“Better than the twigs and leaves I had last night,” he joked ironically as he prodded the material, which appeared to be some sort of soft spongy rubber.
Thomas sat opposite him on the stool, a metre or so away.
“You are informed, I assume, of those we call Transients then?”
“Yes, to a point, although I’m still a little reluctant to believe in this whole scenario.”
“You have plenty of time to help your belief. How many times have you been through?”
“Well, once I suppose. I was a tortoise and I just committed suicide.”
“A tortoise? T’is a toilsome one indeed. Well, whether you die naturally or kill yourself, you still become transient and you either find yourself in the tunnels or else propelled into another creature. Your first time and only one completed cycle. We call this the death cycle.”
“Fine! I’ll remember that.”
“Were you fortunate enough to be in contact with another Transient?”
“Yes, a guy called Sam. Well it would be more accurate to say, a fox that had been a guy called Sam, if you get my drift?”
“And he spoke English?”
“Yes, luckily. I hadn’t thought about that. What if he was a Chinese fox? It might have been that much more surreal. Not sure really. After all, here I am, chatting with a four-hundred-year old man in Tudor clobber who appears to have been beamed up into the modern age. How is it that you're dressed like that?”
“T'is easily explained, Ed. Most people don't get the opportunity to stop off in here. Generally they get whisked straight past us through the windswept tunnels towards the light and on to their next transience. However, some seem to get swept to the side of the flow and become stranded towards the edge in the slower part. When you get paused there then your human form is temporarily restored and you're reunited with the very same garments you died in, no difference whatsoever. T’is fortunate indeed that any scars, cuts, bruises or the like, are not apparent, thus we appear in good health. Anne Boleyn herself is here – complete with her head. I know not how this was achieved.”
“Christ, man, I don’t know whether you are ridiculing me or not. It seems so absurd. How can you keep the same clothes on for ever? What about your underpants?”
“T’is true, by my troth. You must bethink we are not verily alive anymore, at least when we are here. We are like phantoms in a sense and have no bodily indulgences such as eating, drinking, sweating, pissing or farting. You name it, you have it not. We often feel tired though, and even succumb to the odd ache and pain.”
“But what about when I was a tortoise. I ate and drank and… well… everything else…”
“Yes, t’was when you have completed a transient contract and rejoined the physical realm. At the moment, you are caught in the middle. A ‘paused Transient’, as we call it,” stated Thomas, as he turned to his left, whilst crossing his left leg up onto his right.
“If we can’t drink and don’t need to wash, then why the sink and tap?”
“T’is well said. I am of the mind that people simply take pleasure in drenching their faces with water. I cannot forsooth imagine any other reason. If you try to drink it then it does not go down at all. Anyway, you will not suffer from thirst so it matters not. Give not yourself the trouble.”
“I won’t. Tell me again about being ‘paused’. What do you mean exactly?”
“T'is not I fancy myself an oracle, but I will readily impart my small knowings to you. The place I pulled you from was the jet stream of light and time that one travels down as a Transient. T’is the doorway between lives and different physical forms. It is an exceedingly speedy highway for souls. However, once in a while, a person, spirit or soul is knocked off-course in the main flow, drifting out to the edges into the very slow flowing outer part of the stream. T’is then they pass the contrary air flow from tunnel systems such as these and are stuck. Paused. Floating helplessly. If you are fortunate enough to be spotted, you might get pulled in and saved from the purposeless floating. Some manage to clamber out themselves but otherwise you could just drift downstream forever. In truth, we know not.”
“How long do you think I would’ve floated there for?”
“Tis hard to determine. I do know though, that one needs to be in the main central flow to be carried through into the next ‘mortal’ reincarnation. Floating down the edges all the way to the end is a path of great uncertainty, although you may have been rescued by one of the other communities along the way. We believe there may be many such.”