"I thought this was a strange question, but I considered it for a moment and said "Yes, my life was filled with love, from my parents, my friends, my wife and children. I have known love all my life."
"Then he said: 'That's alright then. But you have unfinished business'.""I asked him why he should think so, and he pointed to my waist. I saw then that there was a slim silver belt fastened around my waist and connected to something behind me by a silver cord which ran back into the distance until I could no longer see it. He said "That is your connection to earth. It is not yet severed. You still have things to do there before you can come home."
"I thought about that, too. I thought of how my wife, Angela would be totally devastated when she heard of my death, and how she and Rolande would weep so. I thought of my children, who live far from Toronto now, and of grandchildren I would never meet. I remembered the plans that Angela and I had made for our retirement, which would be starting in a few years. All gone now. So I said to him "Yes, I have unfinished business; I'm barely sixty years old. I'd planned on at least ten more good years, maybe more. I suppose it's too late to fret about it, but I wish I could at least have left Angela better prepared. Not financially, there's always been lots of money, but she's so helpless in so many other ways."
"And then my friend said "It's not too late; not for you. If you wish, you can go back and finish what you went to earth to do." I shook my head. "No, it's too late now. I've been dead for an hour or more (which I though was how long I'd been in the tunnel and the valley) and my brain has been without oxygen for far too long. I'd go back as a living vegetable and cause nothing but heartache to the people I love." And he replied: "Not so. Make your choice, Maurice. That's all you need to do."
"Well I guess I made my choice, because I lost consciousness for a moment and when I opened my eyes I was in the ambulance on its way into Toronto, and every single part of my body hurt like hell. The first thing I heard was the Paramedic saying "Welcome back, buddy. It was touch and go for a while, but you're going to be alright."
The two men sipped their brandy, saying nothing for a long minute. Then Harry said "Maurice, the last thing on earth that I want to do is argue with you or upset you, but your tale strikes me as so much like my dreams that I could have written it up as one of my own. The time lapses; the instant transportation from scene to scene; floating and flying; freedom from physical pain; magic tunnels and spectral beings. By your own admission you were unconscious through all this, so how can you be sure that you weren't dreaming?"
"How can I be sure that I’m not dreaming now, Harry? I've dreamed all my life. I don't claim your expertise in that area, but I've dreamed enough to know the difference. I'm not dreaming now, and I wasn't dreaming then."
The two men moved on to discuss other things, to establish the basis for a good working relationship between their two companies as well as the beginning of an enduring friendship. The evening passed very pleasantly. It was midnight before Harry left for his hotel. He made a small note in his diary before going to bed. Near Death Experiences (NDE). Ask Liz about Web.
* * *Remembering the last time he had convened a meeting of Burton's board, Harry entered the boardroom with some trepidation, but his fears were groundless. As he followed Louise through the door the entire board stood and cheered. Harry blushed, stammered, sat. He nodded to Mick Shaw at the far end of the table, who was wearing a neckbrace, but seemed otherwise recovered. He looked for Don Harrod, and saw Susan James in his seat.
"Any news of Don, Susan," he asked."I'd be pleased to discus it with you after the meeting, if that's OK Mr. Murphy."
"I think that Don has many good friends around the table who would very much like to hear news of him."
"I'm afraid that the news isn't good, sir. I'd much prefer to speak with you privately, then if you wish me to do so I'll give a full report at the next board meeting."
"I will accept your better judgement in this area," Harry said, with a small smile. "Let's move on, then."Harry gave news of the AGI meeting from the previous week and invited questions. There were several and Harry had answers. He moved rapidly through the business of the day and wrapped up.
