An extract from the published book Almost Dead in Suburbia.

It is also now available from P’kaboo Publishers as an ebook.
Click the link below and take a peek.

http://pkaboo.net/almostdead.html

Chapter 1
Not Really Dead
‘Eighty-three,’ the squeaky voice called out.
Thirty-three heads dropped to stare at the numbered ticket each person clutched for dear life.
‘Nope,’ said a voice from behind.
A heavy sigh was the response from the woman sitting two seats away.
‘Fookin’ ‘ell,’ – an erudite outburst from the back of the room.
There was also a small cheer.
Someone got up and disappeared beyond the temporary partition for a few minutes; then reappeared, all smiles, holding on to their prize and giving a fleeting look at the poor sods that remained before making a beeline for the exit.
And so it went on.
Funny that, Ralph thought, we’ve all been here the best part of an hour and yet every time the secretary or tea lady or whatever she was entered the room and called out a number, every single person looked at his or her raffle ticket. You would think after sitting in the same position for so long everyone would remember their ticket number.
His reaction was no different from the rest of them. His head went down just like theirs every time the tea lady (he had decided to go with this option) walked across the grubby black-and-white linoleum floor, stood in front of this small gathering, and recited.
The response was usually the same. Nope, Sigh or Fookin’ ‘ell. There had been a fourth respondent previously sitting in the chair directly behind Sigh. He alternated between ‘shit’ and ‘shoot’, but had left in a fit of pique after having his number called out whilst he was not in the room. Leaning forward, he had tapped Sigh on the shoulder, and as she turned said in a hoarse whisper ‘I’m just popping into the corridor for a smoke. I’m dying here without a ciggy. Wave if my number’s called, okay? I’ll be able to see you through the glass.’
She nodded dumbly. Trouble was, Shit/Shoot was in such a rush to have his ‘ciggy’ that he forgot to tell her his number.
When he re-entered, leaving behind a cloud of smoke, Sigh beckoned him over and whispered.
‘You forgot to tell me your ticket number, dear.’
Shit/Shoot mumbled ‘Shit,’ and when Tea Lady reappeared he enquired about the last couple of numbers.
Lo and behold, one of them had been his.
A few words of pleading, followed by a brief heated outburst containing several more colourful expletives, did not produce the desired result: that of being bumped up the queue.
Losing his temper with Tea Lady wasn’t winning him any friends amongst the others in the room either.
She would not budge. He had missed his turn, and that was that. She tore off another raffle ticket, which she handed to him and indicated with steely grey eyes that he should take his seat once more.
Shit/Shoot nearly had a fit, screwed up his ticket, then unscrewed it and tore it into little pieces right under Tea Lady’s nose.
Her response appeared practised. ‘Security,’ was the call. Tea Lady didn’t even raise her voice.
Shit/Shoot stormed off in a rage, banging into the metal waste bin as he turned, and hurting his right knee in the process.
Seems it’s true: smoking is bad for your health, Ralph thought. Then, just as he felt the impulse to smile, he received a murderous glance from Shit/Shoot and quickly rearranged his expression into the one that said, ‘I’m a moron just like the rest of us here.’
Forty-seven minutes and eighteen seconds later Tea Lady called out number ninety-two and Ralph leaped out of the plastic seat, went into the available cubicle, handed over his receipt and was issued with his new passport.
When was that, he wondered? He couldn’t remember. It wasn’t important. Not any more, anyway. Dead people don’t need passports. So why had he been thinking of the passport office?
Then he got it. The raffle tickets. He imagined wherever it might be he was heading to would have a similar character who would call out his number when it was time for him to ‘go’. But go where? That was the question he was waiting to be answered.
Ah, here it comes, the tunnel, the bright light. This must be it. He had heard or read something about people who claimed they had died and afterwards . . . what was the term? Came back to life? Resurrected? Anyway, all had said that this was how it was. For some reason he felt that the opportunity to confirm the story to anyone would not present itself. Unless, of course, he found a way to communicate from the ‘other side’.
He began moving towards the bright light. Not too far now, he thought, although there was no real sense of distance. The light just seemed to swell around him until he became immersed in it. His final thought before crossing over: ‘Hey, just think, I get to meet God and Jesus.’ From a self-confessed atheist this was quite ironic.
Suddenly, he was back in the real world, whatever that was. The tunnel had gone, the bright light had vanished, and he was standing outside a suburban house at the scene of an accident.
At first glance it looked as though an ambulance had rammed into a car as it was reversing out of a driveway.
What the hell!
