1
Fight
Vincent Winters was dead.Aged eighty-three he had keeled over after eating some questionable, possibly poisonous fruit from a tree his lost love had planted years before.The street Vincent now found himself on was one he’d not visited in a very long time but it was exactly as he remembered.All the houses stood unchanged.The cherry blossom trees that lined the kerb were lying almost flat against the pavement, in an impossible fight to stay upright in the strange gale that Vincent also found himself leaning into.The wind howled like a thousand wolves, drowning out any chance of calling for help, or hearing it should help even arrive.One moment he had been in Jim Summer’s garden and then, after just one bite of the forbidden fruit, he had suddenly found himself pushing against these ferocious winds.What made it a thousand times worse was that he knew exactly where he was and could see the place he’d wanted to go back to ever since the moment he’d last left it, all those years ago.At the end of the road was the apartment building where he’d spent the happiest days of his life – not a hundred yards away he could see Evie Snow’s balcony.His only wish was to get back to that apartment, that balcony, but fighting against the gale, with one foot unsteadily shuffling in front of the other, he was barely moving.Vincent didn’t know how long he’d been hunched forwards, his hands aching from holding his black coat tightly around his neck and his eyes streaming from the cold.It could have been for ever.
One thing Vincent did know was that he was younger.He felt it in his bones.He may have died at eighty-three but now his knees didn’t creak, his back didn’t ache and he still had all his teeth.He didn’t need a mirror to know his hair was black instead of grey because he could see it, long and shaggy, blowing about his face.He was twenty-eight once more, he was sure of it.Twenty-eight isn’t a special age for most.There are no special greeting cards for being a year closer to thirty.And yet twenty-eight had always been special to him because that was when he had met Evie.
Evie Snow had been the love of his life and every lifetime he would ever live, he believed – but they had never got the ending they wanted.Vincent couldn’t offer her security or the guarantee life would always be OK.He could only offer Evie love and freedom.In theory that had been enough for Evie, but in reality the need for her mother’s approval and fear for her brother’s future if she was disowned by her parents outweighed her own happiness.Vincent hadn’t understood it nor believed it was the right thing to do but he had respected her decision, walked away and let her marry someone else.The only consolation being that Vincent knew that the someone else was Jim Summer.Jim was Evie’s oldest friend, the epitome of a gentleman, and he had loved Evie since they were children.Vincent knew she had been well looked after.
Just the thought of Evie made him eager to push forwards, to find her and tell her all the things he’d regretted not saying ever since he left her that fateful day, but the gale was still fierce around him.Maybe I should stop to rest for just a moment, he thought.As soon as the weight shifted back from the balls of his feet the wind ceased, the cherry trees stood tall again and an eerie silence followed in its wake.In the quiet and the calm, Vincent noticed the pumpkins on the doorsteps of the pastel-painted houses and he saw that the trees had lost all of their leaves.
Halloween, he thought,Evie’sbirthday.
As soon as his body tilted, even just a little, towards Evie’s flat, the wind began once more.It roared louder and blew harder even than before but when Vincent stumbled backwards it ended as abruptly as it had started.Puzzled, Vincent took another step backwards.Nothing.No hurricane, just quiet.Vincent took a step to the side and again, nothing.To the other side, nothing.Then Vincent pressed a toe just an inch in front of him and held it to the surface of the road and the wind blew.He lifted his foot, it stopped, and he understood.If he was to make any progress towards Evie, he was going to have to fight against a seemingly unstoppable force.With that realisation, a breeze brushed the leaves that had been huddled against the kerbside and stirred them up into a frenzy.They lifted, floated and tumbled in the air around Vincent, dancing an autumnal ballet, brushing against his stubbled cheeks and ruffling his shaggy hair.They twirled and twisted until together they settled calmly in front of Vincent’s black boots in a peculiar arrangement.Vincent looked closely and noticed they had formed words.
Prove yourself worthy.
Prove yourself true.
Fight like you didn’t
and she’ll come to you.