"I'm making some changes in procedure for these meetings," he said, as people started making preparations to leave. "For starters, any regular attendee of these meetings, or any properly named delegate (he nodded to Susan) will now be entitled to add agenda items. With the greatest deference to Theo, I know that the common feeling about these board meetings is that they were largely a waste of time. That is going to change. Now I don't simply want to send you a list of topics before each meeting, I want you all to help me make sure that the agenda is full of issues which need to be brought to the attention of Burton's management for discussion and decision. My only rule is that any topic on the agenda must involve at least a majority of us. An item which just involves two or three of you, say, should be sorted between yourselves, involving me if you need to. In future, then, Louise will contact you three working days before the meeting for your agenda items. This will give her time to distribute copies of any documentation that you want us to see before the meeting. Use your common sense on this. I mean, there's no point in asking us for an opinion of a report and then handing out copies of it at the meeting, so we all sit around reading for an hour or two. In any case if anyone tries that I'll simply table the document for discussion at the next meeting and move right along. Last minute items can be added, but they'd better be important. If you're unsure about an item, call me. Any questions?"
There were none. On the way out Mick Shaw and Ron Edwards stopped to congratulate Harry personally. "Meeting suit you?" Harry asked. "Or did I just pull another 'Theo'?" "Well, Murph," Mick replied, "If there's an opposite to 'pulling a Theo', I reckon you just did it."
Ron departed but Mick hung back. "I understand I've you to thank for keeping the dogs off me while I was out of it on the cobblestones," he said to Harry "Not so," Harry replied. "Don't listen to that Harry-the-Hero nonsense, I was knocked out of it in the first few seconds of the battle and watched the end of it from the sidelines after my vision cleared."
"No Harry-the-Hero?" Mick asked. "I'm a bit sad about that, Murph. I kind of liked you in the 'Dirty Harry' role, beating up the bad guys.""You'd do me a favour if you'd straighten the record, Scotty. I've tried myself but people say 'oh, he's just being modest'."
"Well, Murph, you know I think I'll just leave things as they are. I appreciate what you tried to do, what you meant to do, and that took courage. I think it suits most of us at Burton's just to leave the medals on your chest."
Harry met with Susan James and learned that Don was so severely depressed that his family physician was talking of having him hospitalised for treatment. Despite a steady stream of visitors telling Don that it was in no way his fault, he continued to blame himself for the death of Steve Banks. He had told Susan "I threw the man under the truck, how can I not be responsible for his death?" Mick Shaw had visited and told Don "It was me that threw Stevie over my shoulder, and plain bad luck that the truck roared by right about then!" but Don had refused to respond. Harry promised himself that he would visit with Don as soon as possible and felt guilty that he had not already done so.
At three thirty Harry stepped out of his office and pressed the elevator button. "I'm gone for the day," he told Louise in passing. "Got some shopping to do, so you're in charge." Louise grinned. "I've got your mobile number," she said. "I'll find you if there's a Code Two."
"There are no more Code Twos," Harry said as the elevator door closed."Oh, of course not!" Louise said, turning pink. Code Two was their private shorthand for a 'Panicked Theo' emergency.
Harry drove out of Halifax heading north-east and followed highway 102 up to the exit at Bayer's Lake Park, known to local shoppers as the "Big Box Shopping Centre." He parked outside Future Shop, stepped through the doorway and instantly froze, mesmerised by the huge display of computer hardware, software and peripherals within the cavernous store. He had asked Liz about her computer and been somewhat surprised to find that she claimed little expertise in this field.
"I know how to use the thing, Harry, but it's like the car. I know which levers to pull and what buttons to press, but I haven't the faintest idea of what's going on inside or how the thing works. When I bought my laptop I simply went to Future Shop, spoke with one of their young men, and followed his advice." "Yes, but what do I do when they start talking bytes and bits and megathings?" Harry had asked.
"Tell him you only speak English.""Can I help you, sir," a young salesman had noticed Harry's hesitance.
"I need a computer."
"You're in the right store, then. Do you have any specifications?"
"You mean Rams and Gigahertz, stuff like that? I'm afraid I only speak English."
"English will do fine. I really meant do you have something specific in mind that you want to do with the computer? Do you want to play games on it, for example, or keep financial records, follow your investments? Or send and receive electronic mail? What I'm getting at is that I don't want to sell you a sports car if you really need a lawn tractor. Or vice versa."