Then he realised where he was, and what he was looking at. The car was his, the house was his – well, rented – and the unfortunate victim lying on a stretcher by the damaged blue BMW was himself.
Oh, no! I’m dead! Wait a moment I can’t be, otherwise I would have taken that final walk, surely? That means I must be in a coma, then. Yes? Or maybe not? Perhaps I’m having some sort of out-of-body experience?
This is very confusing. Mind you, it’s not a situation that one gets to have any practice at, is it? Normally it’s a once-in-a-lifetime-deal type of thing.
Well, whatever’s going on, I’d better stick close to my body. It needs me!
He began to take in the scene in more detail. The accident didn’t look too bad. No visible signs of blood, thank goodness.
His Beemer was all bashed in on the passenger side and wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. A cursory glance at the crumpled front end of the ambulance suggested that it, too, was undrivable.
Well, that explains why I am still lying on a stretcher on the pavement and not in the ambulance whizzing off to hospital. I hope there’s another on the way.
So the ambulance couldn’t have been coming for me, he realised.
Now that’s more ironic than the atheist/God thing I’d been thinking about: dying because of a collision with an ambulance. I suppose it’s rather funny when you think about it.
So who was the ambulance originally coming for, I wonder? Must be someone living in the Close: it’s a cul-de-sac. I hope it’s not serious.
Most of the Close’s nine residents were reasonably young. By that, he meant not doddering, and as far as he was aware, all were of average health. One couple even ran marathons, so he assumed they should be ‘up there’ when it came to fitness.
Three had children, and one couple, Tony and Angela, had babies. Twin girls, born a couple of months ago, if he remembered rightly. Pretty things they were. Not that he was too fond of babies. He had done his ‘stint’. ‘Donated my quota of sperm and added to the gene pool.’ That was quite a while back during his student days. Things were tight then, financially, so every penny helped. Beer wasn’t cheap, and the choice between sperm and blood was a simple one to make. As a blood donor, all you got was a smile and a cup of tea. He hated needles too. As crude as it sounded, if it was a toss-up between having a prick in his arm or in his hand, the choice was easy.
He and his wife had no kids. That didn’t mean there weren’t any little Ralphs or Ralphettes running around somewhere. Well why not? Someone could have used his sperm, he supposed, but not him. It was a joint decision not to have kids and one they were both happy with. Though he had an inkling of a suspicion that Stephanie, his wife, was starting to get a bit broody. Him a dad? Could he imagine it? Though imagine it was probably all he would be able to do now. No, don’t think like that.
He had been given the opportunity to hold one of the twins when he and his wife ‘popped over’ a few Sundays ago to offer congratulations and drop off a gift.
He had been handed this little thing: ‘It’s a beautiful baby. Don’t be such an old fart,’ his wife had scolded.
Anyway, the baby had wet itself. Angela removed the nappy then lifted it from its cot.
‘Just hold her for a ticky while I fetch a clean nappy from the bedroom.’
The thirty seconds it had taken her to return were about seven seconds too long. Those seven seconds were the difference between a clean shirt and pants, and clothes covered in wee and runny baby poo. If he hadn’t been sitting in a chair, with the baby on his lap, he might have had time to hold the kid at arms’ length and let it ‘go’ on the carpet. Babies were just so damned inconsiderate when it came to pooing and weeing. Fortunately, it was only a minute’s walk back up the road to his house and if his wife hadn’t been howling with laughter, they might have got there in a minute. But the noise she was making attracted the attention of one or two of the neighbours. And naturally, they wanted to come and have really funny discussions about baby poo and baby wee in the middle of the street.
‘Oh, that happened to my husband. He was carrying our little one on his head and . . .’
‘My fella was amazed when our little girl peed on him whilst she was lying on her back without a nappy. Men are so dense sometimes.’
He really hoped the ambulance was not for either Angela or her babies. Hold on. It was Tuesday. Angela always took the twins to the baby clinic on Tuesdays.
Maybe it was for Fred, the widower at number seven? No, not Fred, he decided. He was away for the week visiting his children. So who did that leave? Who else would likely be home at this time of the day?
Think. Ah, yes, that‘s right. His next-door neighbours, David and Mary Robbins.
David was an architect and, until recently, had worked for a firm in London. But he’d left and set up on his own. Now he worked from home. Mary had resigned from her part-time job at the local pharmacist to help him.
Mary Robbins appeared from behind the damaged ambulance. She was crying and her husband was trying to console her.
Okay. Not the Robbinses.
Was there anyone else? Yes. Of course!
The mystery-person at number three who had moved in three weeks ago.

Copyright. Douglas Pearce
The Ark