Michael A. Ashton NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH Journeys in Mystery and Suspense through the Occident and Orient Preface NOT FOR THE NERVOUS Further Journeys in Mystery and Suspense in the Occident and Orient and into the Future by Michael A. Ashton Turner Maxwell Books Turner Maxwell Books Free Publishing Free Books Free Literature Free Writers Turner Maxwell Books are an independent co-operative of new writers, committed to publishing inspirational literature. Turner Maxwell Books has over one hundred writers, producing original stories not seen in any other bookshop, Turner Maxwell Books has established itself as a successful and viable publisher. This achievement lies in its innovative and daring approach to establish a shorter supply chain that is simply focused on the requirements of the reader. Published by Turner Maxwell Books, PO. Box 1287, HP11 9DS First published 2008. Copyright © Michael A. Ashton 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in a retrieval system in any form or by any means without permission in writing by Michael A. Ashton or Turner Maxwell Books. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which this is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The purchase of this book is a private sale between the reader and the publisher; at no stage will indemnity be claimed against the publisher. The moral right of the author has been asserted. Warning: May contain expressive material, which is not intentionally offensive. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental and may be more the work of your own imagination. Why not write a book yourself? Turner Maxwell Books are an alternative co-operative of new writers, working towards publishing inspirational literature. Printed and bound in the United Kingdom for Turner Maxwell Books. PREFACE THE DESCENT A lowering sky shrouded the distant hills in dark rain clouds. The gloom of the day seemed in sympathy with her dark fatalistic thoughts. Standing bravely on the narrow coping of the roof parapet wall, fifty two floors above the busy city street, the life that had held such promise for a beautiful bright blonde journalist, popular with most and loved by many, was about to end tragically with just one step forward. After hours of anguish and tortured deliberation, a warped state of mind had convinced her that there was no other conclusion but death. The only choice left to her in this world was how to die. An accelerating plunge past the fifty two floors of her office building close to many fond memories and friends was some kind of comfort, and a quick and certain self-destruction. As she stood there rigid in determination, a light wind buffeted her exquisitely shaped nubile body sending long strands of fine platinum blonde hair billowing about her shoulders. The unreality of it all, her being alone in this isolated setting with no sound but a faint murmur of the city way beneath, deadened any pervading terror sufficiently for her to hold a few moments more of calm sad reflection and offer up final pleas for salvation from her God in the awaiting great beyond. Removed from all concerns other than the question constantly recurring to haunt her psyche – to live or to die - she held no concern for the baby forming within her and the grief she would cause others among family and friends, not to mention that hurtling below as a lethal missile of flesh and bone, some poor victim on the crowded street might go with her into oblivion. But perhaps her prayers had been answered in that timeless pause for she glimpsed something of infinity and checked her imminent leap, only to slip backwards landing with a stumble on the hard safe concrete of the building’s flat roof. She picked herself up unhurt and jolted out of that dreamlike spell that had dangerously kept her in its grip. She had time yet to reconsider. She had time yet to find a way out. She had time yet – to live. Re-entering the building by the doors of the fire escape stairs she quickly regained the lobby of the topmost floor, summoned the lift and was soon descending to the safety of the street where she would go to a nearby Starbucks café for a restorative cup of hot coffee and think things over yet again, but this time in a mood of hope. 52 -51- 50 - -the lift descended. Why and where had her wonderfully satisfying and promising life gone fatally wrong? A man – actually, as well as proverbially tall dark and handsome – a smooth and experienced Latin lover, she had met on a story assignment in the confusing and disorienting ambience of a foreign locale and its enticing night scene, and he had worn down the natural resistance and caution of her sensible nature. 49 - 48 – 47 - - the floors past as the lift car, empty but for her, continued its descent. The release of undiscovered womanly passions infected the unsuspecting investigative journalist, catapulting her into a delirious careless wanton desire for this dark Latin, this magical masculine creature who took his fill with merciless dictates she was powerless to deny. She wanted him, she needed him, and all the primeval instincts of nature conspired to force surrender to anything he desired. All that mattered in that descent into depravity was that she could keep him and his frenetic attentions. In short, she had lost her head. 39 – 38 - 37 – And still she descended, the lift progressing unhindered by stops, for no person was getting on at intervening floors. It was the middle of the day when the building all but stopped for people to take their lunch. She past the 33rd and 32nd floors, the location of the news agency where her colleagues worked and some of them at this very moment might have stayed in for an improvised lunch, chatting away over sandwiches and tea and full of the joys of existence. They would welcome her into the fold and perhaps restore her to her senses, restore her to life. But no, her workplace past whilst she hesitated, for she knew she had to sort out any decision alone. The descent continued. 