World in a Grain

By Jeremy Shaw

Two lovers research the neuroscience of near death experiences for a new, best selling e-book on the Afterlife.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483501178

Book preview

about.

1.

Emily Firefox and I were brought together by my father’s first cardiac arrest. It seems strange that we had not met before. Her research interests were so close to my father’s and he had retired to the same place that she grew up. He was walking the dog on the water meadows in the middle of our small market town and she had just gone out for a run. As the hospital assured us, it was her knowledge of resuscitation that saved his life.

According to the story she told so many times afterwards, her writing was going slowly that morning. Until late summer, completing her PhD had presented her with few problems, but the chapter on Medieval European beliefs had taken her into an area she was less confident about. That is why she had accepted her parents’ offer to spend a fortnight in their house while they were away on holiday in Italy. She had woken early as usual, made herself a pot of tea and switched on her laptop, as she did every morning at university. Normally, at this stage of the redraft, she would complete 2000 words before lunch, but for the previous couple of days, all she had managed was 200. That morning was particularly grim. She had deleted more than she had written. Everybody had warned her that just before the end, she might feel overwhelmed.

She locked her computer at 8:30, got dressed in her jeans and red sweat shirt and jogged down to The Willows, hoping that a run along the stream would help clear her head. She had first developed the habit of exercising as a way of managing the stress of A-levels. It was a bright autumnal day. It had rained in the night and the air was particularly clear. On the south side of the ornamental crab apple and cherry trees that stood behind the children’s swings, some of the leaves were turning orange, but the willows themselves were still grey green. A few dog walkers were about. The older children were going to school, while the mothers of the younger ones had yet to leave their homes.

Emily first saw my father crossing the road into the park. What caught her attention was that he looked too smartly dressed to be walking his dog. He was wearing his camel coat and carrying a furled umbrella. Jake, our Yorkshire terrier, was trotting ahead of him on his lead. As my father came level with the seats by the side of the road, he seemed to stagger. He dropped his umbrella and clutched his left arm. There was little doubt in Emily’s mind that he was suffering a heart attack. He tried to walk the last couple of paces to sit down but just before he could reach the seats, he fell against them. Emily sprinted over to him and by the time she reached him, he was lying on the ground. He was unconscious. There was blood on his forehead and his cheeks were grey. She tapped 999 into her mobile and asked for an ambulance. She told the operator that the patient was a man in his late sixties and that they were on the edge of The Willows, next to the parish church.

Emily quite calmly turned him over and commenced the chest compressions, about 5 centimetres deep and twice a second, just as she’d been shown on her course. She had not been able to feel a pulse and she knew that her actions would be unlikely to restart his heart, but she thought that she might at least be able to maintain blood flow to heart and brain until the paramedics arrived. There is still a fire station in the town where ambulances sometimes park up. Within moments, it seemed, the vehicle drove over the grass and the paramedics took charge.

Defibrillation started less than five minutes after the heart attack. Apparently, my father stirred when his heart restarted, but did not regain consciousness until he was in intensive care. Effectively, as he himself was adamant, he had died in the park and then returned to life, thanks in the main to Emily’s intervention. And it was his gratitude to her that eventually led to her discoveries.

Emily had no idea who my father was at this point, of course. Jake had run off and was sniffing his way round the swings. A lady with a small child brought him back to Emily. She asked if he belonged to her and motioned that Emily had my father’s blood on her face. Normally she has an aversion to dogs, but Emily found the name tag engraved with my parents’ surname and address. She picked up my father’s umbrella and set off to their house. My mother had long since left for work. The cleaner had not yet arrived. And none of the neighbours was at home. So she took Jake back to her own parents’ cottage.

Our telephone number was ex-directory. The advice about lost dogs on the web was quite clear, though: contact the local vet’s surgery. When she had explained her problem, their receptionist told her the name of the school where my mother was Head. She left a message with the Headteacher’s secretary and my mother passed the news on to me in London. I was granted compassionate leave on the spot.

My mother and Emily had a chance for a longer conversation later that morning. By then, Emily had walked Jake to the shops and bought him some food. When I phoned ahead to tell her I would pick up the dog that afternoon, Emily decided she now had an excuse to take a break from her PhD. I drove up to her parents’ cottage in my brother’s red Lotus Esprit, wearing his leather jacket and my ray bans. As I stepped out of the car, she looked straight through me. I know that look so well. I generally translate it as: you may be the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, but you’re not my type.

Jeremy? she asked gravely. How can I help? Do you want to collect the dog straight away or come in for a cup of tea?

In those days, there was still a light trace of Shropshire in her accent. She wore her hair straight and undyed. She had long eyelashes, unplucked eyebrows and no make-up. Her eyes were a piercing light blue. Although she was plainly dressed, there was an elegance about the way she spoke and held herself. She was a little shy of me, I supposed, but somehow intrepid. She had a faintly alarming capacity to guess what was on people’s minds – which in my case in those days was mainly sex.

I smiled and assured that there was no great urgency. According to the latest information from the hospital, my father was still unconscious and in intensive care, but he was doing well. My mother was with him. She had taken the rest of the day off. I caught public transport from where I was working to my brother’s house to pick up the car and throw a few clothes in a bag.

A Louis Vuitton shirt and a Ralph Lauren jacket?

You like clothes?

If only I had the money. I like all kind of things – food especially. I have done some baking. Would you like a jam tart?

You’ve just made them.

Small treats seemed a good idea on a day like this

This pastry is so buttery. And you’ve used home-made made jam? There’s something special about twice baked jam. This would win baking competitions.

And you – do you make anything?

I used to make music. I wasted my teenage years on a band. I wrote the lyrics and sang. We even played here once. Is this your house?