"Ah," said Harry with some relief, " Those specifications, I can handle. What I want to do is learn how to use the World Wide Web to find information. Is that specific enough for you?"
"It's a very good start."They looked at several impressive laptops but when Harry saw the large screen desktop displays he decided that he'd prefer a stationary model. He listened to the pros and cons of high speed cable internet versus high speed modem phone lines, talked about the size of Hard Drive he would need to store his programs and data files, and gradually the bytes and bits all fell into place. He left after an hour with the assurance that everything he would need was contained in one or another of the big boxes in the trunk of his car. He also had the phone number of "Dan the Disk Doctor", a young computer sciences graduate who would, for a fee, help Harry install, debug and operate his new system. Harry called Dan the Doctor and made arrangements to get his computer up and running the following weekend.
Compared to learning the Clarinet, Harry found that operating his home computer was easy. Of course much of this was due to Dan Robinson -- "Dan the Disk Doctor" -- who took care of anything remotely complex or difficult. Dan set up an account for Harry with a local service provider and interconnected all of the component parts of his system. He automated the log-in process and turned his back while Harry typed in his password. "If your password is your wife's name, forwards or backwards, Mr. Murphy, I'd suggest that you change it. Sorry, I should have mentioned that earlier. Don't use family names or birthday numbers. The safest password is a random collection of numbers and letters."
Harry, who didn't see the need for a password in the first place, backspaced Z-I-L and entered T-H-E-O-D-O-R-E.All that Harry had to do to reach the World Wide Web was press three keys; one to turn on the system, a second to activate his web browser, and a third to connect to the internet. Then he needed only to move the pointer around the screen by means of his "mouse," clicking on whatever caught his attention.
Dan showed him how to do a simple search, using the engine from his home page. He typed in the letters N-D-E and sat back. His first attempt scored over a million "hits". Visiting the first web page on his hit-list Harry found several dozen books on the subject of Near Deaths, and a cross-linkage to a second site which contained hundreds of first hand accounts of such experiences.
He was overwhelmed.He stayed up past three o'clock on Sunday morning reading accounts, book extracts, theories and counter theories. When Liz came down to drag him away from the computer he was wide eyed and open mouthed in amazement.
"It's like every library in the world at my fingertips," he said. "Private libraries included. I can't get over the size of it.""Hang in there, Harry," Liz told him. "You're in an area I know something about now, using the web for research. Tomorrow I can show you how to refine your searches to get specific information, and if you're a really good boy I might show you how to use your credit card on-line to order some of those books you had on the screen."
Head spinning, Harry followed Liz upstairs. * * *Harry Murphy's Dream Diary: Monday August 3
I was in a large office complex. It was night, and the building seemed unoccupied. I walked along an empty corridor, lit only by emergency lamps placed at intervals along the low ceiling. My feet made no sound on the plush carpet which covered the entire floor.
I came to a double-door and went through to find myself in a large auditorium. The seats were wooden benches, arranged in semicircles facing a small stage on which sat a wooden podium. There was a small, illuminated lectern on the podium. I walked down a staircase which bisected the semi-circular seats and stepped up onto the stage. I saw that there was a thick stack of papers on the lectern, and on the top page "Harry Murphy" was printed in large, black letters. I turned the page to see close-set five point type which covered the page. Flipping through the stack I saw that there were hundreds of pages covered in this tiny, hard-to-read type. I tried to read the page which I was holding, but the type danced in front of my eyes. I gave up and replaced the page, but as I stepped from the podium an uneasy feeling came over me, as though I had forgotten something important.
I climbed the stairs to return to the corridor, but the door now led to a parking lot, lit by a solitary lamp fastened high on the side of the building I had just left. There was only one car in the lot, but I recognised it as mine. It was a large, older-model Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, but painted now in a high-gloss black. The amber light of the sodium lamp high above was reflected in the paintwork like a surrealistic moon. I took the keys from my pocket and started towards the car. As I crossed the lot I saw movement over by the exit, where the lot joined the street. Three figures, dimly backlit by the lights from the street, were walking towards me. I hurried to my car, opened the door and jumped in. I locked the doors and checked that all of the windows were tightly wound to the top. The three figures sauntered slowly towards my car.