‘Fight…’ Vincent muttered.He wanted to pretend he didn’t know what the message meant but he knew and he couldn’t ignore it any more.After Vincent had left Evie, one thought had always plagued him.
I didn’t fight hard enough for her.
That thought had balled itself up and turned itself into a stone which had resided inside his heart.Every year it grew: it turned into a rock, and then a brick, until after fifty-five years, it was an anvil and he’d carried its burden.It had kept him from sleeping and haunted his dreams when he did finally drift, and even though he’d eventually found someone to share his life with, his mind was always dragged back to memories of green coats, geese and hard boiled sweets.Vincent’s heavy heart had always longed for Evie Snow.
‘You have to fight for her, Vincent.’
Vincent’s head snapped up and he was greeted by a vaguely familiar smile.The portly man in front of him was shorter than Vincent by a good foot and a few inches but his heart radiated warmth and Vincent welcomed it after the blistering cold of the wind.The man was slightly balding and his weathered skin made him look much older than his real age of forty-six.
‘You… you’re Lieffe, right?’said Vincent, holding out his hand for Lieffe to shake.
‘I am.’Lieffe bobbed his head, shaking Vincent’s outstretched hand.Although they’d only met once in life, Lieffe was so pleased Vincent had remembered him.
‘I have to say, I’m glad to see a friendly face.’Vincent looked out from behind his hair.‘I’m not entirely sure what’s going on.’
‘Well first things first.You know you’re dead, right?’Lieffe raised a furry grey eyebrow.
‘Tactful.’Vincent laughed.‘Yes.I remember my deathvividly,’ he said, recalling hearing Evie’s voice whisper his name as all hell was breaking loose around him after he’d bitten into the fruit.
‘Wonderful!Sometimes it takes so long to convince people their lives are over.It’s rather dull.’Lieffe put an arm around Vincent (it would have been around his shoulders if Lieffe could have reached them) and guided him away from Evie’s flat.‘Secondly, the reason you’re here is because something is stopping you from moving on.’They’d reached the end of the street and Lieffe abruptly stopped walking and turned to face him.‘You’re holding onto something that you need to let go of.Do you have any idea what that may be?’Lieffe’s eyes glistened as Vincent tried to avoid his gaze.‘It could be one thing or… maybe a few?’Lieffe said, his eyes flicking back to Evie’s flat for just a moment.
Vincent nodded.No point in hiding it,he thought.
‘I wasn’t the man Evie needed me to be.She said she couldn’t be with me and I understood why she felt that way but I never put up a fight.Yes, we argued, and I told her I would do anything to be with her but… in the end I just left.I didn’t even try to find another way because I thought maybe that would make things worse, but for the rest of my life I wished that I had done…something.’Vincent felt the anvil that was all tangled up in his heartstrings pull downwards.Lieffe took hold of Vincent’s arms.
‘You’re a good man, Vincent, and Evie continued to love you all her life too.But her life is over now and, well, maybe I shouldn’t tell you this…’ He stared intently at Vincent for a moment and Vincent thought his eyes might pop out of his head until he finally blinked and said, ‘Oh, never mind.At the moment you’re both fighting to find each other.In fact, I’m in there with her, right now.’Lieffe pointed back to Evie’s apartment building.
‘Eh?’Vincent said, entirely lost.
‘This world has a wonderful way of making sure I am where I need to be.Even if that means there’s two of me.I wish the real world had worked that way.I’d have got so much more done!’Lieffe chuckled, holding his belly.‘I’m a little bit like the doorman between life and thereafter.I can only show you where to go but if you want to get into your heaven, you’ve got to find the keys yourself.’Lieffe turned to face Vincent again.‘You didn’t feel worthy of her in life because you didn’t fight?’Vincent nodded.‘Well, now is your chance to prove you’re worthy in the afterlife, it seems.’
Vincent smiled.‘That’s all I’ve ever wanted.’
‘Ready, then?’Lieffe asked.
