The Bridge of Lies

By Mathew Grant

Thewlis Mohan is a train driver who has to come to terms with killing an unknown man who falls under his train. This takes him on a journey, searching not only for the one-under’s identity but to understand why he would have committed suicide. This is what the Police claim but he’s not convinced and thinks he was in fact murdered.

And with this, as well maybe…

Thewlis’ incongruous journey reminds him of the past and recaps an incident that happened to his mother when she lived in India and how it changed her direction in life. As things proceed, incidents become intertwined with his brother Saul who has also disappeared and could in fact be linked to the one-under. Thewlis wants answers and he finds them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781728380315

Mathew Grant

MATHEW GRANT lived in Oxford in his early twenties, and spent a few years writing shipping news before moving via London to Rome to work as an online editor. Years later, he's moved on and is doing his novel writing. Two more books are to follow: 'Boarding Gate 3' and 'The Truth Unveils'.

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© 2018 Mathew Grant. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 15 Nov 2018

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8025-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8031-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

SUNDAY

Chapter 1 Moonlight Made to Order

Chapter 2 The Thread of Dark

Chapter 3 Bardo

Chapter 4 Lost in the Moment

Chapter 5 All he Needs is Reassurance

Chapter 6 Not from Her

Chapter 7 Imaginary Voices or Not

Chapter 8 Bardo

Chapter 9 Do People Really Listen

MONDAY

Chapter 10 Bardo

Chapter 11 New Limbo

Chapter 12 Faith in the Land of Gods

Chapter 13 Mistakes do Happen

Chapter 14 Past Memory

Chapter 15 Bardo

Chapter 16 In New Territory

Chapter 17 It’s Good to Hold Things Back

Chapter 18 Books are for Listening

Chapter 19 Trust a Book by its Words

Chapter 20 Linear Time’s Creating the Past

Chapter 21 Identity is Uncertain

TUESDAY

Chapter 22 Bardo

Chapter 23 One-Word Summations

Chapter 24 Whatever Will

Chapter 25 Baby Talk

Chapter 26 Stories of the Expected

Chapter 27 Stories of the Unexpected

Chapter 28 The Wandering Mendicant

WEDNESDAY

Chapter 29 Bardo

Chapter 30 Sex Only Takes a Minute Girl

Chapter 31 Enter the Closet

Chapter 32 Conspiracy in the Basement

Chapter 33 Opening of the Flood Gates

Chapter 34 In Search of the Truth

Chapter 35 One Person’s Reality is Another’s Pretence

Chapter 36 Our Eyes of Deception

THURSDAY

Chapter 37 Bardo

Chapter 38 Green as Grass

Chapter 39 Facing the Past

Chapter 40 Bardo

Chapter 41 Bang, Bang, Kiss, Kiss

Chapter 42 Home is Where the Heart Burns

FRIDAY

Chapter 43 Bardo

Chapter 44 Truth Goes Too Far Sometimes

Chapter 45 Bardo

Chapter 46 Past Light Shines Through

Chapter 47 Fragility of a Crushed Butterfly Wing

Chapter 48 Pace Changes Everything

Chapter 49 Tantra the Western Way

SATURDAY

Chapter 50 Bardo

Chapter 51 The Power of the Rising Sun

Chapter 52 White Washing Covers Cracks

Chapter 53 And the Cycle Continues

Chapter 54 The Novice Initiate

Chapter 55 Knowing the End Before the Beginning

SUNDAY

Chapter 56 Bridging Birth in the Bardo

Chapter 57 Buried Six Feet Under

A WEEK LATER

Chapter 58 Tranquillity until…

For the best people in the world

"Bardo is a Tibetan word that simply means a ‘transition’ or a gap between the completion of one situation and the onset of another. Bar means ‘in-between’ and do means ‘suspended’ or ‘thrown’…"

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – Sogyal Rinpoche

SUNDAY

1

Moonlight Made to Order

When he first meditated on death it disturbed him, but now he is at ease sitting on the railway bridge doing his daily meditation practice. The rail track below is quiet at this time of the morning. It’s an hour before the sun rises. The dogs, birds, and people will wake to rupture the solemnity. The bridge is old and built of red brick, splitting the common in two. The moon above him is covered by a cloak of thin cloud and will soon fall out of sight behind the trees. The sun will rise and take control. His left leg dangles over the edge of the bridge. His other leg is pulled into half-lotus. His eyes are half-closed. He concentrates on his breath. His hands open in the gesture of giving. His thumbs are touching his first fingers, with his left hand resting on top of his thigh and his right hand holding his beaded mala on top of his bent knee.

