LIFE

IN

ANNWN

(NaNoWriMo 2018 Winner)

by

Owen Jones

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Copyright © 2018 Owen Jones Author

By Megan Publishing Services

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CONTENTS

1 The First Day Back

2 A Stitch in Time

3 Picking Up a Previous Life

4 Finding a Job

5 Getting the Basics Right

6 The Surface

7 Family and Old Friends

8 Increasing Involvement

9 Holidays

10 Meeting Old Friends

11 Family

12 The Spirit of Co-operation

13.The Beginning

14.The Dream Takes Form

15.Lost Treasure

16 A Drawing Becomes Reality

17.The Firestone-Eyed Cat

18.The Block Is Lifted

19.

20.

21 The Post Horn Gallop

Glossary

Fate Twister

About the Author

Ch 1 THE FIRST DAY BACK

“Whoohoo, Sarah! I haven’t been on a horse since I was a kid, when Dad used to take me riding on Sunday afternoons after dinner! I’d forgotten how much fun it is. Which way is home, love?”

“All roads lead to home, Willy! It’s so nice to see you enjoying yourself, my dear!” replied his wife laughing, her auburn hair flying back in the slipstream as they galloped along on their magnificent black??? steeds.

“So, over that way, is it?” he asked pointing forward to a spot between two mountains.

“Yes, sure…”

“I thought I recognised it. I’ve always had a good sense of direction… I’ve lived in these hills all my life… Same as you, my love, eh?”

“Race you!” she laughed non-committally, and urged her mount on. Willy laughed out loud as he hadn’t for several decades and gave chase to the horse that had a slight lead on him.

“Tally Ho!” he shouted as he clenched his horse between his knees and rocked forward. “Tally Ho!” In seconds, he had caught up and he leaned over to shout to his wife, “I don’t believe in hunting just for the sake of it, as you know, Sarah, but I wish that those hounds were with us now… The Hounds of Annwn, you called them, didn’t you?”

“Yes, my dear, but they are with us. Look behind us”. As he stretched around to look, he became aware of seven??? huge Irish wolf hounds??? lolloping along just yards behind them. “Wow!” he shouted, “I can’t believe I didn’t notice them before. This is fantastic! So exhilarating! I feel twenty years younger”.

“And you look it too, Willy”.

A while later, as they were entering the valley between the two mountains, Willy, leaned over again. “OK, Sarah! Let’s call it a draw! We can’t be far from home now, but I’m having such a great time that I don’t want to go back just yet. Can we stop here and lie on the grass? We can have a chat and play with the dogs while the horses rest a while”.

“Sure, we can. Pick a spot”.

Willy pulled his mount up within yards, saying, “This’ll do right here. The grass looks soft and green, and the view is spectacular”. They both dismounted and the dogs swarmed around them. “I didn’t realise how tiring riding is until we stopped. My back is starting to ache too…”

“Don’t think about it, Willy. You’ll be all right in a minute. Come and sit here beside me”.

“Don’t we have to tether the horses to something?”

“Not really, but we can, if you like… To a sapling? There’s one behind you”. Willy turned slowly, his hand on the small of his back.

“s’ Funny! I didn’t notice that when we rode up”.

“Didn’t you, dear? Don’t worry about it”.

Willy tied the reins loosely to the six-foot Rowan, and sat next to his wife. “That’s better… much better. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in years. It’s great to be with you so much again. I have missed you, you know, since you passed away, or whatever you call it here. I forget now”.

“I know, my dear, I know, but I never did leave you, you know. Not really. I was always there”.

“But I couldn’t see you or touch you”.

“Granted, you couldn’t touch me, but you could see me sometimes, couldn’t you? And you did talk to me… quite often”.

“Yes, I suppose I did, but you didn’t reply”.

“I like to think that you knew what I was saying”.

“Yes, I think I did know, looking back on it”.

“Yes, I’m sure you did. How is your back now?”

“My? Oh, yes, my back”, he said rubbing it. “It’s fine. No pain at all. It’s just as if I had imagined it”. Sarah smiled at him and continued to pet one of the hounds that was nuzzling into her arm.

“They really love you, don’t they, those dogs?”

“Yes, and I really love them as well. I can’t imagine why people called them the Hounds of Annwn, or Hell, in some cases. They wouldn’t hurt a fly”.

“Well, they are hunters, and they have to eat, so I suppose they have to do some er… I was going to say ‘killing’, but I suppose everything here is dead already, so… what do they eat? Talking about food, I’m getting rather peckish myself. I don’t suppose you brought any of those sandwiches from my funeral, did you?”

Sarah was looking at him with a quizzical smile as she watched Willy trying to rationalise the situation he found himself in. “If you’re hungry, my dear, you will find some sandwiches in my bag”. Never liking to look in a lady’s bag, even with permission, he put his hand inside and pulled out a large paper bag that felt right. “That’s the one”, she said. Willy took a few out and offered one to his wife.

“No, thank you, my dear, I rarely eat these days. You could say that I’ve got out of the habit”.

Willy took a bite as she was talking, chewed and stared at her. “We don’t need to eat any more, do we?”

“We can, if we want to, but it is not necessarily, no. Some people never realise that though and still eat like they did when they had a body to sustain”.

“So, the dogs don’t…” Sarah was shaking her head slowly and grinning, “either, so they don’t hunt or kill anything…” He looked at the horses, “but the horses are eating the grass!”

“Only because you expect them to…”

“And my back? The same?”

Sarah nodded, smiling as if at a child who had just solved a logical problem. “And look at this”, she said retrieving a mirror from her bag without looking.

“I really do look twenty years younger!” he exclaimed brushing his dark hair back with his hands. “And my hair has started growing again!”

“You said that you felt twenty years younger…”

“and so I look it…”

“Yes”.

He stopped eating the sandwich and offered it to he nearest dog who took it and swallowed it whole. He looked at Sarah. “You wanted him to… you expected him to, so he did”, she said with a shrug. “You can have what you want, as long as people or animals are willing to give it to you, but you can mould the scenery to whatever you want, because that doesn’t hurt, can’t hurt anyone, since we all see and hear what we want to without it affecting anyone else”.

“Doesn’t that make conversation rather difficult?”

“Has it with us?”

“No, come to think of it, it hasn’t, has it?”

“Well, not for me, no… Nor for you, it seems. However, I choose to be on the same wavelength as you. You haven’t really tried talking to anyone else yet, but some won’t share with others, or won’t try to communicate with people they don’t know, but then that’s up to them, isn’t it? That’s the world they choose to live in… some people like people and choose to help, and some don’t, although that group is much smaller. Most people are basically nice… and helpful… in varying degrees, and the way forward is to become nicer and more helpful, if you want to put it that way… Onwards and Upwards!”

“I can see that I have lot to learn”.

“Everyone has a lot to learn, don’t worry about it. It is not a race, but most souls who arrive here need to be reminded about how life works, because the ways of the Surface have become imprinted upon them, but the impression does wear off, if you will allow it to, believe me…”

“It is going to take a bit of getting used to… I can see that… or does that mean that I am making problems for myself?”

