point where he was surrounded by a pure, brilliant white light, brighter than a thousand suns. A feeling of intense joy washed over him. As he savoured this serene quiet stillness he became aware that he was once again in a body, but not like the one he had left behind. This one was as if it were constructed of light and utterly weightless. He looked at his hands. They were semi transparent, and he could see some kind of fluid like substance flowing through them, like blood, but he sensed it was more like energy.

How did I get here? Is this heaven? he wondered. As he tried to make sense of what was happening the white light surrounding him began to gently swirl, other colours slowly began to blend in with it.

Chapter Two

The swirling multi-coloured light briefly formed geometric patterns. Slowly the mist of light began to coalesce into solid shapes around John. Then, after a few moments, he realised he was standing on a ground of sand and pebbles. He found himself on a deserted beach.

Quite startled to find that he was in such a familiar type of environment, he frantically looked about him. The beach seemed real, mainly sand with a few pebbles strewn about the place. To one side the gentle sea lapped up against the shore. To the other the beach continued for several meters, approaching a steep cliff reaching up thirty or more meters towards the sky. The beach extended as far as he could see in both directions. He was completely alone, no people, no animals, no birds, only the gentle breeze and a few scattered clouds. The soothing sound of the rolling waves was all he could hear. Breathing in the fresh sea air, he began to walk as he tried to figure out where he was and why he was here.

A couple of minutes later John recognised this place. His parents had brought him here when he was a young boy, on their family holidays. It was somewhere on the west coast of Scotland, but he struggled to remember the name. It had been a long time since he thought about those holidays. The memories of those times were replaced by countless others, but not completely forgotten.

They had holidayed here three years in a row. The first time was when he was aged about seven or eight. As he looked around he remembered how they had rented a cottage up on the cliff top. He recalled how he had played on the beach and what a magical, wild adventurous place it had seemed to his innocent young mind. One time, his father had taken him out fishing on a small tug boat skippered by an old man with a weather beaten face, a tough and craggy looking vessel. Being out on the sea so far from land had been exciting. He had found it fascinating that a whole different world, with its own creatures, existed just beneath the waves. Seeing dolphins leaping up from the water in the wake of the boat had been amazing. Between them they had caught several fish and had cooked them back at the cottage the same evening. Just thinking about it brought back the fresh taste of them.

Crouching down he picked up one of the pebbles that lay scattered about the place, examining it closely in his palm. Even though it was a dull grey colour, it seemed as if it were made from some exotic crystal, and its smooth surface shone in the midday sun. He sensed that in some intangible way the stone was conscious of its own and his existence, that it knew what it was. He thought how spiritually perfect it looked, as if this were how all pebbles should be. Glancing out over the sea he threw the stone in such a way that it bounced several times across the calm water before disappearing beneath the waves. So many times he had done that with his father, competing with each other to see who could get it to bounce the most times. Remembering these innocent times filled him with a sense of calmness and joy.

Closely observing his surroundings again, he realized how everything about him seemed to radiate a serene inner glow. It appeared to be projected with a heightened sense of clarity and he felt a part of it all. The vivid blues of the sea and the vibrancy of the sand stood out in all their glory. He had total awareness of the scene. He felt as if he had awoken from a dream, that this was reality. That the world he had just come from was some strange convoluted hallucination.

Wandering along the beach he thought about how he got here. His body seemed to be his own, but he knew it was not. His body lay near the broken wreckage of the tube train. He was wearing the same clothes, only now they were clean again, not torn and covered in blood and dust as he had last seen them. On his way to this place he was unaware of having a body at all. It was as if he had become a single particle of awareness catapulted through some bizarre tunnel. Perhaps I'm dead, he again thought to himself. However, looking at his arms and hands they seemed no different than before. In fact, the closer he looked the more he could see how alive his body really was. He could sense a kind of energy pulsating through him, the same as he had observed in the serene light before arriving on the beach, but now hidden by his flesh. He felt more alive than he had ever felt before.

His attention was then drawn to a figure in the distance staring out across the sea. John was sure it was not there a moment ago. He looked about, but there was no one else. How did they get there so quickly? he wondered. The beach continued for miles in each direction and the cliff was too high to descend. As he cautiously approached he could tell that it was a woman. Her hair was iridescent, almost rainbow like, the colours shifting the closer he got. She was wearing a long flowing saffron coloured dress, rippling in the gentle breeze.

‘Hello. Who are you? Do you know where we are?’ John hesitatingly enquired from a distance of a few feet. He did not want to startle the person.

The woman turned to face him. Her skin shone with a pure white brilliance, as dazzling as a million diamonds. Her tender, angular features conveyed loving warmth. Calmness emanated from her deeply penetrating violet eyes. He smelt a faint perfume, a beautiful flowery scent, similar to that which he smelt as he lay dying in the underground tunnel.

‘Hello John, I'm Leela,’ she said, although John heard her benevolent voice telepathically; her lips did not move. ‘I created this place from your memories so you wouldn't be fearful. Don't worry, you are safe.’

‘How do you know my name? Am I dead? Is this heaven?’ John said hurriedly, and asking with a tone of acceptance, since he assumed this was the case.