Death is below.

His thoughts drift away with the thinning of the clouds, allowing the moon’s brilliance to spill closer, almost within touching distance. He feels the gentle change in energy, and his body hairs stand on end. His breath continues to be slow and peaceful.

He is one in the moment.

He is the one.

He realises it’s mid-April and now is the first point in twenty-four hours that he’s been able to meditate without someone bothering him. Previously everyone kept asking him to move on when he was sat on the street. But he was doing nothing wrong. All he wants to do is meditate. He wishes he could have showered, as his dark hair is long, greasy, uncombed, and pushed back. Likewise, his beard is long too and needs trimming. He’s wearing an overcoat with worn jeans and beaten trainers. He’d tried to repair the crack in the left sole with grey masking tape, but it had rubbed down to the glue and made his foot stick to the pavement. It gave him a limp, which made him laugh, but he had to remove the tape. He realises there and then that laughter is the only beauty of living on the street on your own with no friends, family, or help from strangers.

His mind is oblivious to the sounds of the night and the distant whirr of a train’s engine steadily getting louder. He rejoices in the full flood of the moon; there are no more thoughts, only the full glare of the hypnotic blue-white light bouncing off his retinas.

He falls into the light, gentle as a leaf, floating into reality. Then he hits the windscreen. His coat snags on the wiper and as he’s tossed back into the air like a rubber ball, it’s ripped from his body, breaking his arm in the process. The landing cracks his back, breaks both legs, and his ribs pierce his lungs. It doesn’t kill him, but he wishes it had as the sharp muscle spasms through his body and blood pours out through his mouth onto his shirt. He drowns in the pain before pissing and defecating himself.

Strangely, he notices a figure rising out of the light. Its four faces point in four directions. Its eight eyes see everything. It transcends time and space. But the figure is gone as quickly as it had appeared. He realises he is now alone in the bardo, suspended in between worlds of reality. He is floating, formless, above his dead body, ghost-like, unsure what is going to happen next.

2

The Thread of Dark

What the hell happened? shouts Thewlis Mohan as he slams on the brakes of the train. What the hell was that? His heart is racing. He struggles to slow his nerves and steady his breath as he pulls the train to a stop. He thinks he’s about to have a heart attack but that is unlikely. He is a fit, athletic man in his mid-twenties. He picks up the radio.

I have a one-under at Bedford Hill. Please advise, says Thewlis.

He puts the mouthpiece back on the train’s dash and waits for the response. This is his first one-under, and he’s surprised at how calm he is especially after the initial shock of the body hitting the windscreen.

He pauses.

But then his mind starts to wander. His train of thought keeps slipping from the present to the past. This reminds him of the accident his mother had in India when he was a child. He stops himself from thinking about it any further; it reminds Thewlis of his father not wanting him to be a train driver. He felt Thewlis could do better. Thewlis now thinks his father might have been right. He dreads to think what his partner, Rachel, is going to say.

He stops. He shakes his head to get him back to the present. "Calm down. You know the procedure," he says to himself.

He picks up the radio’s mouthpiece again. But he is distracted. Thewlis remembers seeing someone sitting on the bridge, but it never occurred to him that the person would jump. His mind was elsewhere at the time. He’d been thinking about his wedding in two weeks. But when it happened he did nothing to slow the train down. It was a second after the one-under hit the windscreen that he slammed on the brake. He has no idea whether he will be able to explain this to his boss, especially as the main question that keeps coming to his mind, and needs answering, is "Why would someone do this to themselves? Why kill themselves?"

Again, he stops thinking. He doesn’t want to judge himself. He knows the police will treat it as a crime scene. This is all he needs first thing Sunday morning. The train will be delayed for hours while they decide whether the man jumped or was pushed or even if it was an accident. Thewlis will have to do a breathalyser test. Not that he’s had an alcoholic drink this morning. If it had been this time last week, it would have been a different story. Rachel’s birthday celebrations went into the early hours and involved more than drinking.

The signal master breaks his chain of thought.

The section is sealed. The police are on their way. You’re safe to walk the track.

Thewlis makes an announcement over the Tannoy to the passengers. Apologies, we have signal failure, he says, then flicks another switch to speak to the guard to let him know that wasn’t accurate. Thewlis tells him that he’s now in charge, and he’ll check on the one-under.