“That is up to you. There’s nothing wrong with being aware of a situation, but dwelling on it, or worrying about it can make it worse, or even probably will make it worse. There is no need to be paranoid about what you think, but it is definitely worth knowing that what you think exists and could affect you and your existence… even be it only temporarily…”

“The problem here is that in infinity, ‘temporarily’ could be a very long time… perhaps, thousands of years!”

“Yes, but that needn’t be a problem… In infinity, thousands of years is less than a drop in the ocean, since there is a finite number of drops of water on any planet. What I am saying is that nothing can affect you adversely for ever except knowledge and that will always help, even though you, or one, may need to relearn, or remember, some lessons. Nothing can stop the steady improvement of the Self, even if some learn more quickly than others… As I said before, life is not a race or even a competition. And that is something that too many people have to learn, but there Ego’s are so fragile that they have to feel superior to those around them.

“The true name of the game, to use an expression, is co-operation, not competition… Life is a team sport, if you like, not a solo event… Treating life like a solo event leads to loneliness, misery and selfishness, whereas if you treat it as a team event, it becomes a party! Or at least can do - that should be the goal”.

“You make it all sound so lovely, my darling, Sarah, but then you always did have that knack. There isn’t a bad bone in your body…”

She looked herself up and down and smiled, “There aren’t any!”

“No, not now, but you know what I mean”.

“Yes, thank you, Willy. You’re not so bad yourself. You were a good husband and in difficult circumstances. I think we did our best for one another and our daughter”.

“Whether it was our doing or hers, or a bit of both, daughter??? has turned out all right. Anyway, enough of this Mutual Admiration Society meeting, I call it to a close. I’m not used to praise, I can’t take it”.

“No, I know what you mean… Getting a compliment out of a Welshman is like pulling teeth with chopsticks!”

“Was I that inattentive, Sarah dear? I didn’t mean to be… another regret to add to the list…”

“It wasn’t only you. It’s just the way people were. We were all to busy getting on with a hard life. Don’t worry about it, Willy, I know that I nagged you too sometimes”.

“Not much, and I probably deserved it. At least I got to get out, and even go to the pub, but that cottage became your jail… and I knew it, but pretended that I didn’t, because it suited me - I was selfish and I am so sorry for that now”.

“Don’t worry about it, Willy. It’s all behind us now. You wouldn’t be able to do that to me now though, even if you wanted to, although that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t let it happen to me again in another incarnation. Life’s funny like that”.

“If you say so, my dear. Shall we move on now?”

“Sure, if you’re ready. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know… Home, I suppose”.

“Home… All right. Do you want to live in town or on the mountain again?”

“Don’t you already have somewhere you stay?”

“Er, well, er, it’s difficult to explain…” She saw Willy’s face reflect an inner turmoil and she guessed what the cause was. “No, it’s not that. I haven’t shacked up with anyone else - there are no nasty surprises in store for you! It’s just that we don’t need houses, just like we don’t need bodies.

“Think about it. Why do people live in houses?”

“Well, er, it’s normal, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but they want shelter, privacy and security. However, we don’t need to shelter from the weather because we have nothing to shelter and the weather is of our own making. We don’t need privacy because we have no bodies, and anyway, if someone saw that you wanted to be alone, they would leave you alone - or most would… And security? We don’t have anything that can be stolen…”

“Yes, I see”.

“Having said that, lots of people still like to live in something somewhere. Life on the Surface seems to ingrain that very deeply into most people. So, what is it to be, within or without the city walls?”

“The city we were in before?”

“The City of Annwn? Yes, if you like”.

“Won’t it be hard to find somewhere at such short notice?”

“No, we’ll just make the city a bit bigger, and put our house in there; or make a tower a bit taller and put our flat in or on it. Whatever you like. Or we could stay at the Inn while we think about it”.

“Yes! I like that idea. We never did get much waiting on, did we? We only ever stayed in a hotel that week on our honeymoon in Rhyl. Yet when we first got married, I did so much want to give you a lady’s life of luxury, Sarah. It just didn’t work out like that… I’m sorry, my dear, so sorry”. Tears flowed down his cheeks. Sarah shuffled over and put her arms around him.

“I know that now, and I knew that then. I knew what I was letting myself in for, and I did it willingly, because I loved, and still love you. You were always the dreamer, not me, Will Jones!”

“You were my rock, Sarah”.

“And you mine”

“Come on, let’s go and see if there’s any room at the Inn”.

Willy drew his head back to get a better look at his wife, “Now you’re taking the Mick, aren’t you?”

“Yes”.

“Because there will be, won’t there?”

“Yes. You’re starting to get the hang of it”.

“Will our old drinking mates be there?”

“They could be…”

“… if we want them to be”.

“Yes”, she said mounting up. “Come on then, Willy boy, race you again, see if you can win this time” and she sped off with the hounds all around her.

“Wait for me! That’s not fair! I don’t know where Annwn City is! I can’t win!” He watched Sarah turn to face him. She was laughing out loud, looked in her twenties and was dressed like a maiden of the Fifteenth Century. He couldn’t quite remember, but he was almost certain that she had been wearing her normal Twentieth Century gear a few moments before.

They rode and laughed for miles, or was it minutes? Willy could not be certain. It seemed that every time he tried to get a fix on time or a place, it moved. He was trying so hard to think in a linear pattern, but he couldn’t. Every time he thought he had a fix on a concept, it seemed to squidge out between his grasp like jelly in a tight fist.

When he looked up from his contemplations, Sarah was rounding behind an outcrop??? of one of the two mountains and a fear of being alone in this strange land gripped him. He urged his horse on, and found himself at his wife’s side. She had stopped to wait for him out of site, but before her was the huge, pinkish, front stone wall of Annwn City.

A flag, a pennant??? really, Willy thought, fluttered in the breeze atop a round tower within the walls.

“Wow! It’s even more beautiful than I remember it”, he murmured.

“Good”, replied Sarah.

“I don’t remember it being pink though”.

“Don’t you? Oh, well, we can change that…”

“No, I like it… it makes it look more like a comic book castle… no disrespect. More like Camelot in the cartoons, than Camelot…”

“Was there a Camelot?”

“I don’t know, but if there were, I should imagine that it would have been more like Caerphilly Castle than that. I like it though, let’s go in. Now I can race you to the gates!”

Willy arrived at the moat a length ahead of Sarah, but he knew in his mind that she had let him win. He looked up to the crenellated battlements above the drawbridge to see three men, who he supposed were guards, peering down at him. He turned rather sheepishly to Sarah.

“Guard! Squire William Jones and his wife, Sarah Jones, request entrance to the City of Annwn”.

“Good day to you! Why do you make such a request unannounced?”

“We have travelled far and require shelter for a few days”.

One guard disappeared, leaving the other two staring at the new arrivals. A minute later, the third man returned. “Your request for shelter has been granted. Please wait while we provide access” and with that chains could be heard clanking, which caused Willy’s horse to rear up, and the drawbridge began to drop. When it was halfway down, they could see the portcullis being raised too. Willy grinned at Sarah, as if he were enjoying a role in a film.

When it was down, they trotted over the drawbridge and acknowledged the salutes from the guards inside. ‘This way, my Lord”, said Sarah light-heartedly and moved up in front. As they reined in their horses outside the inn they had visited before, the same landlord came running out to greet them.