‘No, you're not dead,’ she replied as a smile broke across her face. ‘Your spirit has merely been detached from you material body.’ She stood perfectly still; her graceful posture seemed to radiate peace.

‘My material body? Then what’s this body I’m in now?’ John said with some confusion as he gently struck his chest.

‘This is your spirit body,’ she said pointing at him. ‘Both are constructed as outward projections of your mind. This one is how your mind currently sees itself. Your material body develops through your life, a kind of reflection of your mind. The spiritual body you retain through all your lifetimes.’

‘Why am I here? Why did you bring me here?’ he said rapidly, as he paced back and forth in front of Leela.

‘You are here because you have an important role to play in the future evolution of the human race. However, you've been following the wrong path. Leading an unhealthy life for your mind and body, you have not been living to your potential. I arranged events so that you would be on that particular train because you were being distracted from your destiny. You needed your world shaken,’ her soothing voice explained, imparting a momentary sense of peace within John.

John thought back to the moment where he realised he had forgotten his wallet on his way to work that morning. Had this woman, if he could call her that, made him forget it, or had she mysteriously moved it from his pocket back to his apartment, he wondered.

‘Yes, I made you forgot your wallet so that you would have to return to your apartment, and thus be on that particular train,’ Leela said, reading John’s mind.

‘You knew that train was going to explode, but did nothing to stop it?’ John asked, a little irritated, staring at Leela in disbelief.

‘There is much you can’t understand at this point. Just know that all that happens does so for a reason. Had you been following the right path you would not have been anywhere near that train.’

‘What path is that? What do you mean?’ John said, shaking his head.

‘I have told you enough already. The time is near for a great change upon the Earth. Get back to your rightful path and you will find it for yourself.’

‘But I don’t know what my path is, what am I meant to be doing?’ he said desperately.

‘You do know, it’s just that you have forgotten,’ Leela said cryptically.

She knelt down, scooping up a handful of sand.

‘Now it's time for you to return. Do not fail in your quest.’

‘What quest? Wait, I still don’t know what I should be doing,’ John said, still agitated and confused.

He didn’t want to leave this place, he felt like a lost child who’d finally been reunited with its mother, and he had so many questions. He watched as Leela let the sand fall slowly through her fingers to the ground. He saw the granules of sand descending back to the beach when he suddenly felt himself pulled back into the tunnel, just as he had at the beginning of this strange encounter. Faster and faster he sped through the kaleidoscopic passage. Swirling geometric patterns swarmed about him until with a jolt he found himself looking straight down at someone in a bed surrounded by machines and monitors.

He realised that it was his body. His parents were both sat in chairs to one side of the bed. This must be a hospital, he thought. His father was asleep, his mother was staring into space with a sad expression on her face, just as he was about to try and call out to her there was a flash of light and he found himself back inside his body.

It was a strange sensation to be back in the constricting confines of this heavy mass of flesh and bone. Slowly he opened his eyes. The eyelids felt as if they were made of lead and it took all his effort to open them. Looking about him everything seemed dull, lifeless and superficial. It was all lacking the vitality from the place where he had just come from.

His mother looked over at him and let out a scream of joy. She rushed over to hug him, and his father awoke abruptly. It felt good to see his parents and feel their love towards him, but he could not shake the melancholy that filled him. Being back in this false approximation of what he knew reality to really be was a little depressing.

Chapter Three

‘What happened?’ John asked his father after his parents had stopped fussing over him.

‘A bomb exploded on your train carriage,’ his dad replied in a quiet tone, pausing before choosing his words carefully, ‘Thirty four people were killed, many more were injured. You’ve been unconscious for nearly two days. It's a miracle you weren’t killed or more badly wounded. The government said it was Islamic extremists. They’ve arrested quite a few people, although so far no one has claimed responsibility.’

‘Two days?’ John exclaimed, as his eyes widened. It felt to him that the whole experience, from the train to now, had only lasted ten minutes at most.

‘Yes, we were worried that you might slip into a deep coma,’ his mum said joining the conversation. Her shaky voice struggled to say the words. ‘When the paramedics got to you they thought you were dead. In the hospital they were able to detect the faintest signs of life. Thankfully you are back with us,’ she continued as she gripped John’s hand tightly, wiping tears from her eyes with the other hand.

John decided not to say anything about what had happened to him after the explosion. He could not be sure whether or not it was all just a strange dream, perhaps brought on by the rush of adrenaline or the painkiller drugs the paramedics must have administered to him. Besides, he did not want to give his parents any more reason to worry, by thinking that he was now going insane.

A nurse entered the room and began checking him over. Shining a light into each of his eyes and ensuring the drip and EEG machine were giving normal readings.

‘Back in the land of the living I see?’ she said with a friendly smile.

‘Hhmmm...’ John replied, thinking about the irony of the statement. If anything it felt as if he were back in the land of sleep. Everything looked so fake and plastic.

‘Well, your injuries have healed very quickly, much faster than I have seen before. You must be very fit and healthy for your body to recover so fast. The ward manager says we will keep you here for one more night and then you can go home tomorrow,’ she said in her cheerful cockney accent as she left his bedside to tend to other patients.