Another Place

By Andrew Harris

Gilbert Cooper has a vision predicting the day when he will die, in two years time, and assigning him an unspecified task to perform in the meantime to ensure his eternal peace.

On the same day he wins the lottery, reinforcing his belief in the prophecy. He embarks on a frenzied quest which takes him from the clubs, casinos and cocaine of modern day London to a yogi in the jungle of Rajasthan and back.

Sprinkled with light-hearted humour, the suspense builds from the start in this fast moving narrative, leaving the reader hungry to know what happens next until the very last page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Harris
• Release date: Dec 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223455523

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Until the fateful night when he envisioned a messenger from God who forecast the day he was going to die, Gilbert Cooper’s life had been mundane and inauspicious, if not verging on meaningless.

Physically he was unremarkable, smaller than average in height and stature with receding light brown hair already flecked with grey, misty blue eyes and a pleasant enough countenance that could have passed as boyishly handsome had it not been for his slightly exaggerated nose.

At thirty-four years old he spent the greater part of his waking hours at work, sitting at one of four desks in an office with no windows in front of a computer screen. Gilbert didn’t enjoy his job; boring, repetitive clerical work. Spread sheets, graphic predictions and monotonous accountancy filled the vacuum his life had become since his divorce.

He was obliged to put in as many hours as he could to meet alimony deadlines and pay the mortgage on his house where his ex-wife Susan and ten-year old son Arthur still lived. On top of this he had to earn enough to cover the rent and bills for the cramped apartment he now called home and there was little chance of his circumstances improving in the foreseeable future. He had neither the time nor the opportunity to think about anything much besides eating, sleeping and working for sixty hours a week.

Because of his financial burdens and the rigorous routine they imposed upon him Gilbert was lonely. He didn’t have the money, inclination, time or energy for socialising, his ex-wife didn’t talk to him any more and his parents had retired to New Zealand almost ten years previously, shortly after he’d got married. The only true friend, the one soul mate he had left in the world, was his sister Jenny.

They’d been raised in a household with no real spiritual foundation, which would have labelled itself Christian if pushed, but church had only ever been for baptisms, weddings and funerals. Besides the obligatory hour a week of religious studies at school, Gilbert had never bothered to philosophise on the after life or dwell upon the existence of a creator. Any occasional lip service he did pay to the Lord was either out of obligation or habit or as an insurance policy for when he died. Just to be on the safe side, just in case there really was a God in heaven and a Satan in hell.

That was until he had a vision. If he’d considered it to have been merely a dream, however vivid or unusual, he’d have dismissed it as unimportant. Everybody has strange, inexplicable dreams and some believe they have a significance, be it prophetic or psychological. Gilbert wasn’t one of those people. The miniscule amount of faith he possessed was simply his way of hedging his bets, just in case. He was in no way superstitious, he didn’t care what dreams were or if they meant anything. He didn’t have time to ponder on the metaphysical, he was too tired, worried, lonely and depressed. Sleep was his only escape from the prison his life had become and he valued it for what it was, his only pleasure, well needed rest, dreams or no dreams.

The difference with this dream was Gilbert was certain he hadn’t been asleep at the time. He’d been wide awake and people don’t dream when they’re awake, right? Which would mean it had been real. It had been a vision, a message and although, logically, this possibility seemed preposterous, to him it was the only plausible explanation.

One thing he could be certain of was when it had happened, shortly before four o’clock in the morning, afterwards he’d been wide awake all night. In a state of shock, too terrified to even turn the light off, let alone try to go back to sleep, he’d spent the rest of the dark hours sipping tea with the radio turned up loud.

Waiting for the sun to rise, he tried to calm himself and make sense of what had just happened. Desperately trying to convince himself it’d been nothing more than a weird, realistic dream, but he knew he’d woken up, disturbed by a noise. He’d been instantly alert, suspicious there was an intruder in his apartment. He remembered peeling the duvet back whilst reaching for the bedside lamp with his other hand, real, physical, concrete actions.

He recalled his fear, the sudden icy panic, his total awareness as he listened intently in the silent, inky darkness, weighing up his options. Should he try and hide? Find something he could use as a weapon and investigate? Maybe try to get to his phone which was charging in the kitchen and call the police?

He never even managed to reach the light switch before the room was swathed in a radiant, colourful phosphorescence. Uncountable ribbons of rainbow light, chasing each other, swirling, spinning, intertwining to produce spirals and geometric patterns that dissolved into each other.

It didn’t originate from any particular source, it just filled the room in an instant, substantial, like a liquid, a myriad multi-coloured streams, ebbing and flowing all around him. From this cornucopia of colour tiny, sparkling, pulsating stars began to emerge until he was enveloped in a wondrous, psychedelic skyscape, surrounded by a million galaxies.

The light intensified and thickened like a fog until he could see nothing else, it as as if he was no longer in his apartment. He tried to stand up but felt weightless, up and down had ceased to exist, he couldn’t feel his bed any more, there was nothing beneath his feet. He was floating in a gorgeous, glorious, glittering paradise, overwhelmed by a feeling of peace and contentment far beyond anything he’d ever experienced, a sensation of absolute euphoria and ecstasy flooding his every sense.