“It is lovely to see you again, my Lord and Lady! I have the finest room anywhere in the city, if that is your requirement. Permit my lad to see to your horses. Boy! The horses, and look sharp about it!”

Willy and Sarah dismounted and followed the landlord inside. “It has been a lovely day, landlord”, said Willy getting into the swing of things.

“That it has, my Lord. Indeed it has. Shall I have your things taken up to our finest room?”

Will looked to Sarah, unaware that they had any ‘things’ to take up.

“Yes, landlord. Please do that, but ask your boy to be careful with them. The caskets hold great sentimental value for us. They have been in my husband’s family for generations”. Willy looked at Sarah with an open mouth.

““Certainly, milady??? Please, take a seat, if that be hour pleasure. Oi! You lot! Keep the noise down or I’ll stop your beer! We’ve got a real gentleman and his lady here now, and they don’t want to have to listen to you rabble swearing!”

Willy looked behind him and noticed six men drinking at a table, who he presumed were the same ones as before. Sarah, only smiled at him and urged him by gesture to sit opposite her. “Do you want anything, dear?” she asked.

“I could murder a Ploughman’s Lunch and a pint of bitter”, he replied. “All that riding had made me right hungry and thirsty”. Sarah peered briefly into his eyes, but it was enough to get her message across. She placed the order with their host.

“The riding didn’t really make me hungry or thirsty, did it?”

“No”, she smiled, “you did. You expected to feel hungry and thirsty… either that or it was he excuse that you might use because you wanted a pint and something to eat. Either way,it doesn’t matter”.

“Well, what was all that about our luggage? And what ‘things’?”

“Oh, that? I was just indulging him, like I do with you. He was expecting us to have luggage, so I decided not to disappoint him. I didn’t have to, but, well,it makes him feel better… in the same way that eating and drinking will make you feel better.

“Or to be more accurate, it won’t… it will produce the empty satisfaction that buying something gives you. It lasts a few hours or a few days, but then you have to do it again. Like getting drunk every night… sooner or later, it is hoped, one will discover the complete futility of it and fix the cause for wanting to get drunk every night, so that you one can get on with one’s real life”.

“Which is?”

“Which is to learn, to acquire knowledge, and to put that knowledge to good use by helping others. Wisdom and altruism, in two concepts, if you like. If you have no knowledge, your desire to be helpful or altruistic might actually be harmful. You might do more harm than good… AND by doing good, you enhance your own Karma, thereby helping yourself!”

“Win win”, he said, already convinced, but not wanting to hear the old mantra again. Hearing it still made him feel uncomfortable somewhere deep inside, even though he ‘knew’ it to be true. “Yes, I agree with you, but it doesn’t trip off my tongue as easily as it does yours. I’m not ready to sound like a Hari Kishna yet”.

“I know you’re not, but you have already jumped the highest hurdles. You believe in it, and you live by it - more or less - but you are not yet prepared to come out and admit it to anyone but me”.

He looked at her across the table, pursed his lips, then realised that he had done it, and so looked down at his hands. She had always been able to read him like a book, even before she had passed on. He was grateful when the landlady approached them with his food and drink. “Do you want anything, my dear?” he asked, immediately feeling foolish again.

Sarah grinned. “Yes, OK, I’ll have a cheese sandwich and a glass of water to keep you company. Thank you”. The landlady, a large jovial-looking fifty-odd-year-old in a rough dress and white apron, performed a slight curtsey, smiled broadly, and turned on her heel. “Won’t be a jiffy, madam”. She returned almost instantaneously and placed her wares before Sarah. “Enjoy your meal. Just shout if you need me. I’ll be just behind that wall in the kitchen”.

“You didn’t have to do that just to please me, Sarah, but that you anyway. The strange thing is that I’m not really hungry any longer”.

“That’s not all that strange really. What would be strange is if you didn’t want that pint either”, she replied with a wicked grin.

“Oh, I can still find room for that”, he laughed, playing along, but he realised that actually, he could take that or leave it as well. He took a mouthful and licked his lips. “Mmmm, Nectar???”.

“Get away with you!” Willy looked down again, avoiding her gaze, and was surprised to see that Sarah’s plate was empty bar a few crumbs. He looked up to see her watching him and smiled, she tilted her head to the side and smiled back. Everyone was happy - they had all gotten what they wanted. Willy took a bite of cheese and willed he rest away, but he was still surprised when it vanished before his very eyes.

Sarah clapped silently and mouthed ‘well done’.

“OK, if we’re not going to eat,and not going to drink… very much, what are we going to do? Do you want to go upstairs?”

“Willy Jones! What are you suggesting?” she said pretending to be affronted/offended.

“No, no! I didn’t mean it like tha…”, but he saw her laughing. “I suppose we are still married, aren’t we? Do people, er… does that sort of thing go on here?”

“Yes, it still ‘goes on’, but we don’t have any bodies and don’t need to procreate. The thing is that not everyone realises that, so they carry on like they would have on the Surface. It’s the same as drinking and eating. If you want to feel close to someone, there are other ways of doing it, which would have happened if you were making love to someone you loved on the Surface.

“We can talk about it again, if you like, but basically, it’s more a melding or touching of souls rather than bodies… It’s akin to the feeling you get when you meet someone and you like them immediately, or not, as the case may be. That feeling is produced by your non-physical bodies touching and being either in or out of harmony”.

“Something else has been bothering me…” Sarah gave a slight upwards nod of encouragement. “Well, let’s say that this was an inn with ten bedrooms, and it was full. Then you come along and turn it into an eleven-bedroomed inn, wouldn’t the landlord notice? Or are they complicit?”

“No, not complicit, but he or and his wife might be aware of the change, although that is very seldom the case”.

“Well, I don’t get it then”.

“No, it is difficult, but it has to do with parallel existences, worlds or Universes, whatever you want to call them. Here and now, this inn has always had eleven bedrooms, but in another existence, it, or one very much like it, may only have five. If this landlord woke up in the ‘morning’ and his hotel only had five rooms, he would probably think that he had gone mad.

“Having said that, there are people, or Souls, who know about parallel existences and can move freely between them, because they understand The Truth, and so are not locked in by their own beliefs. It’s like the story about elephants…”

“Remind me…”

“Well, a mahout tethers a baby elephant to a deep stake so that it cannot escape. The baby elephant learns that trying to flee is futile and so stops trying. However, later, the elephant weighs two tons??? and could easily pull up that stake, but he doesn’t try to, because he ‘already knows’ - he has already learned - that it is impossible.

“People do not believe in parallel existences, they are not taught about them on the Surface, or not widely, and so they cannot perceive them.

“If we left this, let’s call it, eleven-bedroomed existence without paying our bill, this landlord would remember us for that, but the ‘same’ landlord in the five-bedroom existence would not know anything about it… or might know, or might have a vague feeling of ‘irrational’ distrust towards us. It is very difficult to tell how much people know without interacting with them.

“At least,it is for me. Someone more advanced than I might well be able to tell someone’s level of attainment from their Aura. I am still learning about these things in school - for want of a better word”.

