Prologue
Ghost writers usually pen the words for some celebrity who thinks he or she has a good story but can not get the right words onto paper. Ghost writers know how to apply adjectives, adverbs and subjunctive clauses to make the often dull story attractive to the reader. In this instance, the ‘ghost’ is the writer and I merely tapped the computer keyboard for him. This is Fletcher’s story.
Fletcher Blair introduced himself to me on a dreary autumn day when I was struggling with my first novel, the infamous writer's block having grown in the past weeks to a point where I was losing ground. I was editing out more of my old words than I was producing new words. When I look back now it is amazing how, in the matter of a few weeks, I was able to write a complete book on a subject that I had never considered. I had often heard writers say that sometimes the 'character' just appropriates the writing of the book and now I understood what they meant. Maggie, my wife, thought I was insane for those hectic weeks, but she showed a singular degree of tolerance, hoping that my relationship with the ghostly Fletcher Blair would end as suddenly as it began. You see, I only met Fletcher about a year after he died.
In a very short time, he gave me most of the details of his life preceding his death - and what happened after he died. Fletcher explained how the experiences after his wife died had prepared him for what was to come. Ivy had returned to tell him about the afterlife. Thomas had added confirmation. Now Fletcher wanted me to tell his story so everyone could be ready for the after-life, the after-death experience.
The question of what happens to us after death has been around for as long as we have been able to put two thoughts together. Every philosopher, every prophet, every teacher has had one answer or another, none of them entirely satisfactory to me. I had come to the conclusion that nothing happened to us after death, that we only lived for the moment and were gone. I admit I had some difficulties with the physics of this premise because I thought there was some energy to my being which needed an accounting for, but I had explained that away by acknowledging that humankind's understanding of physics is not as complete as we might like to believe. My thoughts on this subject were not that different from Fletcher’s. Perhaps that is how he found me.
Fletcher Blair and Thomas Three Toes have resolved those questions for me with their thinking on quantum mechanics, formative causation and parallel universes. Their Extremely Small Particles Theory makes some sense to me.
Oh, by the way, Thomas is a cat.
I know, I know - cats can’t talk. I used to believe that.
I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it. Genesis
Chapter One
If my story has an exact beginning, and I am not certain that it does, it might well be that moment when Ivy suddenly sneezed three times in a row. My uncertainty stems from my experiences with the events surrounding her death and what followed. I had a small problem with time. Three quick, little sneezes that sounded more like a cat's sneeze. We used to laugh about her little sneezes, sneezes that are typical of many women. Compared to my usual one hearty blast that would shake the furniture, Ivy was a quiet sneezer. When I sneeze, I say ARussia!", as my grandfather used to do. It adds a little character to a great sneeze.
That was about a year ago now. I say 'about', because lately, time has taken on a different meaning for me. It was July, hot and humid, as it so often is in this southern Ontario city during the long, sultry, dog-days of summer. We were making love, accompanied by the rhythmic noisy-cool humming from the air conditioner. The refreshing breeze tingled our damp bodies as we lay naked on the bed. At our age, lovemaking in the heat of summer had lost some of its appeal unless we had that cooling air. I used to say that I was exuding pheromones but Ivy said it was simply sweat.
Ivy and I had been married for twelve years, twelve very agreeable years. We did not have any children, partly because we were never convinced that we wanted to bring a child into this topsy-turvy world that seemed to contain more doubt than hope for the future of humankind, partly because we were both totally involved in our careers. As the years quickly and silently slipped by, our work had become the focal point of our lives. That seems somewhat trite now, and if we had it all to do over again, we would have had children, at least a boy and a girl, possibly more. But how many of us get that second chance to do it all over again?
Ivy was a kindergarten teacher, so she had considerable fulfilling contact with young children during the week. Ivy loved children, especially the ones who were full of the amazement of life, the ones she could inspire, even at that tender age. She frequently remarked that she was certain that she had more of a positive influence on some of the children than their parents - parents, who, like us, were too busy wasting our lives earning a living at the expense of living.
I was a mechanical engineer with Tech-Can, a small consulting and research firm. My only involvement with the little people was umpiring the Tyke League ball games in the local house league that the City's Recreation Department sponsored every summer at the Lion's Park just down the street from our house. I suppose we were surrogate parents for a few hours every week and that fulfilled our social obligations to the species. Others were more than adequately looking after the propagation of homo sapiens.
We lived in the suburbs, not too distant from the downtown shopping yet near enough to the ever-receding countryside to still have a hint of open space and greenery. There was the inevitable shopping mall, approximately a dozen blocks from our house, that same boring, ordinary mall with its identical, franchised shops that is in every city. Down the street, to the east, at the corner of Willow and Banks, there is a 24-Hour conveniently high-priced store where I get the milk and bread when I forget to stop at Foodland in the mall.
The mortgage on the house was manageable on both our salaries with enough left over for a respectable investment portfolio designed to let us both retire when we were fifty-five. We had a small number of shares in Seagram’s, Bell, and we had fortunately managed to purchase some Chrysler stock when it was low - just before Lee Iacocca took over and tripled our investment for us. We spent one week during the winter basking in the warm sunshine on one or another of the Caribbean islands and a ritual two weeks in the Muskokas feeding the local mosquitos every July. I suppose you could classify us as well-to-do, upper middle class. White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestants would be a title some might apply except that I would take exception to the "Protestant".
I said, "God bless you. Are you catching a cold?"
"No, I just feel a little stuffed up. Maybe I’ll take a sinus pill," Ivy said as she headed for the bathroom.
I remember that Ivy had complained of having a slight fever earlier that evening at dinner. We both thought it was merely from too much sun because she had spent the whole day working in the vegetable garden. Ivy did have a bandaid on her small finger where she had scratched herself on a rose bush.
Our social life revolved around the Golf and Country Club in the summer and the Racquet Club in the winter months. Ivy was a more accomplished golfer than I, she with a twelve-stroke handicap while I struggled in the upper eighties. She had the patience to take golf lessons every year and to practice her chipping and putting at least once a week. I did not have that kind of dedication to the sport. I did have a good tennis backhand that earned me some respect from my opponents on the indoor courts during the long winter months. Our friends at the Club formed a circle of parties and entertainment that kept us just occupied enough with our social life so as not to be tiring or frequent enough to be boring, as often happens in the suburban routine of work and play. During the winter we also cross-country skied. Not that I considered Nordic skiing a better form of exercise than Alpine, but because Ivy was not keen on rushing headlong down a hill, dodging trees, rocks and people while trying to keep some semblance of form and out of the way of rocketing youngsters on snow boards. Besides, there is not a suitable hill for downhill skiing within an hour's drive of our place.
I am a bit of a car buff. A few years ago I finally saved enough money to buy the car of my dreams, a two-year-old 755i that a local lawyer had traded in for a current model. I spent many hours keeping the BMW in spotless splendour. Compared to North American cars, there is not as much chromium on the 755i as say, a Caddie or Lincoln, just enough to really show off the lines and colour. There is no comparison between the paint jobs - the BMW's Forest Green has to be inches thick! Well, when I get an exceptional polish on it, it appears that thick. Ivy drove a two-tone brown Buick Century station wagon that, unless I took the time to clean it, usually looked liked a third place finisher from a mud derby. Ivy was not one for mechanical things of any stripe. I liked all things mechanical, a part of my psyche, I suspect.