Four Hearts: Novels by Julian Bound

By Julian Bound

Four Hearts a novel by Julian Bound

 

'You walk into a room filled with all the people you've ever met, who do you seek out first?'

 

Diagnosed with an incurable illness, one man begins a journey across the world to meet with those from his past.

Travelling to India and Nepal's ancient cities and to Thailand's tropical islands, those he encounters hold a message for him. Exploring the concepts of love, friendship and heartache it is he who must ultimately face a destiny shaped by life choices made.

 

Four Locations, Four Souls, One Journey. - 'Four Hearts' a tale of wanderlust and self-discovery.

 

About The Author

Born in England, Julian is a documentary photographer, film maker and author. With photographic work featured on the BBC news, his photographs have been published in National Geographic, New Scientist and the international press. His work focuses on the social documentary of world culture, religion and traditions, with time spent studying meditation with the Buddhist monks of Tibet and Northern Thailand and spiritual teachers of India's Himalaya region.

 

His photography work includes documenting the child soldiers of Myanmar's Karen National Liberation Army, the Arab Spring of 2011, Cairo, Egypt, and Thailand's political uprisings of 2009 and 2014 in Bangkok.

 

With portraiture of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Julian has extensively photographed the Tibetan refugees of Nepal and India. His other projects include the road working gypsies of Rajasthan, India, the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, the riverside squatter slums of Yogyakarta and the sulphur miners at work in the active volcanoes of Eastern Java, Indonesia.

 

Present for the Nepal earthquakes of 2015 he documented the disaster whilst working as an emergency deployment photographer for various NGO and international embassies in conjunction with the United Nations and the World Wildlife Foundation.

 

With numerous published photography books Julian is also the author of nine novels including Subway of Light, Life's Heart Eternal, The Geisha and The Monk, By Way of The Sea and All Roads.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julian Bound
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215272107

Julian Bound

Born in the UK, Julian Bound is a documentary photographer, film maker and author. Featured on the BBC news, National Geographic and in the international press, his work focuses on the social documentary of world culture, religion and traditions, spending time studying meditation with the Buddhist monks of Tibet and Northern Thailand and with spiritual teachers of India’s Himalaya region. His photography work includes documenting the child soldiers of the Burmese Karen National Liberation Army, the Arab Spring of 2011, Cairo, Egypt, and the Thailand political uprisings of 2009 and 2014 in Bangkok. With portraiture of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Julian has photographed the Tibetan refugee camps of Nepal and India. His other projects include the road working gypsies of India, the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, the rail track slums of Jakarta and the sulphur miners at work in the active volcanoes of Eastern Java, Indonesia. Present for the Nepal earthquakes of 2015, he documented the disaster whilst working as an emergency deployment photographer for various NGO and international embassies in conjunction with the United Nations. Julian has published  photography books of settings across the world, including portraiture work, and city guides, and has also published several poetry books, including ‘Haiku, a Journey Through the Deepest Emotions’, Julian is also the author of  the novels ‘The Geisha and the Monk’, ‘Subway of Light’ and ‘Life’s Heart Eternal’.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

we live for as long as we are remembered...

CHAPTER ONE

And So, an Ending Begins

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‘You walk into a room filled with all the people you’ve ever met, who do you seek out first?’

These words had stayed with J. They hadn’t come alone.

He had never been ill before. Of course there had been the usual run of life’s maladies, even a ten day bout of a pandemic’s touch had come and gone. This was different. Much different.

Insomnia was a symptom. This was what had led to stumbling upon the question in hand, the result of late night phone scrolling when sleep had yet to arrive.

Who would he seek out first?

That answer was easy.

This was what this collection of words were designed to do. A bright white font set against a red background aimed to penetrate its reader’s mind. In most an answer appeared in an instant. The subconscious dragging forth an image of another thought forgotten. This was the case with J. He knew exactly who that one would be.

