was pulling her, like a magnet, telling her to throw caution to the wind, to follow her heart, or possibly more accurately, her loins. They’d barely come up for air since they’d met and Jennifer had never known anything remotely like it. She knew she was relatively inexperienced on the sex front, having only slept with three people in total (actually four, she kept forgetting Greek bloke on beach), but Aidan had made her feel things she hadn’t dreamed were possible. In bed they made total sense and as far as she could tell he was also an exciting person, someone who was creating his own path in life to tread, one which wasn’t constrained by parental pressure or some traditional idea of how things should be played out. And that was the problem in a way. Jennifer had always liked knowing how things should map out. It had never occurred to her to stray even remotely from the plan which she and her parents were in agreement was the right one for her. The right one for most people.
School, college, travelling. Next on the list was university, followed by career, marriage, babies. That was life. Wasn’t it?
And yet here was someone asking her to go completely off piste. And she was actually tempted. Sorely tempted. She was pretty sure she loved him, or was definitely on her way to falling in love with him and knew if she let him go she might regret it forever. The thought of never sleeping with him again and therefore not experiencing that unbelievably exquisite pleasure was unbearable too. She licked her lips and stared down at her green flipflops. Her feet were pleasingly brown. It was so hot.
‘Look,’ said Aidan, ‘I’m not going to beg. That’s not my style. And if you say no I guess I’ll understand, though I think you’d be making a massive mistake. Like I said, what we’ve got is special. I know it is, and besides, what’s the worst that could happen? I’m asking you to come away with me, but I wouldn’t be kidnapping you. If it didn’t work out you could just get on a plane home.’
‘But my university place…?’ questioned Jennifer, wondering if she could really deny herself the opportunity to be with him when he’d turned her entire world upside down in a matter of days. University was something she’d always wanted to experience but he was right. She could always change her mind, so maybe she needed to be more adventurous? But as this thought trailed away it was replaced by the feeling of absolute certainty that her parents would be beyond livid with her for being so irresponsible and for not consulting them. Then again, it was her life. She was so torn.
‘Look, the boat leaves in half an hour. I’m going to be on it,’ said Aidan. ‘If you’re coming with me, you need to say goodbye to the girls and get your stuff. What’s it to be?’
‘Oh god,’ said Jennifer. ‘I don’t know.’
And for precisely ten more minutes she still didn’t.
And then she had a chat with Karen who looked at her with such horror that she was even contemplating the idea of going off with someone she’d known for a total of seventeen days that something took over. Something irritatingly sensible.
And so it was that the boat sailed off with a hurt and more devastated than he’d imagined he might have been Aidan, taking him off for adventure and ultimately Australia.
She may have made what she thought was the ‘right’ decision but that didn’t prevent Jennifer from feeling utterly desolate and distraught. She wailed as that boat sailed off into the distance and at one point even contemplated throwing herself off the jetty and swimming after it. Anything to have just one more feel of those arms around her. What had she done and would she regret this for the rest of her life?
‘Stay with us Jennifer, come on love, you can do this. Hang in there.’
Why was everyone yelling? She was so tired. All she wanted to do was sleep. She was so close to being able to just slip away yet simply wasn’t being allowed to. She felt very muddled and had the vague sense of being bullied.
‘Patient’s suffering agonal respirations and has a CO2 of eleven. Probably in anaphylactic shock so let’s commence CPR.’
‘Jen, please hang in there, I’m so so sorry. I love you.’
‘Sorry, Mr Wright. Can you stay out of the way? It’s very important.’
What was Max doing here, she wondered. For a second she was tempted to open her eyes to have a look but she wasn’t able to because suddenly a burning sensation swept through her so violently she would have done anything to make it stop. It was pain on a level she wouldn’t ever have thought possible. Every cell in her body was on fire, doused in hot, white agony. Then, as quickly as it showed itself it subsided, and once again she reverted to her numb state of nothingness.
Then, someone was applying pressure to her which hurt in a different way. She didn’t really want to be awake any more. She craved peace and sensed a way she could achieve it. There was definitely a direction she could go in that would remove all the pain, plus any further possibility of it.
She reflected for a second, feeling as though she were suspended in time and space, floating almost. In all honesty she wasn’t totally sure she wanted to go that way either. She wasn’t ready, which meant there was only one option left available to her. So once more she submitted to the grey fog of nothing. And as she sank back into it, more cries of panic sounded around her.
Meanwhile, as the paramedics went about their frenzied business of trying to save her life, the strangest things were happening in Jennifer’s bruised brain.
None of us can really comprehend what the human brain is capable of doing, in the same way that Jennifer had no clue as to the true capabilities of her laptop. All she tended to use her PC for was to write emails, do a bit of shopping or social networking, meaning its dual core processor was never fully taken advantage of. She was always stunned when Max, who was far more tech savvy than her, did some simple task on her computer, in a way that made her realise she was only ever utilising around ten percent of what it could probably do, if only she knew how to operate it properly.
It’s the same with the human brain, only on a far grander and more mysterious scale, its true power being so tricky to tap. Most of its work and activity happens at a deeply subconscious level and yet even beyond that, there are areas of it which we never unearth even when dreaming.
Psychics do better than most. Whether you believe in them or not, they at least have more awareness of the various possibilities which we could perhaps utilise if only we tried.
Right at that second, within Jennifer’s skull, a series of lightning-fast connections were being made, ones which she never usually would have been privy to if her head hadn’t made contact with the hard ground quite as brutally as it had, thus flinging her software into disarray. Something extraordinary was happening.
As her synapses furiously connected and fused, three tunnels of white light suddenly showed themselves to her. There was one to the left, one straight ahead and one to the right. Was this what death looked like? Instinct told her it was something different though and suddenly she knew, without needing to be told, that rather than leading her to the afterlife, instead these tunnels represented different lives she could so easily have led. Parallel universes, ones which were usually buried and hidden, deep in the core of the brain.
What she was being given here was a gift. The gift of being able to see what life would have been like had she chosen another route, or made a different decision, at three separate points during her life. And so it was
