A Night In Annwn. Owen Jones

gave a kick, arched her back and was still. He started to run and called her name, but she made no attempt to respond.

      He dropped to his knees hurting them on the hard surface, but the tears were not because of that. He could see that his friend had suffered a heart attack and not survived it.

      William drew her up onto his lap and wept like a child. Some thirty or forty minutes later, he scooped her up with his right hand and tried to stand up, but he could not. His knees were too weak, so he crawled to their rock and used his left hand to help him up. He sat on the rock with his dog on his lap and the tears started again. ‘She hadn’t even had her peanuts!’ he was thinking as a pain grew in his left arm. The iron grip of a vice squeezed his chest and he was groaning as he and Kiddy slipped off the rock onto the sparse grass below it.

      (back to top)

3 SARAH

      “Where am I?” asked William of the people standing around him. “Am I in hospital?”

      “Yes, you can call it that. You are very sick, but you have recovered a great deal since we found you, so there is every reason to believe that you will make a total recovery”.

      “Thank you, doctor. My mind is a little foggy. I think I must have a hangover. I had a little more than usual to drink... It was a friend’s birthday...”

      “Yes, we know, but don’t worry about anything like that now you need rest more than anything”.

      “Kiddy, my dog, died, didn’t she?”

      “Don’t worry about her either. She is in good hands. We are taking good care of her too. You will be able to see her again shortly”.

      “I don’t understand… who found me? Nobody goes up on the hill at that time of night. I must have been very lucky... Oh, unless it was a courting couple...”

      “Please”, said the doctor “try to rest. You will learn everything you want to know in good time, but not now”.

      “All right, doctor, you know best. I am very tired. So long as my Kiddy is all right I’m happy... I don’t know what I would do without her...”

      William drifted off into a deep sleep in which he felt warm and comfortable. Kiddy was at his feet with her head on his knee.

      When he awoke he felt a lot better.

      “I had a great sleep”, he said to the woman at his bedside. “I’ll know better than to drink that much again... my head has cleared though. Did I have a heart attack? Is that what landed me in here?”

      The woman drew closer allowing him to see her clearly for the first time. “Hello, Willy. Yes, you would call it a heart attack”.

      He scrutinised her face and figure. “You look very much like my wife did at your age. She was the only person who ever called me Willy. It was her pet name for me, her private joke. She never once used it in public, because of its, er, connotations, if you know what I mean. In those days, women were a lot more modest in public”.

      “Yes, the good old, bad old days, eh, Willy?”

      “It’s amazing, the likeness, I mean, it’s amazing. You could be my wife’s daughter or younger sister. Do you have any relatives in Bryn Teg?”

      “We are a big family, I have relatives almost everywhere”. Her smile broadened as if she had told a cryptic joke.

      “What is it? Come on, you can tell me. Have I got food stuck in my teeth? You know, the more we talk, the more I feel that we have met before”.

      “Do you really not recognize me, Willy? I can assure you that we have done a lot more than just meet. That would be some euphemism!” This time she laughed out loud.

      “Sarah? But how can it be you? I mean if you’re Sarah, doesn’t that mean that I am dead as well?”

      “Does it, Willy? You tell me. You were telling Becky only this morning that we have spoken many times in the cottage”.

      “Yes, all right, but this is different... I can see and talk to you now as if you were really here...”

      “I am really here. I never really left. Oh, I could have gone away... many people do, perhaps even most, but I couldn’t leave you all on your own. Did you think that I would?”

      “No, I just thought that we probably had to learn how to communicate again...”

      “Yes, there is a lot of truth in that, but people have to want to do it as well, which is why most people only see friends and relatives”.

      “So, er, can we really be together?”

      “We are together...”

      “Yes, but I mean really together..., er, like man and wife... like we used to?”

      “No, I am afraid not, not yet, Willy. For the time being, there is a barrier between us that neither of us can cross, but one day that barrier will come down. I promise you that”.

      “You mean when I’m dead?”

      “If you want to put it like that, yes, but we don’t like to use that word. It is so full of negative content, don’t you think? ‘Dead’ - there, I’ve said it, but it’s like the ‘N-word’ or the ‘C-word’ is for others. It’s unpleasant, unnecessary and there are better ways of expressing the concept. Do you see what I mean? Do I look dead to you? Is the flesh falling from my bones? Are my eyes hanging out of their sockets? Do I look like a zombie from the Walking Dead?”

      “No, you look as beautiful as ever you did”.

      “Thank you, and why would I choose to look any other way to my darling husband?”

      “I can’t imagine”.

      “No, nor can I. So, why do people think that that’s what ghosts do? Really, it is quite beyond me - all of us, in fact”.

      “Yes, well, when you put it like that... I shalln’t use that word again”.

      “Good, thank you, my dear”.

      “So, Sarah, if we can’t do, er, anything together, what can we do? Oh, where are we first?”

      “We are in a place that people in this part of the world used to call Annwn. You have heard that name before, haven’t you?”

      “Hell, isn’t it? Jesus, I didn’t think that you or I would be going there!”

      “No, it is not Hell. When the early Christians heard that we Celts believed that Annwn was under the ground, they tried to convince us that it was the same as their Hell, but it is not true. In fact, Hell doesn’t exist either. As for an exact location, we are under and within the mountains and hills that surround our lovely cottage. However, in a way that is only an illusion too. We could be anywhere we wanted to be. Is that any clearer?”

      “As clear as ditch water, my love”.

      “I am afraid that it takes some people longer than others to grasp the concept. It is extraordinary how long it takes some, you know. Do you remember the one they called King Henry VIII when he was last on Earth? Well, he’s been here for about four hundred and fifty years, I think - history was never my strong point, as you know. Anyway, he has a Welsh connection so we took him in long before I got here, yet he is still wandering around shouting at people, and ordering them about. ‘I’m the King of England,’ he screams, ‘and I will be obeyed!’ I shouldn’t laugh really, but it is so funny. Most people either ignore him or avoid him, but sometimes someone will bow or curtsey to him just for a laugh. We’ve got a few nutters like him.

      “Most people get the gist of things after a while though. Would you like me to show you around later?”

      “Yes, Sarah. I would like that. Will I be able to get up and walk around so soon after a heart attack?”

      “You did ought to have more rest first,