Before descending to the track, Thewlis pulls an orange hi-vis vest over his jacket, attaches a radio to his collar, picks up a torch, and slings a first-aid kit over his shoulder. The carriages light the track until he gets to the back of the train where it turns black. He is shamelessly scared of the dark especially when alone and when the night stretches into infinity. He’s unsure whether his eyes will adjust, or the gut-wrenching feeling will disappear.

His torch creates a tunnel of light. Its beam enables him to see twenty metres ahead. He sweeps it left to right, trying to increase its reach, but he only creates more shadows. His imagination feeds his insecurity. His heart plays like a violently plucked double bass on a jazz improv night. It’s irrational. He doesn’t believe in ghosts, but there’s something out there. He can feel it.

Thewlis slows, deciding to take smaller, more cautious steps. He doesn’t want to miss anything. He’s looking not only for the body but detached limbs. He read that in the manual. Also, what he read was that bodies in these instances may turn into mulch depending on the speed of the train, and they’re very difficult to find once they’ve been under the wheels. But the train had only been going forty miles an hour, so he acknowledges that the body will potentially still be intact, or so he hopes.

He points the light of the torch into the bush on the left side of the track. The bush is common along this section of rail. He carefully scans the ground without missing a millimetre. He does the same on the right-hand side before moving forward, capturing an abandoned overcoat in the beam. Even though it could be significant, he leaves it, knowing not to touch it as the police will remove it when they get here.

"It could be anyone’s coat, he thinks. He looks at his watch. A minute feels like two hours. The morning is still, but the air is changing. The leaves begin to rustle and appear to become impatient. But he can’t stop himself from saying aloud, You’re not scaring me."

He feels stupid talking to himself. He says into the handset, Thewlis here. No sign of the one-under. Progressing ahead.

Okay, came the perfunctory response.

The realisation jars him. He’s forced to take in the situation whereby he’s looking for the one-under in the dark on his own. He has no medical knowledge, apart from the four-day first aid training, which was nothing more than a master class in applying a plaster.

What if the one-under is still alive? he asks into the radio, hiding the panic rising from the back of his throat. But the voice on the other end doesn’t notice.

Do what you can. You’ve been trained.

Not for this, he says.

Don’t worry. They’re not far behind.

Thewlis is about to say, Who? Have you spoken to them? but instead he switches the radio off, realising he meant the police. Panic isn’t the word he would use to describe his present situation. The word would be desperate. He’s never seen a dead body before. He could always turn back and head to the train again, but it’s too late. He would have to explain himself. He clips the radio back onto his collar and swings the torch. At the edge of its beam is an unusual lump. It can’t be, he says aloud. It’s too far from the bridge. But as he walks closer, he makes out the shape of a body. His pulse and heart are racing. He wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and dries it on his trousers.

The body is in front of him. It looks like the man is trying to touch his toes. But he’s battered. His head is tilted away from Thewlis obscuring the face. A splintered bone protrudes through a ripped jumper. His back is twisted to one side, broken by the force of the landing.

Thewlis again, he says slow and emotionless. Found the body. There’s a pause. Any idea how long the police will be? he asks, hiding this urgency, not wanting to be alone with the body any longer than necessary.

He doesn’t like that there’s no answer. It makes him feel more isolated.

Where are you?

But static is the only reply.

The air is full of the stench of blood. He must check for a pulse. It said so in the manual. He reaches down although it’s obvious that this man is dead. The sight of the blood makes him recoil and retch. He shuts his eyes and tries again, taking hold of the wrist of the unbroken arm. It’s warm, but there’s no pulse. He shines the torch over the body. In this light, the man’s clothes are blackened by blood, and have acted like a sponge and soaked it up. He backs away, crossing to the opposite track, putting some distance between him and the dead man. He instinctively crouches down, putting his left hand on the floor to keep him steady.

Thewlis here. He’s definitely…dead. How long until someone helps me?

Still no reply.

This isn’t funny.

Nothing.

He awkwardly stands up and stares into the undergrowth. He switches the torch off as the darkness is softening. The change of light plants the thought to ring Rachel, and he pulls his iPhone from his back pocket. He checks the time. It’s 6.45 a.m. It’s too late. She’ll be cycling to work. He pauses again. He breathes deep into his diaphragm and stares down the track. The sky begins to turn an iridescent orange–blue, contrasting with the black silhouettes of the trees. He’s sharing the first moments of sunrise with the one-under. He relaxes, understanding he could have done nothing to prevent it. He raises his arms out to the side, hands above his head, asking forgiveness from the sun, sky, and trees. If you can hear me, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stop. It was an accident, he says, not liking the idiocy of this situation. It’s madness talking to the wind and trees. No one is there.