“Yes, I see, said the blind man’. It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is, but that is the least of your worries… You, and everybody else, have all the time in the world to work it out. Come on, let’s go to our room, and I’ll show you what I meant by melding”.

2 A STITCH IN TIME

Willy opened his eyes cautiously and squinted at the ceiling. He was lying on a bed, presumably in his hotel room, so he looked to his left with a little more confidence to see Sarah lying beside him propped up on her arm smiling at him.

“Good morning, my dear. Did you sleep well?” he asked.

“Yes, you could call it that. Did you?”

“What do you mean by ‘You could call it that?’ Don’t we sleep any more?”

“Did you sleep?”

“Yes, I think I did… didn’t I?”

After a fashion. We don’t have bodies that require sleep, but our minds benefit from rest, but they don’t switch off. Sleeping here is more like meditation, but your mind might not know that yet, so you may still think that you need sleep. That’s why I asked you whether you thought that you had slept”.

“Well, it felt… I feel as if I did, but if I didn’t, what did I do?”

“Did you dream?”

“I don’t remember… should I have?”

“You will do one day, but then, one day, you will not find the need to sleep as we knew it. The transition period is similar for most people, but not exactly the same. It’s interesting for me to observe how you cope with the transition. I mean, I have studied it at school, but I am not yet working on that area of the condition of the recently deceased”.

“You make me sound like a specimen - a lab rat”.

“Yes, I know… Sorry about that, but I didn’t think that you’d mind”.

“I don’t really. I’m lucky to have a teacher that I know so well to help me”.

“Thank you, but there is always someone to help everyone. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else you knew, had met or had heard of”.

“So what did we do last night?”

“Not very good for a lady’s ego, are you?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean… I mean, I didn’t mean that… I meant… Oh, God! I don’t know what I meant now!”

“Don’t worry, Willy boy, I’m only joking with you! I think that you had a lot of processing to do, so we found somewhere quiet, and you shut down, went into meditation, if you like, to make sense of all the things that you have experienced recently. That’s all, and I stayed to watch over you, in case you had any questions, which you didn’t.

“You have lived here before - everyone has - but after a time on the Surface, we forget most of what we knew about here… or, at least, most people do. Some are born on the Surface and it all comes back to them. Then, when you return here, your mind has to set aside some of the functions it had on the Surface and relearn The Truth - Reality.

“As I said, some people cling to their Surface life for a lot longer than others, some adapt more quickly”.

“What about me?”

“I think that you will adapt quickly, Willy. You are not a doubter, you are a believer, and a searcher after The Truth. I can see it in your Aura, but I have known it for a long time. I have been with you every step of the way since I got here… I have never left your side”.

“I knew you wouldn’t leave me… and I could feel you there sometimes. You were a great comfort to me… You and old…”

“Kiddy! Me and old Kiddy - the dog! You haven’t lost your old charm have you!”

“I didn’t mean it like that…”

“Yes you did, but I am not upset. Why would I be? Never lie to cover up your feelings… it doesn’t work here. Would you like to see her?”

“Can I?”

“Of course, you can. Call her”.

No sooner had he called her name than she jumped up onto the bed, rubbed along his side and licked his face.

“Hello, girl. It’s lovely to see you again”. Her tail was wagging, she was panting and her eyes were shining. Willy ruffled the hair on her head. “Life couldn’t get much better than this!” he exclaimed beaming. “Although bacon, sausage and eggs wouldn’t go amiss…”

Sarah, shook her head slowly, but got off the bed. “I’ll ask the landlady to send up breakfast on a tray”.

––

After he had eaten and given the scraps to his dog, Willy stretched out on the bed again. “I might jot have needed that, but it sure tasted great, and it felt good to share the bacon rind with Kiddy too”.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not hurting anyone”.

“So, my dear, what are we going to do today?” he asked from his prone position, his hands behind his head and Kitty by his side. Sarah tilted her head at him as a teacher might a child who got a times table wrong. “Now, I mean, not today”.

“We can do anything you want, but if you are leaving it up to me, we could take a closer look at time and other existences. Would that suit his Lordship?”

“Yes, it would My Lady, it sounds very interesting indeed”.

“OK, whenever you’re ready”.

“Don’t I need a shower first? No, I don’t suppose I’ve got anything to wash, have I?”

Sarah grinned and shook her head again. “No… How is your memory of British battles or recent wars like the Second World War?”

“I never did like history. It was always King so-and-so did this, or Queen so-and-so did that… All lies and propaganda, if you ask me. I was a kid during the Second World War though, and vaguely remember that. Why?”

“You’ll see. I want to tell you a little about my work first though”.

“I have a vague memory of you mentioning that before, but my memories of Annwn were all rather hazy, like dreams, once I’d woken up”.

“Yes, that’s normal for someone without training. Anyway, one of the most common jobs here - although it’s not really a job - is to go out looking for ‘lost’ or confused Souls. You must have heard people say that people, er, dead people… friends and family, who have already passed over, come to help you over at the moment of your passing. Well, that is true, but sometimes, we are unable to get there in time. Like at a mass killing or huge natural disaster.

“It can happen to individuals too - ones who are really set in their beliefs. Catholics are a good example, or they were. These days, many Catholics have had their faith undermined, but it’s not only the fanatically religious. Remember I told you about Henry VIII still strutting around ordering people about? Well, we’ve quite a few of those too.

“Anyway, we have… er, counsellors, you might call them, who seek out such people and try to put them straight. It’s one of the first jobs when one starts a life dedicated to helping others”.

“It sounds pretty important to me…”

“Yes, it is, but it is humbling to see the state of misery that some poor Souls have gotten themselves into. The first job is actually comforting abused animals… that’s pretty tough too. The things some of us do to them… it’s heart-breaking”. For the first time in several decades, Willy thought that he saw tears in her eyes, but he didn’t like to mention it.

“So, if you’re ready, we’ll look at both of these concepts, as the one is very much related to the other”. She lay down bedside him on the bed. “Give me your hand. Now, I have no warn you that this might be shocking, and even frightening, even very frightening. We don’t have to hold hands throughout, but whatever you do, stay by my side. Don’t go wandering off! And there is no need to take shelter - there is nothing there that can hurt us. Don’t forget that… we don’t have bodies, so nothing there can hurt us in the slightest. OK? Right. Just follow my lead, and just watch”.

A moment later, they were standing in a sodden field, but neither of them was heavy enough to sink into the mud. It was drizzling slightly.

“Why have we come here - wherever here is?”

“Here is Agincourt. Remember the famous battle? Longbows and all that?”. William nodded, while looking around him. “That will take place here in three days time”. Willy stopped, let go of her hand and stared at her, doubt written all over his face. “Oh yes, it is October 22nd, 1415. The French will come from that side and the British from over there. Watch… it is the 25th… now!”

Instantly, there were dead and dying men all around them and arrows were falling from the sky like rain. Men were screaming in pain with horrific injuries. “Help me, sister, please! I beseech you, for the love of God, please help me!”. The French soldier raised an arm towards Sarah, but was pierced by two more arrows as he spoke and died instantly.

“He, he, he could see you!” stammered Willy, covering his head with his hands.