One of the stars began to get bigger, rotating in a slow clockwise rhythm, it grew each time it revolved. A gut feeling told him not to look at it, to avert his eyes or close them, but he couldn’t, his gaze was fixed by an almost hypnotic compulsion. It grew until it towered over him, huge, emanating a peculiar, ghostly light. The strangest thing about it though, the thing he found impossible to describe later, was its colour. Even by using combinations of other colours he could find no words for it. It was a colour neither he nor anybody else had ever seen before, a colour without a name.

The ball stopped rotating and growing. Hanging still against the fluctuating background, it began to talk to him, not out loud but telepathically, a melodic, musical voice echoing inside his head, it reminded him of bells tinkling in a gentle breeze.

Listen carefully Gilbert and understand this is not a dream. I have come to deliver an important message, it’s paramount you know you are awake and remember what I tell you. You are not long for this world Gilbert and you have much to accomplish if you wish to enjoy the next one. I’ve come to tell you when you’re going to die Gilbert, so you realise the temporariness of your existence and achieve your full potential in time. So it is written and so it shall be.

When Gilbert had woken up, disturbed by the noise and afraid there was someone in his apartment, he was certain that’s exactly what he’d done, he’d woken up, which meant he was still awake. The situation was too bizarre to be real though, which suggested he was dreaming. Maybe he was half awake he thought, semi-conscious, in those nether regions where you drift in and out of reality, yes, that had to be it, he was half awake but still dreaming.

He couldn’t convince himself though, it was too real, so he pinched his left forearm hard, to prove he was dreaming, because you can’t feel pain in a dream, right? He didn’t expect it to hurt, he didn’t even expect to feel it, but he did feel it and it did hurt, which suggested he must be wide awake.

He thought he should be terrified or at least overawed by this encounter, but he felt comfortable and relaxed. He wasn’t the tiniest bit scared, in fact he felt so safe that without even thinking about it he entered into conversation with the apparition.

Please! I don’t want to die soon. He hesitated, if this was for real it probably wasn’t negotiable. Look, I know my life’s not great at the moment but there are still good things. He tried desperately to think of some, as if justifying his miserable existence would earn him a reprieve.

I want to watch my son grow up, I want to go to his wedding and be a grandfather. Please, everybody knows they’re going to die sooner or later and obviously I’d prefer if it was later. He paused, waiting for a response to his pleas for clemency, but none came. Okay, if there really is a set day when my life’s going to end, I guess me being unhappy about it won’t change anything, but I don’t want to know exactly when, seems as if that would somehow ruin the time I’ve got left. No, I don’t want to know when I’m going to die, don’t tell me please, I’d rather not know.

The enchanting, melodious voice whispered again, honeyed, golden toned syllables dripping inside his head. It is the will of the one who has always been and will never die. The one who cannot be named, the one who decides what is to be. I have to tell you and you have to know, for thus it is written.

Gilbert scrunched his eyes closed and stuck his fingers in his ears, it didn’t make any difference, imprinted indelibly on his mind was the day and the date when he was supposedly going to die.

He opened his eyes, the globe was slowly rotating again, this time in the opposite direction. As it picked up speed it began to shrink, until it disappeared once more into the blanket of stars.

The tapestried world around him grew dimmer, the light and the colours fading as one by one the stars fizzled out. He felt claustrophobic, as if it was closing in on him. He was gasping for breath, gulping air heavy as water. His whole body became a sponge, absorbing the atmosphere, sucking it in, it pulsed through his veins, he was sure he would suffocate, then he glimpsed a chink of light. Soaked in sweat and sucking in precious oxygen he looked up at the street light shining through the gap between his bedroom curtains.

He’d shed the duvet and was drenched in perspiration, shivering with fright and curled up in a foetal position, his arms clutching his knees tightly to his chest. Naked and disorientated, every minute, realistic detail of his vision reverberated in his confused mind, especially the day he was meant to die.

He reached out with his left arm, this time found the switch and turned on the bedside light. It was four o’clock in the morning. According to his phantom visitor and the one who cannot be named he had just under two years left to live.

He was too disturbed to even contemplate going back to sleep, so he pulled his dressing gown on, wandered into the living room and tuned the radio to some laid-back jazz, turning it up loud. He took a long, hard, hot shower, dressed and brewed a pot of herbal tea that claimed to be calming and relaxing.

Sitting on the sofa, tentatively sipping the scalding beverage, Gilbert craved a cigarette to calm his jangled nerves but he didn’t have any. He’d given up three months previously because he simply couldn’t afford to smoke any more.

Since his marriage had fallen apart, from the first petty quarrels to the angry, messy divorce and ever since, his life had not been happy. An unstoppable tide of problems and challenges had nearly destroyed him, but it had all been physical and quantifiable. Besides, and as a result of, his wife leaving him (which he could do nothing about) his worries were all financial. Not simply resolved, but concrete and tangible, easily understood.

What had just happened to him wasn’t. He couldn’t classify it, label it and file it away like his other difficulties. His fragile belief in anything supernatural left as much room for visions or prophesies as it did for tarot cards, horoscopes or gypsy women with crystal balls.

If somebody else had claimed to have had such a visitation he would have scoffed, derided their superstition and explained it away as a bad dream or a hallucination. He didn’t believe in such nonsense, yet the harsh reality of what had just occurred negated his beliefs. It had actually happened, he’d even pinched himself to make sure but his rational side still insisted there must be some