But the leaves whisper back, "It was your fault."

He freezes, unsure he heard anything except the noise, shadows, and confusion in his mind, created by the crash. Some would describe it as shock but not Thewlis. He’s fine, until he hears it again.

"It was your fault," the leaves repeat.

It damn well wasn’t, he half-shouts back. The other half falls away, blending with the rustle of the leaves. He’s confused again and reaches for the handset. Instead of calling the guard, he hums the tune Morning Has Broken, which he’d heard on the radio earlier. Realising he hates the stupid song, he takes out his phone, turns it to camera mode, and captures the sunrise to distract his over-active imagination. Minutes pass until he hears human voices in the distance. He turns toward the bridge where three dots of white light bob up and down. The lights and noise get larger and louder and more white dots are appearing behind them.

He won’t be alone anymore. Not that he was before. The dead man lies a few feet away. He switches his torch on and shines it in their direction then waves it above his head. He moves to meet them, but a hand in the dark holds him back.

3

Bardo

Thewlis freezes in time. The one-under has no form, no body, no friends, no family, no possessions, no one other than Thewlis who is standing in front of him. The one-under needs his help to get him through this moment. But he doesn’t know what to do or what to expect. The air has gone black. There is no light. There is no tunnel. He’s scared. He doesn’t recognise where he is or what he has to do. The one-under feels Thewlis has not accurately followed the manual, because he no longer sees the four faces of Manjushri, the bodhisattva of great wisdom motivated by great compassion. The one-under has been meditating on him for the last fifteen years. He was told he would appear.

He is a fully-enlightened Buddha. He’s the one that is supposed to help me through the bardo and help me to realise where my next life will be. I briefly saw four faces, but now there is no one, other than you, standing over my dead body and pointing your torch in my ghost-like face. Where will I go? Will you help me?

But there is no response from Thewlis. He is still frozen in time. The one-under’s anger increases.

There are numerous realms I could float into. The hot or cold hell realms, the desire, animal, hungry-ghost, demi-god and god realms, and obviously the human realm that I appear still to be in. I had always wanted to reach samsara, but I’m still stuck in the continuous cycle of life, death, and reincarnation. My history and past lives may not enable this to happen. Neither do I see the hand of God. I see nothing, hear nothing, and feel nothing. I am alone in the inbetween realm known to Buddhists as the bardo, to Christians it could be purgatory, and to others it could be just a ghost-like realm where I am lost for eternity. Nothing I held dear is of any value or use to me now. The question is whether I will in fact now flit from realm to realm due to my karmic memory to memory, as my mind-consciousness balances the positive and negative actions from my previous life. When I was living I meditated on reincarnation and wished to be re-born in the human realm, but my past life and actions may not guarantee that this happens. I may end up for eternity in the hot hell or ghost-like realms instead.

He grabs hold of Thewlis’ shoulder.

4

Lost in the Moment

Thewlis thinks he is about to shout at a ghost, but he is pulled back into reality. He continues walking forward. He stares at the group of police officers heading toward him. Have you found the body? shouts a female officer.

About ten metres up there, says Thewlis. He turns around and points at the body.

I’m Chief Inspector… But her name is lost in the hustle and bustle of new activity, as more officers brush past, talking continuously. Who are you? she demands.

I’m the train driver. Thewlis Mohan, he says, offering her his hand but she doesn’t take it, which makes him feel uncomfortable.

Seal off the area, she says to the two men with yellow tape and barriers. Where are the lights? Tell forensics to hurry. She shouts to another officer, Where’s that photographer? This track needs to be open within the hour. She turns to look at Thewlis. Did you see anyone else on the bridge?

No, he says, shaking his head. But then wonders if he did. There might have been someone, but he’s not sure. She doesn’t appear to like his answer.

I’ll talk to you once I’m finished. Stay there.

He does as he’s told.

She turns her attention to the officer who has materialised to the left of her. Get that witness who said they saw someone else on the bridge.

Thewlis takes the time to appraise her. She’s small, no more than five-foot four, and androgynous in the uniform. She parts the group of men who are fussing around the one-under. The space Thewlis once shared with the one-under is now filled. He is forced into silence and to stand in solitude, metres from the dead man. He doesn’t know what to do, so he flicks the switch on his radio and