“Yes. You know that some people can and others cannot. It has always been thus. Take your hands down, Willy! These shafts weigh two to three ounces or even more. They are penetrating armour! Your hands are no protection. At the height of this short first phase of the battle about a thousand of these thinrty-inch arrows were being fired every second. Between five and six thousand Frenchmen and four hundred Brits will die today, and many of them won’t even know what hit them.

“The lucky ones will know immediately that they have passed over, others will need a little persuasion from people like me, and others will take much longer to be convinced. Look, our Guides are already arriving”. She pointed at people walking among the dead and dying impervious to the lethal missiles.

“And here we are today, in the same spot. Look over there! A Frenchman is sitting with his back to a tree, an arrow sticking vertically out of his shoulder. There has to be two foot of arrow buried in that man, probably killing him instantly, but he refuses to believe it. He is waiting for someone to rescue him. You will find others around here too, still hiding from the British camp followers who would have cut their throats after the battle and robbed them.

“Come, let’s go”.

“Yes, please. This is dreadful… the suffering is palpable. Where next?”

They were standing in a dusty wasteland. There were small fires consuming what little combustible material that was left. A few low cornice walls??? jutted up in the otherwise complete flatness; dust-devils whirled across the ground and wisps of smoke rose into the air. They took a few paces forward, and Sarah pointed to a black man huddled against the two-foot high remnants of a heavy stone wall. He was hugging his knees, his bald head down, and he was crying.

“Fat Man struck here three hours ago”, said Sarah, “but this man still doesn’t acknowledge that. He saw his daughter disappear in front of him. She was only a yard in front of him, but just around the corner. She took a direct hit from the blast and was vaporized, but this man, her father took longer to die from his burns He won’t believe that though.

“We call him Otokoshtori - it means, ‘I am all alone’ in Japanese. It is all he has said since August 9th, 1945. This is Hiroshima. 150,000 died here as a result of one bomb - about half on the first day, and there are tens of thousands like poor Otoshtori wandering around here - selfish though he is to be worried only about his own predicament. Perhaps that’s why he can’t move on”.

“I’m sure you recognize this, eh?”

“I sure do! Good old Cardiff Castle! I suppose that must have seen some battles too, dating from the Roman times”.

“Yes, it’s seen its share all right, but that’s not what I want to show you. Look over here. See him?”

“Yes, a tramp, not too old either, sleeping in the bushes”.

“Yes, but he wasn’t a tramp. Do you remember the German raid in January 1941, when a parachute mine landed on The Hollyman Bakery in Grangetown killing thirty-two people?”

“Vaguely”, he shrugged, “but not really”.

“Well, Ifor, here’s, family were in that basement, or some of them were anyway. So, the next time he was back on leave from the continent, he went AWOL and hitched back here, although he walked most of the way to avoid the police and so on. It was late April, 1941 when he arrived… the 29th, in fact. It was already quite late, so he decided to go for a few beers and sleep in the Castle Gardens before searching for his family the following morning.

“There was another raid that night, about thirty-three people were killed on Riverside that night, and the papers reported that one parachute mine fell ‘harmlessly into the Castle Grounds’. Except that it wasn’t so harmlessly… It fell on Ifor while he was out cold. He still doesn’t know that it happened, or won’t believe it. Every day, he goes looking for his family, and every night he come back here to sleep, because to him, every day is April 30th.

“The pity of it all, besides his misconception, is that the army and his family believed that he was a deserter and a coward, but luckily he doesn’t know that either.

“Come on, let’s go back to Annwn. You look worn out and bubbling with questions”.

Willy propped himself up on his elbow and faced his wife. “Was that a dream?” he asked.

“No, my dear. It was as real as anything that has ever happened to you”.

“I suppose there was Aberfan too?”

“Yes…”

“It was awful… but you said that I looked worn out”.

“Yes, in the sense of emotionally drained, not physically tired. And there are millions of sites like that all over this planet, and billions of them all over the Universe. It’s a joke to think that all we do is sit on a cloud playing a harp, or walk in the Garden of Eden sniffing flowers… and that is just one of the tasks we perform, although it is true to say that not everybody helps out”.

“So, what is it that you do?”

“Well, as you saw, we can revisit those parallel existences any time we like, so, we visit these sites regularly and keep on trying to prove that they are dead, but not dead and gone, if you see what I mean. The day after the Battle of Agincourt took place, for example, there were hundreds who needed our help, but now, there there are only a few dozen. We keep chipping away, reducing the numbers… The same with every war zone, natural disaster or plane crash”.

“Wow, is the only word that comes to mind. But tell me, what would happen if you didn’t do this work… I mean, if no-one did it?”

“Oh, they would realise The Truth in time, but, despite infinity, we try to speed up the process in order to relieve suffering”.

“Yes, I can see that. Is that where Catholics get the idea of Purgatory from? Do you think I’d be able to do this sort of work too?”

“I don’t know about Purgatory, but it could be. It is possible that it is a description of this state that has become blurred over time by people who didn’t quite understand the predicament… but yes, Willy, I do think you could do this work. It only takes compassion, and I know that you have that in abundance. I can get you on a course whenever you think you’re ready”.

“I’d really like to help, but I’m just worried whether I could cope after seeing what I did earlier. Far from being the easiest job, it seems to me that they are throwing novices in at the deep end!”

“No, jot really. First, there is no ‘they’. Nobody forces anyone to do anything they don’t want to or feel up to. Then there are no set hours. People do what they feel they are capable of… that’s all. Because of the nature of time here, there are no days, no nine-to-five jobs. When you feel charged enough, you might like to help. That’s all… and yes, it is a stressful job, but it is not the only thing that needs doing.

“There is also the matter of abused animals, but that is not always less stressful. Don’t feel obliged to help… it is not incumbent??? upon anyone. Having said that tough, I know you, and you will want to help, and so, you will find a way to do that. Don’t worry about it now”.

“Perhaps, I could start with local disasters…?”

She smiled, “There is no reason why you can’t have a special interest, but nationalities don’t make much difference here. We have visitors from all over the Galaxy, indeed, all over the Universe and other parallel existences…”

“No, it’s not that I only want to help Welsh people, but Aberfan, coal mine disasters and perhaps local battles, might be a better place for me to start”.

Sarah patted his hand. “Whatever you say, Willy, whatever you say, but you might want to rethink that one day, but that is completely up to you. Why don’t you try to get some rest now, my dear? I’ll still he here when you’re ready”. Willy offered up a kiss, and then closed his eyes like a good child being put to bed.

“I am a bit tired… I mean emotionally drained”, he muttered and went off somewhere in his head to recharge his batteries.

3 PICKING UP A PREVIOUS LIFE

“OK, my dear, do you feel better now? It was a harrowing experience, wasn’t it? Perhaps, I shouldn’t have been so brutal, but I judged that, since our generation missed actually taking part in any battles, since we have never witnessed the horrors of warfare, that it might be better to show you what really goes on. Please forgive me if I got it wrong”.

“No, it’s alright, Sarah, but, it was a Hell of shock… er, if I can use that expression”.

“Oh, yes, that isn’t a problem!” she laughed. “They are one and the same place. The two extremes… the two faces of the same coin, but with, most people say, five gradations in between them… the Seven Heavens, you’ve heard of”.

