Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 51

           When I wake up, there’s a small tray of breakfast on a stool next to my bed. I open the lid of a silver-serving tray and find two boiled eggs and toast already cut into soldiers. Next to that sits a cup of tea on its own saucer.

            I smile and relish in the childhood thrill of dipping soldiers in a runny egg. I suppose that’s what this all is really, extended memories based on stimulus I encounter. Some, like boiled eggs I used to eat every day as a child, are stronger. Robin Thacker is another strong memory. Penny is the strongest of all.

            As I sit on the bed, the beams of morning light leaking through the curtains, I wonder where I’ll go next.

            My first day being dead has taught me a lot. Looking back it doesn’t really feel like a day. I remember crashing in the daytime and then emerging in the night in the hayfield. I hadn’t really noticed at the time. Other things felt a lot more important.

Either Yates, with his English accent and decidedly English way of living, lives somewhere where day to England is night to him, or visiting memories and travelling enters me into a world where time doesn’t flow in the same way. Like I’ve jumped on a moving walkway at the airport next to weary travellers wheeling their cases.

I’m still puzzled about the eating and drinking. Clearly the food and drink doesn’t fall through me as I eat, so I have some sort of mass to me still. I’m not completely corporeal. I think I might write down my findings. The scientist in me can’t resist being excited.

The puzzle is still Penny. Working out the mysteries of the universe can wait. Where would she have gone?

She loved Thacker too but I didn’t see her at the museum. Penny loved a lot of things so that could place her in any number of places. She could be sat in the British Library, sneaked into the pre-1800 section with all the old books falling apart; damaged by a cocktail of love and time. She could be in Rome, she’d always wanted to visit there.

Rome. I say the word in my head and it resonates slightly, as though I’ve struck a tuning fork against the bedside table. She always talked about Rome. A place full of romance and history, that’s where she’ll be.

I can only hope Yates is alright to leave.