29 – 28 – 27 - The lift moved smoothly and fast like the workings of her mind in this final reappraisal of her hopeless situation. But for that simple mistake of the wrong man life would be joyous and full of exciting prospects as it once was just months ago. That dirty heartless beast having promised her paradise, with a home, comfort, prosperity, and the stability of wedlock, vanished within days of her confessing that she was pregnant by him. 19 – 18 – 17 – The ground was inexorably rushing to meet her. But pregnancy was not the end of the world. She could have his child and take the optional existence of a single mother for she lived in times when women could provide for themselves and subsist without men. Alas there was crushing news to follow. 9 – 8 – 7 – The unbearable discovery arrived with the medical reports following the monitoring of her pregnancy. The human immunodeficiency virus was within her - she was certainly HIV positive. How could anyone carrying that disease face the world and bring up a child, who might too be infected, each infected by a disease which would eat away at them and some day bring on full blown AIDS with its slow miserable death. 3 – 2 – 1 – G and ground level. The doors of the lift car opened. She stepped out not as anticipated into the wide and spacious entrance hall of the building but into a small lift lobby common to the higher floors. She checked about her to verify her position but there were no entrances to be seen that opened into offices and signs of life. There was only one place to go other than back to the lift cars; a corridor led to a pair of double doors and exit to the escape stairs. She followed incredulously to find herself once again out on the roof. Still stunned with confusion she walked to the parapet and looked down once again upon the street fifty two storeys below and beheld a scene of commotion barely recognizable from her viewpoint hundreds of feet above. There was a large sprawled gathering, a crowd of onlookers and emergency vehicles that she sensed were police cars and ambulances and even a fire engine, with men below trying to force open the crushed doors and roof of a small car to free trapped occupants. Presently policemen burst forth onto the roof to join her. She was startled but relieved to see them, but they did not see her. Her descent was long completed. THE DREAM Last night I dreamt a fearful dream. I dreamt that I was dead. Within the dream I yearned for all those I loved and held dear but I was alone, all alone in the darkness. There were no longer any doubts or ambiguities over whom were those that I loved, and I realised for the first time the true extent to which I not only loved them, but needed them. It was certain that they were near, not far from me, yet did not know it. All along I had to believe they were close by, but they could not hear me, could not reach me, could not save me from my anguish and despair. The darkness enclosed me like a coffin. I could see nothing and had no power of voice or movement. Nor had I a sense of touch to probe my body and the space about it. And if my ears could serve me there was nothing for them to listen to. In that sepulchral silence there was not even the sensation of my own heartbeat or the rhythmic flow of my breathing. Yet I still existed for how else could I experience such sickening panic. I wanted so badly to reach out and find someone, anyone, to terminate this most unendurable isolation. The real meaning of infinity struck me as never before. How could I accept this pitch-black place, this absolute void, for ever and ever? Was I never again to know contact with another - never? With desperate contortions of the one thing left to me - my mind - I struggled for a way out. And then miraculously, with the faintest suggestion, an idea asserted itself and filled my being with hope. It arrived like an angel of salvation and took the form of a question - what if I was trapped in nothing more than a dream, it asked. Wake up! Wake up! I screamed to myself for I had an inner voice, which I alone could hear. And then, thank God, I felt myself rising from this horrifying grave into the daylight. And there they all were - the loved ones that those immeasurable moments ago I had so desperately needed. The sunlight was streaming in through the windows of my bedroom. As I lay there, sure enough my wife, my two sons, my only daughter, my sisters, my brothers, my in-laws, and my closest friends were all clustered around my bedside. I must have taken terribly ill I thought. Their expressions, every one of them, were steeped in grave concern as they looked upon me. I tried to smile in appreciation, to speak, to comprehend all that had happened, but an instinctual warning halted me. The short-lived joy at the sight of my dear ones quickly evaporated for I sensed something ominous about that bedside gathering, though at first it was not obvious. And then everything came to me - I saw that those souls so precious to my existence were not here to comfort a man on his sick bed. They were all in mourning and here to pay final respects, to see me for the last time. My dream allowed me to see them. I did not wish to return to the darkness. I wanted so to stay among my mourners. I prayed that I would never awaken from this dream within a dream