I turned the key and automatically started my Reality Check. I could account for the last few minutes, and I knew that I was at my office building, about to leave after a long, tiring day at work. I had successfully read the papers on the lectern in the auditorium, and....... No. That wasn't right. I could only read my name, in large letters on the top sheet. The other, smaller letters had jumped about so much that I had abandoned the attempt to read them. I pinched myself, hard, on the cheek and winced from the pain. I took out my driver's licence...... the letters blurred and swam in front of my eyes. The first of the three figures had arrived at my car. He was a slim young man, dressed completely, as far as I could tell, in black leather. He started to pound on the window, and his two colleagues rapidly joined in.
Their inconsiderate actions made me furious. I wound down the driver's side window and yelled at the three men "Will You Please Stop That Stupid Noise!! Can't you see that I am trying to do a Reality Check here!!!
The three men disappeared. They did not walk away, they simply ceased to be there.And I knew then that I must be dreaming. I sat in the car and focussed on the soft glow of the instrument panel. All around me the scenery started to take on an illumination of its own. The interior of the car, the parking lot, the high walls of the dark building, everything began to glow. I looked at my hands and saw the same bright glow surrounding my fingers. The glow from my body had a faint violet tinge to it, and sparks flashed deep within the aura. At the same time a wonderful feeling stole over me; a feeling of expectation, reminiscent of the way I had felt as a young boy, waking on Christmas morning, sneaking silently down dark stairs to the treasure trove of the living room. Something very wonderful was about to happen to me. Stay in the Dream, I told myself. Stay in the Dream!!! Pleeeeease stay in .......................
I woke up.Tuesday August 04: Notes
That was a Lucid Dream. It didn't have the depth or intensity of my visit with Margaret, and certainly not the duration. But it was lucid; and I did it on my own. Now all I have to do is learn how to stay in the dream. How to wake up, but stay asleep. I think my Dreambook said that should take somewhere between two weeks and a lifetime. I don't know what the dream signifies; the office building, the parking lot thugs. Somehow that doesn't seem especially important any more.
I lay awake for a long time, and eventually, for fear of disturbing Liz, I got up at about four thirty. I spent the rest of the night at my computer, reading a lot of nonsense about spirits leaving their bodies and going down a long tunnel of light to speak with Jesus Christ.
END.* * *
Harry learned to surf the net proficiently in very little time. Within a week he was spending so much time on-line that Liz arranged for high speed cable to be installed at the house and connected to his computer. While Harry was very grateful to her for this new development (he now needed to press only one button to access his web pages) Liz claimed that she had only done it to regain the use of her telephone.
Liz showed him how to download files for later reading, and soon he had amassed a large virtual library of NDE experiences. Despite his rapid adaptation to the high-tech world Harry still liked to print out his files and peruse them in his fireside chair or in bed, where he could cover them with scribbled notes, cross references and comments. As a result the house soon began to fill up with odd pages, singly or stapled into small files, and often to be found in the oddest places. Under the impression that this was diverting Harry from more threatening pursuits, Liz learned to live with the clutter.
Harry had been prepared for the volume of case studies available to him through the medium of the web, but was surprised by the variety. While the large majority of the NDEs described visions of peace and beauty, some of them had evidently been trips to Hell and back. In the case of the former most of the people who returned to life claimed to have lost all fear of death. On the other hand those who returned from the nightmare NDEs lived in constant fear of a return to whatever they had encountered. In almost all cases, positive or negative, the experience triggered significant life changes.
On a website titled "Hollywood Near Death Accounts" Harry found a list of well known names who had undergone an NDE. It read like the guest list for the opening night of the big screen's latest blockbuster epic. Peter Sellers provided details of his experience, while Burt Reynolds merely confessed to having had one. Eric Estrada, Donald Sutherland, Gary Busey, Larry Hagman and Lou Gosset Junior were all included in the list. Elsewhere Harry found details of NDE accounts from scientists of all disciplines, Politicians of all stripes, Bureaucrats, Doctors, Lawyers, Schoolteachers and Bankers. The NDE experience seemed to be totally non-discriminatory; an equal opportunity employer. Even Carl Jung, close associate of Sigmund Freud and a pioneer of modern psychology, had experienced and recorded an NDE episode.