Each night J waited for sleep to take him from an alertness of mind holding no place within dusk’s preceding hours. Each night he happened again on the same question now shared by other social media platforms where a small red love heart overrode any anonymous assassin’s ill worded prose.

Each night the slight niggle in his body grew bigger.

Those twinges soon evolved into sharp pains. Occasional at first, their frequency expanded until spilling over into day light hours. A doctor was seen at last. A meeting only achieved through J’s tenacity.

Insomnia’s hold has its benefits. An early morning arrival to his doctor’s surgery saw J head the queue. A pretty redheaded receptionist had at last opened locked doors and J had stepped forward, the first of the day’s unhealthy intake.

It took three of those early morning attempts to be seen. J wished it had taken more. There is a certain comfort to be found in ignorance. It was a fact he discovered the hard way.

The diagnosis wasn’t good. Wasn’t good at all.

Blood tests came within the hour. The results of which prompted a hasty appointment made for J later that afternoon.

The two previous morning refusal’s to be seen were forgiven. Now he was in the surgery’s grip. Fast tracked towards a cure. The next seven day whirlwind of journeys back and forth from doctors to hospitals gave little respite.

Inoperable. Incurable. This was the doctor’s conclusion after a full week of x-rays, prodding, probing and no end of blood vials filled.

J didn’t know which word sounded worse. Both had their own unique ring of finality. He couldn’t understand. Wasn’t there a cure for all ills these days?

Two months was an estimation of time left. The previous week of trekking around the health service’s waiting rooms not counting.

J had heard stories of others given similar short time limits. If memory served him well those prognosis’ had been fairly accurate. Some almost to the day.

A decision was made within moments of hearing his fate. J would tell no-one. Only he and his doctor would know, and the unknown lab technician who had rooted through tainted bloods, so winning the unenviable prize of being first to unveil J’s impending demise.

His illness was contained within. The doctor assured there would be no outward sign of the sickness writhing inside his physical form. J took some consolation from this. It was not for vanity’s sake. Now he could disguise his inevitable doom from those he cared for and cared for him in equal measure.

The decision to keep all from everyone came of little surprise to J. It was not that he was secretive. Although an open book to those within his inner circle of friends and family, privacy had always hung about him. J had always been a visitor, not a host. Home to him was a sacred place. A setting to regroup before heading back into the throes of others’ company once more.

J was told to get his affairs in order.

Walking from the surgery to the peace of his small flat he thought of what affairs he had to get into order. There wasn’t much. A smile was raised for the first time that morning to this.

Twenty years spent working across Asia and South East Asia had given a mind-set of having little if any possessions. Although accommodation had been given freely by humanitarian foundations worked for during those years, those temporary homes had been exactly that, temporary. J’s documentary photography was often needed at a moment’s notice in another country’s villages, towns or cities befallen to natural disasters, or despots with no empathy for those tyrannically ruled over.

His photographic services and been spread thin across two continents for years. For two decades all he had known was a transient life lived out of a large backpack and a camera bag. A want to return to his roots after such a nomadic existence had triggered his homecoming to the west.

I’ve only been back a year, J said as he crossed the street, his eyes set on the front door to his sanctuary.

The home he now rented had come with long forgotten responsibilities. For the first time in twenty years he faced utility bills and rent deadlines. This brought home a realisation of freedoms gained when on the road under the wing of worldwide agencies.

Seeing no-one by choice over the next two days, J contemplated all of what little remained before him. Two months ago he had basked in English summer sun, now Autumn’s bite had begun. Those previous eight weeks had flown by. Were the next to run as fast also?

The soul searching needed in J’s solitary council came with relative ease. J had been fortunate enough to have been surrounded by good friends and colleagues whilst out in the field.

Working as a team in far flung locations brought a sense of great camaraderie to those whose birth lands proved so different. So too had humour been present amongst them. A gallows humour designed to give relief to sometimes horrors encountered.

Yet even within the company of others a need for self-sufficiency was tantamount to existing in unfamiliar settings. This was a learned inner strength. It was a power J drew on now more than ever before.