“Yes, I understand, so what level are we on?”

“It’s not always easy to tell. It’s not like seven floors in an hotel… it’s more imaginary than that… a feeling, a vibration. The higher the level, or Plane???, the higher the vibration, and the more Spiritual, and consequently, less physical.

“Not only that, but people are not confined to one level. Like in school. Er, we are more like bubbles in a Space Lamp???… we can rise to a higher plane by employing correct though, or sink by being base, mean or nasty. You could say that we drift between the Planes depending on who we are talking to, and what we are talking or thinking about.

“The point is that everybody feels happiest at a certain level, or on a certain Plane, and so they will tend to gravitate back to that Plane, even though they may have been on a higher or lower one temporarily. A good example is a typical Sunday back home on our mountain.

“On Sunday morning, you get ready for Chapel. You have a wash, put your best clothes on and walk down to the Church, where you listen to an uplifting sermon, sing a few hymns, and feel good about yourself. You might even make a promise to yourself to become a better person from then on. Then you go to the pub, get drunk with your mates, play cards, start swearing and blaspheming, and accuse Tommy Atkins of cheating again!”

“He does cheat when he’s drunk!”

“Well, maybe he does, but that’s not the point I was making, is it? Or perhaps it is… Old Tommy would have been in Chapel too, but it didn’t change him for long”.

“No, I understand…”

“Anyway, shall we go out and see if we can find something interesting for you to do?”

“Sure! It would be nice to have a look around the city again… not that I remember much about it from the last time. It was like a dream. The more I think about the physical details, and try to pin them down - to remember them - the harder it gets, yet I think I remember what we talked about”.

“That’s pretty typical too. It’s because there were no buildings, and there are no buildings. They are just a figment of our, or especially your imagination, because you cannot conceive of a city without them, script you mind fills in the blanks. The really important stuff, the words, the conversation and the ideas, it does remember more easily, because that is all there really was.

“We exchanged ideas, but for you to feel comfortable… at ease, that had to be done in chairs, and chairs are in buildings, and buildings are in cities, although it doesn’t really matter what form those chairs or buildings take. Hence, they are unimportant - immaterial - to the dialogue, which was the important part.

“Does that make sense, dear?”

“Yes, what we talked about was important and real, so I remembered it, but the settings in which the conversation took place were imaginary, so I didn’t”.

“Yes… you always were better with words than me. So, shall we go?”

“I’m ready, but I am supposing that that means that the city might not be exactly the same as last time, right?”

“Right. It will be as similar to last time as I remember it, but since you don’t remember it perfectly either, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“No!” he laughed and followed her out of their room, down the stairs and onto the street.

There were children chasing geese on the cobblestone square outside, and that was surrounded by market stalls behind which traders were hawking their wares of fruit, meat, vegetables, and clothing.

“So, this is all a product of your imagination?” he said to Sarah, as she slipped her arm through his reminding him of old times on their mountain.

“Yes, although I think you are adding bits as well. Some of the details are not mine and this is our illusion - what we call Maya here after the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. A goose caused Willy to come to an abrupt halt to avoid tripping over it as it squawked past inches in front of him.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”. Sarah nodded and smiled.

“Yes, sorry. I couldn’t resist it!”

“I’ll get you back for that later!” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Oh, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah! My beautiful, Sarah! You cannot believe how much I have missed you since… er, you came here, and I could no longer see or hear you clearly…” She saw tears in his eyes and dabbed at them with a dainty silk handkerchief.

“I know, but we’re all right now… we’re together again. Look, do you remember the tower with the foot baths? Was it round or square?”

“Round, I think. I seem to remember it being like a lighthouse”.

“OK, round it shall be. Let’s go in. It is one of our schools”.

“Yes, I remember. Do want me to go through the Akashic Record again?”

“No, you do what you please. Your progress is no-one’s business but your own… It’s not even mine, no matter how much I love you. If you ever feel the need to atone for something that is nagging away at the back of your mind, you can come here at any time and check it out”.

“Well, what are we going to do here?”

“Nothing specific. Just walk to the top of the tower, look out over the land and then walk back down again. Is that all right with you?”

“Yes, whatever you like, my dear?”

They walked up the stone spiral staircase past scores of heavy, mitre-shaped timber doors, most of which were slightly ajar. Willy often touched the huge stone blocks that made up the walls to test them, but they felt real enough to him. After a while of climbing, the reached a final door. Sarah turned the large, black metal ring which was the handle and pushed the solid door open.

“No, after you, my dear”, he said quite seriously, but then added as a joke, “I don’t want to step out of the door and fall thirty floors into the moat… Your sense of humour has changed, my girl”.

She slapped his shoulder as she passed by, and he slapped her bottom. She made an exaggerated move forward. “Hey! Less of that!” she complained not meaning it. “What do you think of the view? Isn’t it marvellous?”

“It sure is. So our mountain is er, over there?”

“If you like”.

“Well, the sun… Oh, there is no sun”. Sarah was shaking her head. “And no scenery? And no tower?”

“Well… they do exist, but they are certainly not as solid as you perceive them. To you the atoms look dense and solid, whereas, in reality, they are far enough apart to be able to walk through. Look”. Sarah stepped through the battlement and stood in ‘empty space’. “Come on out and try it. You can’t fall - there’s nowhere to fall from or to and even if a pedant says that there is, we don’t have enough mass to hurt ourselves, and even if we could hurt ourselves, we would be able to fix ourselves immediately”. Sarah held out her hand to him and Willy and Willy put his best foot forward towards it.

“That’s amazing!” he said taking her hand and smiling back at her. “Truly, bloody amazing!”

“Willy! I didn’t like swearing before and I still don’t like it now! Speak how you like when you are alone or with your mates, but not when you are with me, please!”

“Yes, sorry, love, but you’ve got to admit that it’s not every day that you find out that you can fly… and walk on water too, I suppose?”

“Sure, but what water?”

“So, that’s how He did it? It was just a trick in front of the ignorant savages!?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have expressed it quite lime that. The Jews of that period were about as educated as any other people, but they were ignorant of the true facts of life, yes. Just as most people still are now, two thousand years later. And I wouldn’t call it a trick… are striking a match or shooting a bird out of a tree tricks? Just because someone has never seen it done before, doesn’t make it a trick! Jesus isn’t a con man…”

“No, you’re right… Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that he was… er, is. Sorry, Jesus”.

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s go back to the tower and take a seat”.

“A seat? But I didn’t see any sea… Oh, those seats? Silly me”. Willy dusted off the stone slab bench and they sat, with their arms on the wall looking out at the scenery that Sarah had created for their enjoyment, just as an artist might create a painting for the delectation of art lovers.

“So, you think that disaster rescue might be too much for you?”

“Yes, well, certainly at the moment. I never did like injury and sickness. I would have made a rotten nurse”.

“OK, how about comforting mistreated animals and lonely or neglected children? Or being with people who are dying alone? Not those necessarily in distress, but those who are alone at the point of passing over?”

“I thought friends and family did that?”

“Well, they do normally. If they care enough, but there are still people who die alone, or would do, if it were not for volunteers on this side. In fact, it is becoming an increasingly bigger problem, especially in the West, but all over the world. People are becoming more individual, more independent, and a consequence of that is that they often die alone too.