No – it’s my parents’. I’m just looking after it while they are on holiday. My mum is in the Women’s Institute, so it’s her cherry jam. I have done some baking for when they get back.

I was amazed that Emily knew so much about CPR. She made it clear that with a delay of four or five minutes, my father’s long term chances might only be 30%. When I asked her how she could be so definite, she explained that she had taken emergency first aid courses as background to her PhD. She told me that its working title was: The influence of near death experiences on changing understandings of the afterlife. So I was the one who made the connection with my father’s work. The man whose life you might well have saved is interested in NDEs too. He’s Professor Frank Shaw?

Well, well! So you don’t think it’s morbid?

There were no taboos in talking about death in our house. Polkinghorne and Pam Reynolds were breakfast small talk!

She shook her head. How close are you to your dad?

Difficult question.... I’ve been the prodigal son and he has always welcomed me back. He hates debt. He is angry about what it’s done to Africa. When he saw how serious I was about my career, he paid off the overdraft I’d accumulated at university. I didn’t expect him to – he just offered. Nowadays, we Skype a lot. I like to wake up early, and he boots up just as I go online. Just a few minutes chat before the day begins – but – hey – that’s probably more than most fathers and sons.

More than a lot of husbands and wives, she said with the slightest shudder. The mood changed. The bubble burst. She gazed at me so seriously and rose from the kitchen table. So you know that deeply unconscious people may still be able to experience touch and hear words?

That dismissal so reminded me of my father. As a little boy, I knew it meant he’d just had another idea and needed to return to his desk before it slipped away. I thanked her for the tea, looking after Jake and saving my father’s life. I told her I hoped there might be time for her to tell me more about her research. She still held me in that penetrating gaze, but extended her hand for me to shake.

Don’t forget his umbrella.

I untied the dog and assured her I’d be in touch. With many of the women I’ve known, there has been a strong sense of attraction from the moment we met. With Emily, there was something more. I was surprised to find I had tears in my eyes as I rose to go. If she noticed, Emily must have thought they were for my father. But I knew that it was something about her that moved me. She gave a slight shake of her head as she turned to shut the front door. And that’s how we met.

2.

If you Google my father’s obituaries, you will find that he died after a short illness. What that means is he recovered consciousness after his initial heart attack, but succumbed to a second just over a week later. I joined my mother in intensive care that first evening. He was kept sedated for 36 hours. After that he was allowed to sit up in bed, plugged into a monitor and attached to a drip and an oxygen nose clip.

There is a fairly thorough article about his public life on Wikipedia. Originally a biologist specialising in metamorphosis, Frank Shaw resigned his Chair at Oxford and trained as a clergyman. His most important scientific work was done as a young professor in his late twenties, when he made significant contributions to our understanding of the role of serotonin in the life cycles of fungi, insects and amphibians. So far as I understand, it can speed up, slow down and even trigger the transformation of tadpoles into frogs, or chrysalides into butterflies.

Wikipedia focuses on the series of articles he published in his mid sixties. Attracted to the Sea of Faith movement from its earliest days, he had been drawn into theological controversies about the relevance of near death experiences to Buddhist and Christian doctrines. He had seen parallels between the workings of neuro-transmitters and the passage of the human soul through reincarnation and resurrection. These articles were deemed too challenging for the Anglican hierarchy and it was agreed he should retire from the Church.

Relations between my father and me had been strained throughout this period and until quite recently I had assumed this was my fault. My mother always maintained I was brighter than my older brother Jamie, but in my teens, I turned my back on academic success. I stubbornly maintained that book learning was less reliable than direct experience. Anyway, I learned the guitar and joined a band. I suppose I drank pretty heavily throughout my GCSE and A-level years and developed a reputation as a tart. I only did well enough to scrape a place at university and studied Social Work. One of our tutors encouraged us to gain experience as volunteers. I opted for victim support, with a view to joining the police when I left.

My parents obviously had reservations about my career choices. However, our conversations about victim support healed the rift between my father and me, especially after I unexpectedly got a first and was accepted onto a Master’s course. In retrospect, I realised that the theological controversy had put a strain on all of my father’s relationships. He grew happier about me as he became more accepting of his own life.

My father was clearly intrigued by Emily’s role in his resuscitation. He told my mother and me that he had a clear recollection of her wearing a red sweater and blue jeans. He recalled little details about the brightness of that autumnal day and the changing colour of the leaves. And he was struck by the coincidence of their research interests. He asked my mother to contact her and encourage her to visit, but I told them that I’d try to fix something up before I went back to work the next day. For her part, Emily told me she’d be happy to help. She accepted my offer of a lift to the hospital. As we drove in, I told her more about my father and she explained about the problems she had been having wrapping up her PhD.

The crux of the matter will be familiar to all readers of chapter three in The Eighth Age: how much the fear of hell, so clearly demonstrated in medieval poetry, stemmed from the teachings of the Church – and how much from perennial neurological processes. It was clearly in the interests of a clergy that was dependent on peasants’ tithes to keep that anxiety at the forefront of their congregations’ minds – hence the wall paintings of the Last Judgement that decorated so many parish churches. In the twentieth century, hell and its demons had come to appear hopeless superstitions. Even those who still believed in heaven discounted it. Yet, despite all the positive evidence drawn from near death experiences, the dread persists.

By the time we arrived at the hospital, my father had been transferred to a private room in the lowest category of intensive care. A friendly male nurse greeted us and offered to bring us cups of tea. My father looked serene. There was a smile of recognition as I opened the door and ushered Emily in. You’re looking so much better than when I first saw you, Professor Shaw. How is your head? she said, gesturing at the bandage on his forehead. Even though she looked at him so boldly and spoke to him so warmly, the respect in which she held him was clear to me.

You know the ring the Jewish survivors were supposed to have given Schindler at the end of the war?