An interesting site compared the NDE accounts of people from various faiths and assorted geographical locations. Apparently the "tunnel of light" encounter was very common to Christians of all persuasions, but was rarely a factor in Hindu NDE accounts. It seemed that the Divine Powers had provided an environment which allowed participants to view the experience in whatever form they found most comfortable. Either that, or there were competing NDE suppliers on the "other side".
Several small, isolated accounts proved to be especially interesting to Harry. In one of these a young woman, blind from birth, was able to see for the first time in her life during her NDE. She gave detailed accounts of what she had seen which were too close to the real thing to be written off as hallucinations. Returning to her body, she was once again blind. Harry tried to imagine how he would describe a tree in circumstances where he had never seen one. Or to describe that same tree from observations of his nose, ears and fingertips alone.
He was intrigued by the case of "P", an unidentified young girl, as told to and reported by a nurse who had worked with the young patient. "P" had undergone serious heart surgery, involving several separate operations, which had in the end been unsuccessful. Finally the team of doctors working with the teenager had determined that only a transplant held any hope for a longer term solution. After waiting months for a suitable donor, the transplant surgery finally took place on the day before Christmas, 1996. As the team of surgeons cut into the child's chest and removed the diseased, barely functioning heart, P left her body and hovered over the operating table. Not surprisingly the youngster had developed a strong distaste for things medical, and decided not to hang around in the operating room. Passing easily through closed doors -- and even through solid walls -- P travelled around the hospital, eavesdropping on conversations here and there, and finally ending up on the roof of the building. While floating around up there, enjoying the beauty of the heavy snowstorm which was blanketing the city, P noticed a strange thing. A blue plastic sandal had somehow found its way onto a small ledge at the western edge of the roof. It was a small sandal, probably belonging to a child, and was light enough to have been carried onto the roof by a strong gust of wind, or perhaps by a curious bird. As she watched, the sandal was rapidly covered by snow.
The surgical team experienced great difficulty with the transplant, but the operation was eventually successful. The new heart was induced to beat, and the patient was taken to recovery. Recover she did, and before leaving the hospital she told the story of her out-of-body wanderings to a nurse with whom she had developed, over the long months of her treatments, a strong friendship. The nurse, having heard of NDE cases, attempted to verify the story by contacting people whose conversations had been overheard, and met with a reasonable degree of success. The nurse was not able to check the story of the small slipper due to continued bad weather, and when she was finally able to get one of the janitorial staff to check the roof he reported finding no such object.
Months later, the snow long gone, the nurse was working her notice before transferring out of the city, and on impulse climbed the stairs to the roof and checked the door. It was open. She walked to the western rim of the roof, and slowly along the edge. At about the mid point of her walk she spotted and retrieved without difficulty a small, blue plastic sandal, probably the property of a young child.
Harry thought long on this story. He did not doubt its veracity. Why would the child or the nurse manufacture such a tale? Not for fame, obviously, as neither of them had even wanted their names used in the story. Certainly not for money. But if it were true, how was it possible? How could the child have dreamed about the sandal unless she had known about the sandal? And how could she have known about the sandal unless she had seen the sandal? And how could she have seen the sandal when at the time of the sighting her chest was open and devoid of a functioning heart?
Harry found several such cases in his first few days of research, and they gave him much to think about. He could not find it within himself to dismiss thirty million North Americans as cranks or liars, particularly when this group included many prominent citizens, people whom Harry had long admired and respected. The stories could be neither fabrications nor hallucinations. Could it really be that in such cases the spirit detached itself from the body and moved independently of it? Was that also what happened in dreams? Then what was Margaret, his girl in white? Was she more than just a manifestation of his subconscious mind? More than merely a symbolic way of communicating with his inner self? Could she possibly be a spiritual being in her own right? If so, it opened up entirely new perspectives on the whole business of creative dreaming.