“However, it is not only those cases. There are also drownings, suicides and routine accident victims… even if they don’t end up dying. They often appreciate someone to talk to until physical help arrives. You may even talk someone out of committing suicide. That’s a nice feeling”.

“Yes. I’m pretty certain that I could do any of those jobs, although watching animals suffer would be tough”.

“Yes, it is. Harder than working on the battlefields. For me, anyway, but I did it for a while, and still would if necessary”.

“You always were a selfless, hard-working woman, Sarah, and I am ashamed to say that I took advantage of that sometimes”.

She took his hand. “Not too often, or I would have left… but I have always loved you, Willy, and knew that you weren’t the big tough man you pretended to be”.

He choked back a splutter, and turned to wipe his eyes. She knew him well, he thought, but said, “So, up here, we don’t have to to eat, drink, sleep or er, procreate, but it seems that we still have to keep busy. That’s the one thing I have discovered that we have in common with people in our mortal phase”.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. The activities you mentioned are really only necessary for the body, which we ‘up here’, by which I assume you mean on this tower, no longer have. However, keeping busy has to do with the mind, which we in Annwn do still have. On the other hand, we have our hermits too, although there aren’t many, and they are usually old men who were hermits on Earth and can’t imagine a different existence. I know that hermits have the reputation for being highly Spiritual, but not all of them made it that far and they are still trying to here in Annwn. A bit like old Henry VIII, the poor man”.

“You are a better person than I am, Sarah. I’ve got no sympathy for the rich bast… er, privileged old sod. I’ve got no time for kings and queens lording it over everyone… even if he was, is, was a Welsh monarch. He and his ilk don’t care about people like us when they are in power, so why should we care about them when they are making complete tits, er, I mean, arses, er fools of themselves.”

“It’s called compassion and forgiveness, my dear. They behaved foolishly when they had the chance to be great leaders who benefited their people, but they chose to be selfish and greedy. They were week, but acted aggressively in order to hide it.

“But they can’t escape from their deeds. Karma keeps track of everything that everyone does. Hating Henry won’t cause him to suffer any more, and won’t do you any good either, whereas trying to help him might help him and your own Karma.

“Vengeance is not yours, it is Karma’s! And we are often our own worst critics, when we are faced with our own stupidity”.

“Anyway, let’s change the subject for now. So, you think that you would like to help lonely and abused children and people are facing death alone, but who not frightened of the prospect?”

“Yes, that’s it. I think it would suit me to slip into this role gently. How about hobbies? Do you have them here?”

“Yes. You like gardening, don’t you?”

“Yes, but correct me if I’m wrong, but imagining a beautiful back garden full of healthy flowers is a bit facile, isn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed it would be, although you and I would derive pleasure from sitting in and looking at it. There’s no harm in that, but that is not what we call gardening. That is more like creating… art, if you like. What we call gardening is something quite different.

“The whole Universe is our garden! Let me give you an example. You could pick an endangered species of, say, tropical orchid, and try to ensure that it survives long enough for some caring people to discover and save it. It’s not really my line, but perhaps you get my drift. I could put you in touch with people who know more though.

“How does that sound? There are literally billions of species of flora and fauna that are crying out for help across the Galaxies. It’s a great excuse for foreign travel too!”

“Do we need an excuse?”

“No, of course not, but I tend to get so engrossed in my work that I don’t go anywhere, whereas you could choose species that forced you to travel. If that’s what you want”.

“I think I would rather like to be around you” he said sheepishly.

“Now that does really does deserve a kiss!” she said, planting one briefly on his lips. “Shall we live in here, in the city, or our there?” she asked sweeping the horizon with her hand.

“Well, if we can travel any distance in an instant, and travel to any minute in history and still be on time, I don’t suppose that it matters, does it, as long as we’re together?”

“I love you, Willy, and I think you are beginning to get the hang of things again. Shall we go back to the inn?”

“Why not? It’s as good a place as any”.

4 FINDING A JOB

William ‘woke up’ on the bed in their room at the inn again, but Sara was reading a book at a round table in the bay window not far away. He put his hands under his head and watched her, thinking that she wouldn’t have noticed him awaking because he could see more of her back than her front. It seemed that she was reading a little and then staring out of the window to think about it.

If he wasn’t already enamoured, he would have fallen in love all over again, he thought.

“Are you staring at me, Willy Jones?, she asked turning slowly, finishing a sentence, he presumed.

“Ye, you’re beautiful”.

“Thank you, I’m sure”.

“You know, for a man who can’t get tired because he hasn’t go a body, I get awfully tired and sleep a lot”.

“It is not your body that needs rest. Life in corpore??? is stressful, and everyone goes through a lot both living on the Surface and transitioning to here. You, your Soul, has a lot of information to process and assimilate. Not only that, but you have to relearn how to live here. Don’t worry. It’s normal”.

“It strikes me, you know, that this is what a man feels like recovering from amnesia, not that I’ve ever had amnesia… or concussion then. Remember when I tripped over that rock and banged my head twenty-odd years ago?”

“Well, I wasn’t there was I? It happened when you were drunk walking back from the pub one Sunday afternoon. When you were late for dinner, I came looking for you, and found you sitting in the grass on the roadside. You had no idea where you were!”

“I wasn’t drunk, I was concussed…”

“You were absolutely blotto!”

“I was concu…”

“Remember what I said about lying?”

“Well, I was concussed… and blotto. Anyway, what are you reading? I hadn’t thought about people reading in Annwn”.

“It’s a book about loneliness and it’s effect on the undeveloped mind”.

“Wow! You used to like Mills & Boon!”

“Those days are in a different existence. I always knew that there had to be more to life, but I just didn’t have the education, or perhaps, gumption, to find out what else there really was. It’s easier here. You will never be told that something you learned in Annwn, was not actually the truth. There is no Thirty-Year Rule constructed to conceal The Truth from people so that the rich and powerful can get away with telling lies until after they have passed away. The Truth here always has been and always will be The Truth - unlike on the Surface.

Class barriers and unequal educational opportunities are non-existent in Annwn. In fact, it often works the other way”.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, often, when a rich, well-educated, privileged person comes here, they think that they are still superior - like poor old Henry again - and those preconceptions get in the way of his or her progress. Whereas, when someone like me comes here, we know that we have a lot to learn, and so we just get on with it. However, and this is the massive difference, he we only learn The Truth. The lies and propaganda often preached on the Surface do not exist here.

“Here, all knowledge is good knowledge - none of it will ever hold you back ever. That makes it easy to catch up with the more privileged”.

“What did Jesus say? ‘It is easier for a poor man to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven’?”

“Yes, well, that is not quite true, but what was actually said might have become distorted in translation or by someone who didn’t understand what he was reading, but yes, the gist of The Truth is there, isn’t it?”

“Can I have a look at your book?”

“If you want”. She appeared at his side, handed it over smiling and then sat down next to him. He didn’t read the cover, as she had expected, but opened it to a random inside page.

He looked, moved the book to and fro to adjust the focus of his eyes, and said, “I didn’t think that I would need my specs here, but I can’t read the letters”.