Those two days flew past. It was a rate J longed to reign in. The haste of passing hours brought with them a sense of urgency. For the first time J realised he faced a finite existence.

A range of emotions had played out over those initial days. Denial had evolved into pity before being replaced by anger. A hint of acceptance came to J on his second evening of chosen solitude. It seemed his emotions were being as fast tracked as his fatal diagnosis had been.

One thought had returned to J throughout. An imagined room filled with all the people he had ever met.

Each time he would push through those crowds, seeking out the remembered smile of another.

CHAPTER TWO

Decisions, Decisions

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The pills were working. One taken in the morning saw to those nighttime stabbing pains which had spilled into day.

J could still sense their presence. Only now those painful jabs were muted by a shiny pill’s medical muffle.

Insomnia’s sharp edges had been rounded off too. This was bittersweet. Yes, J had a little bit more energy throughout the day, but he was aware once longed for sleep now cut into the vital hours remaining.

What little affairs he had were soon put in order. Years of travel and a nomadic overseas working lifestyle had put paid to having made a family of his own. He had watched former colleagues with husbands or wives in tow, and how they had often uprooted their spouses and young offspring from place to place. Those locations were often no place for young families with western world immune systems where disease and infections ran rife. J held no regrets family life had not arrived to him.

For the last year following his return J had decided to give back to a world circumnavigated for so long. Charities once worked for all had offices in the city.

Travelling by train three days a week allowed for visits and the free consultations J would give. These were projects close to his heart needing the expertise of someone who knew what it was really like at ground level.

It was with regret that he closed this chapter of helping these causes. Any remorse was quenched in knowledge they would be the beneficiaries of what savings he had.

It came as a surprise to J there was such a substantial amount. Then again, there was never much to buy when in the realms of war, famine and disasters of both natural and economic standings.

His funds were neatly shared out in equal measure. There can be no favourites in alms. A lesson learnt from half an adult life surrounded by Far Eastern temple and shrine.

The rest of J’s week was spent meeting friends for coffee in the morning, resting up in the afternoon and dinner every other night with those felt closest to.

Those morning coffees were accompanied by laughter, as were evening meals taken in restaurants offering delicacies encountered in Asian and South East Asian living.

Enjoyable as these meetings were with those known since his twenties before venturing out into the world, J had held an ulterior motive for his gregarious second half of the week.

He wanted to see if those he regarded closest saw the illness on its course twisting through his body. Did it hang about him? Was illness set within his eyes? Was it obvious there was something wrong, that his body was beginning to let him down at an accelerated rate?

Not one saw through his armour. Not one hinted they suspected anything amiss. This pleased J. This lack of acknowledgement towards his failing body confirmed his decision to keep such knowledge to himself. Why burden others when they can’t help his predicament? J wanted to be remembered as a free spirit, not one in need of a sympathetic ear seeking allowance to bask in ‘why me?’.

Sunday night arrived. There would be no meal out. A lone takeaway sufficed. A starter before the movie J planned to stretch out on his couch and watch. A reminder of nights alone in Asia, when a movie in the evening was regarded a well-earned treat.

Somewhere between clearing away a takeaway’s remnants and reaching for the TV remote J paused. He lay back on the couch, silence and a single lamplight his only company.

The next day would mark the first week anniversary of discovering the death sentence now woken to each morning.

Just seven weeks left, he said to the ceiling.

Hints of emotions worked through in the two days after his diagnosis swooped down on him. Sentiments of denial, pity and anger paid their fleeting respects once more. Then they were gone as fast as they had arrived. They were replaced by an imagined room filled with familiar faces milling around it.

And who would I seek out? He asked aloud, even though he still knew his answer.

J paused again on reaching for an awaiting remote control. A new thought came to him. What if there were others to seek out in that room filled with those once encountered? Who would they be?

In his mind’s eye three figures fell into line behind his first choice.

There you all are, he said to them.

The essence of each remembered figure gave J