He realised that he would have to face up to and deal with a concept which had played at the fringes of his mind for some time now; the idea that these episodes concerned something far removed from the subconscious mind of the dreamer; in fact quite separate from any part of the physical being. These were voyages not of the mind, but of the spirit; and taking place not within the brain, but ......... where? Harry had rejected religion at a very early age -- barely into his teenage years -- and with it had gone the concept of his immortal soul. He was quite ready to believe that his brain/mind had several levels, as identified many years ago by Freud and still accepted, with some modifications, by mainstream psychology. In fact the whole purpose of his efforts in creative dreaming had been to reach and communicate with these deeper levels of his mind; to seek guidance and inspiration from them. But the thought of a separate spiritual body, leaving the dead physical body and having adventures all of its own -- Harry still found the concept very difficult to swallow.
He would definitely need to think about this. * * *Harry Murphy's Dream Diary: Wednesday August 5
It was late evening, somewhere towards the centre of a great city. I was sitting in an old car; old only in years, not in condition. It was a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, but no longer in its original colour. It had been professionally painted a highgloss jet black, and the reflection of city lights in its immaculate paintwork resembled a night sky twinkling with distant stars. The car was in mint condition; the motor ran with a soft purr, only discernible because the car was not in motion. I was late leaving the office ... again. Very late, this time. I knew that my wife would be annoyed to find me arriving home past midnight, and I could not fault her for feeling that way. I slipped the car into reverse and backed out of my parking space. Changing into first gear I rolled across the deserted parking lot and out onto the road. The attendant's hut at the parking lot entrance was deserted at that late hour, and I drove slowly through the exit onto a quiet city street. As I crossed the sidewalk and turned left I saw that the city was not yet totally deserted. Three young men, dressed head to toe in black leather, lounged against the wall close to the lot. I was sure that they were up to no good, and I was glad to be safely beyond their reach. Nevertheless, I pressed a little harder on the accelerator pedal and left the trio behind as rapidly as possible. In my rearview mirror the dark tower of my office building receded and disappeared.
I accelerated along the slipway to the six lane freeway leading out of the city and settled to a comfortable cruising speed of one ten. I switched on the radio, pretuned to my favourite station, and the clear notes of Debussy's "Clair de Lune" filled the car. I crossed smoothly over an enormous bridge and watched the city skyline grow smaller in my mirror as I headed for the eastern suburbs. The scene in my rearview mirror had now grown black, but as I swept my eyes over the glass in a routine check I saw the lights of a distant car appear and begin to close rapidly. No doubt some other poor fool working until midnight to afford luxuries he could never find the time to enjoy. As I watched, the headlights separated. Not a car, then, but a pair of motorcycles. Not a pair, but a trio. As the lights drew rapidly closer a third light split away from the pair. I eased off the gas pedal. I had no intention of throwing down any kind of challenge to a trio of young bucks, high at least on hormones if not on artificial stimulants. I dropped back to eighty, sure that they would roar on past, barely noticing a single slow-moving car in the far right lane.
But they did not pass. Not all of them. While two of the bikes took up flanking stations, one sped past and rode vanguard. I saw his brakelight flash as he began to slow down.
I became immediately suspicious. At high speed these three idiots presented no threat to me. If any were foolish enough to challenge my two-ton automobile at high speed, there could be only one outcome; perhaps some minor bodywork might be needed on my car, but major bodywork would be needed on the riders who came into contact with it. But if they were to force me to slow down, and perhaps stop, I would be at their mercy on this dark, lonely stretch of road. I could not, would not, take such a chance.
The car purred with power as I floored the gas pedal and steered between the front rider and his colleague to my left, but just as I did so the rider in front veered left into the path I had chosen for my escape. I couldn't miss him. I immediately began to calculate the best course of action; whether to stop and use my cellphone to call for help -- and risk the wrath of