“No, but it has nothing to do with your eyes. It is written in an off-world language. Xian, we call it here. I have studied Xian, and even been there a few times. We’ll go one day, if you like?”

“One day?”

“It’s just an expression”.

“Yes, I’d love to. I didn’t travel very far as a shepherd… nor did you”.

“No, and I still don’t compared with many people, but there’s no rush. Have you thought any more about keeping busy?”

“I don’t know whether I have or not to be honest, but I do know that I will have to do something. Not only that, but I suppose you have things to do too”.

“Oh, don’t worry about me. You are my priority - everyone understands that”.

“OK, thanks. As far as having something to do goes, we’ll just go with Plan B… not the battlefields, the other one”.

“OK, good. Let me know when you’re ready”.

“Now is as good a time as any. How do you know where a suffering animal, or a lonely child is located?”

“There are two basic approaches. Find out for yourself or get someone to tell you”.

“Crikey, I should have been able to work that out for myself! Are you taking the Arthur Bliss?”

“Arth… do you have to be coarse?” she asked decoding the Cockney Rhyming Slang that she hadn’t heard for decades. “No, I am not. It might sound obvious, but that’s how many things work here. It is a simple method, and it works wonderfully. However, as in many cases here, there is the easy way for the lazy, and the other, more independent method for those who like to learn.

“If you want to be completely independent, you w need to learn how to divine misery. It is not difficult, but most people do need to be taught how to do it. An equivalent is the knack you have of finding a pub in a city you’ve never been to before. Anyway, until you have mastered that skill, if you want to start immediately, you will have to ask someone, won’t you?

“It is that simple”.

“OK, sounds logical. Ask whom?”

“Me, for example!”

“OK, so you can do that?”

“Yes, don’t look so surprised! Why shouldn’t I be able to?”

“No, there’s no reason. It’s just that your stock of new talents overwhelmed me”.

“Well, they’re not all new, are they. Rediscovered, perhaps, some of them, and a few new ones learned. It will be the same for you. You’ve forgotten, that’s all”.

“OK, remind me how to tune into, say, misery”.

“OK, the basics. As we said last time you were here, every sentient being is attached to a grid - like a spider’s web or computer memory with every intersection representing a being. So, if you scan that grid looking for the low vibrations that misery produce, you will find miserable beings. Experience will teach you the exact vibrations you are looking for - the ones that represent the type of misery that you are looking for, and some of the other vibrations will indicate what sort of being is producing them - a dog, a cat or a human”.

“And that’s it?”

“Yes, but it’s like anything, eh? You know how to play darts, but you never played for Wales, did you? It is easy to describe, but harder to do well, because that takes lots of practice and a certain amount of dedication. However, once you have learned that skill, there are other uses you can put it to.

“Like most things here, you can use helping others to promote your own skills and abilities, or you can just ask someone to help you. It’s up to you”.

“I would like to learn, or relearn, the skill to be able to use the grid, or do you call it the web?”

“Either. You will hear both, and other words”.

“Where do I enrol? That sounds like the best place to start”.

“I can teach you, or we can easily find you someone else, if you like”.

“No, I want you to teach me?”

“Good. Lie down again and shift over”.

“But I always lie on the right! That’s my side…”

“Not this time, it’s not!”

xxx

“That was wonderful! So, moving… Some people are so thoughtless, aren’t they? That poor little puppy! They just left him all alone in the flat, and he only looked about six weeks old”.

“Yes, but it’s not always thoughtlessness. The parents are probably at work and the kids in school. Maybe they’ve never had a dog before. Don’t rush to judge them, but the puppy was in a terrible state”.

“He’s just been dragged away from his mum and siblings. He’s scared and lonely and in a strange house”

“No food and no water! It’s disgraceful. People like that shouldn’t be allowed to own an animal… or they should be made to go to night school to learn how to care for them. They should need a certificate before they can buy a dog!”

“Yes, all right, dear. There are thousands of cases like that, and millions of much worse examples”.

“Well, it was really gratifying to keep him company. He really appreciated it, didn’t he? He’s a lovely little chap… not much good as a sheepdog, but a grand pet and guard dog… or will be one day… and yet that’s how they treat him! It should be against the law…”

“Yes, all right, love. Don’t go on about it, do something about it instead!”

“I will. I’m going back tomorrow, or wherever you tell me he’s lonely next. He could see us, couldn’t he?”

“Yes, animals and many children can. They haven’t been persuaded that we don’t exist”.

“I’d love to go see him when the family is at home. He’d be playing with us, and the family wouldn’t have a clue what was going on! That would be funny… and they would call him, but he wouldn’t come, because he knows us better than he does them!”

“Yes, you have to be careful with that, Willy. You don’t want him to be punished because you want to gratify your ego. The point is to help the dog, not so that you can prove a point. It can be very fine line… not unlike the one that temporary foster parents have to walk”.

Willy took a deep breath and exhaled an even deeper sigh. “I guess you’re right, but it would be nice, eh?” Sarah nodded, but flattened her lips. “I enjoyed that, and definitely want to keep doing it - and I want to learn how to locate the animals on my own, although it was great to play with the dog with you too.

“I don’t suppose you find endangered plants in the same way, eh? I mean, do plants get lonely or feel threatened when there aren’t many of them left? I remember Prince Charles saying that his plants listen to him or something like that, but what goes on there?”

“It’s even easier actually”.

“What, plants leave an even stronger trace than puppies?”

“No, you just ask the locals”, she laughed. “Plants thrive in a happy environment. That is true, so if they cannot be in their natural environment, they grow better in a happy home, but their vibes are too faint for me. No, in that case, it is better to ask the people who live in the area”.

“What if they don’t believe in, er, us?”

“Peoples in remote places often do believe in Spirit though. It’s the city folk who often have the doubts, and luckily, there are not many endangered species in the cities… not compared with in the wild, anyway, but we have another resource that might sound a little over-the-top to you at the moment.

“The Little Folk…”

“Y Tylwydd Teg? Fairies?”

“Yes. I know that you suspected they existed when you were with the sheep on the mountain, but you were right, you did see them, and they know everything that there is to know about flowers… well, all flora and fauna, in fact”.

“I knew I had seen them! I blood… sorry, I knew that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, as sure as eggs is eggs! Whoohoo! I knew it! Up with y Tylwydd Teg!

“Do they live here in Annwn too?”

“Er, they live everywhere, but they keep themselves to themselves. They are in a parallel existence, but it is very close to the sight range of human eyes. Animals can see them more easily. You can befriend them, but they don’t take to everyone, and don’t really encourage contact. Nothing stopping you from trying though”.

“And they are shortish, wear green and tend plants?”

“More or less exactly as the stories tell, yes”.

“Wow! That’s great news! And they don’t regard us as competition?”

“No, more of a nuisance, as far as I can tell. I’ve never actually met any, though I have seen them. They have a few people who they trust, but there aren’t many. There’s no animosity or anything like that, just a kind of dissonance which keeps us apart… like distant relatives that you think there was a feud with before you were born, but nobody can remember what it was about”.

Willy nodded, but was deep in thought.

5 GETTING THE BASICS RIGHT

6 THE SURFACE

7 FAMILY AND OLD FRIEND