NOT FOR THE NERVOUS

Further Journeys in Mystery and Suspense
in the Occident and Orient
and into the Future

by

Michael A. Ashton

PREFACE

THE DESCENT

    A lowering sky shrouded the distant hills in dark rain clouds. The gloom of the day seemed in sympathy with her dark fatalistic thoughts. Standing bravely on the narrow coping of the roof parapet wall, fifty two floors above the busy city street, the life that had held such promise for a beautiful bright blonde journalist, popular with most and loved by many, was about to end tragically with just one step forward. After hours of anguish and tortured deliberation, a warped state of mind had convinced her that there was no other conclusion but death. The only choice left to her in this world was how to die. An accelerating plunge past the fifty two floors of her office building close to many fond memories and friends was some kind of comfort, and a quick and certain self-destruction.
    As she stood there rigid in determination, a light wind buffeted her exquisitely shaped nubile body sending long strands of fine platinum blonde hair billowing about her shoulders. The unreality of it all, her being alone in this isolated setting with no sound but a faint murmur of the city way beneath, deadened any pervading terror sufficiently for her to hold a few moments more of calm sad reflection and offer up final pleas for salvation from her God in the awaiting great beyond. Removed from all concerns other than the question constantly recurring to haunt her psyche – to live or to die - she held no concern for the baby forming within her and the grief she would cause others among family and friends, not to mention that hurtling below as a lethal missile of flesh and bone, some poor victim on the crowded street might go with her into oblivion. But perhaps her prayers had been answered in that timeless pause for she glimpsed something of infinity and checked her imminent leap, only to slip backwards landing with a stumble on the hard safe concrete of the building’s flat roof. She picked herself up unhurt and jolted out of that dreamlike spell that had dangerously kept her in its grip. She had time yet to reconsider. She had time yet to find a way out. She had time yet – to live.
    Re-entering the building by the doors of the fire escape stairs she quickly regained the lobby of the topmost floor, summoned the lift and was soon descending to the safety of the street where she would go to a nearby Starbucks café for a restorative cup of hot coffee and think things over yet again, but this time in a mood of hope.
    52 -51- 50 - -the lift descended. Why and where had her wonderfully satisfying and promising life gone fatally wrong? A man – actually, as well as proverbially tall dark and handsome – a smooth and experienced Latin lover, she had met on a story assignment in the confusing and disorienting ambience of a foreign locale and its enticing night scene, and he had worn down the natural resistance and caution of her sensible nature.
    49 - 48 – 47 - - the floors past as the lift car, empty but for her, continued its descent. The release of undiscovered womanly passions infected the unsuspecting investigative journalist, catapulting her into a delirious careless wanton desire for this dark Latin, this magical masculine creature who took his fill with merciless dictates she was powerless to deny. She wanted him, she needed him, and all the primeval instincts of nature conspired to force surrender to anything he desired. All that mattered in that descent into depravity was that she could keep him and his frenetic attentions. In short, she had lost her head.
    39 – 38 - 37 – And still she descended, the lift progressing unhindered by stops, for no person was getting on at intervening floors. It was the middle of the day when the building all but stopped for people to take their lunch. She past the 33rd and 32nd floors, the location of the news agency where her colleagues worked and some of them at this very moment might have stayed in for an improvised lunch, chatting away over sandwiches and tea and full of the joys of existence. They would welcome her into the fold and perhaps restore her to her senses, restore her to life. But no, her workplace past whilst she hesitated, for she knew she had to sort out any decision alone. The descent continued.
    29 – 28 – 27 - The lift moved smoothly and fast like the workings of her mind in this final reappraisal of her hopeless situation. But for that simple mistake of the wrong man life would be joyous and full of exciting prospects as it once was just months ago. That dirty heartless beast having promised her paradise, with a home, comfort, prosperity, and the stability of wedlock, vanished within days of her confessing that she was pregnant by him.
    19 – 18 – 17 – The ground was inexorably rushing to meet her. But pregnancy was not the end of the world. She could have his child and take the optional existence of a single mother for she lived in times when women could provide for themselves and subsist without men. Alas there was crushing news to follow.
    9 – 8 – 7 – The unbearable discovery arrived with the medical reports following the monitoring of her pregnancy. The human immunodeficiency virus was within her - she was certainly HIV positive. How could anyone carrying that disease face the world and bring up a child, who might too be infected, each infected by a disease which would eat away at them and some day bring on full blown AIDS with its slow miserable death.
    3 – 2 – 1 – G and ground level. The doors of the lift car opened. She stepped out not as anticipated into the wide and spacious entrance hall of the building but into a small lift lobby common to the higher floors. She checked about her to verify her position but there were no entrances to be seen that opened into offices and signs of life. There was only one place to go other than back to the lift cars; a corridor led to a pair of double doors and exit to the escape stairs. She followed incredulously to find herself once again out on the roof.
Still stunned with confusion she walked to the parapet and looked down once again upon the street fifty two storeys below and beheld a scene of commotion barely recognizable from her viewpoint hundreds of feet above. There was a large sprawled gathering, a crowd of onlookers and emergency vehicles that she sensed were police cars and ambulances and even a fire engine, with men below trying to force open the crushed doors and roof of a small car to free trapped occupants. Presently policemen burst forth onto the roof to join her. She was startled but relieved to see them, but they did not see her. Her descent was long completed.

Published by Turner Maxwell Books

First published 2008.
Copyright © Michael A. Ashton 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in a retrieval system in any form or by any means without permission in writing by Turner Maxwell Books.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which this is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The purchase of this book is a private sale between the reader and the publisher; at no stage will indemnity be claimed against the publisher. The moral right of the author has been asserted.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental and may be more the work of your own imagination. Why not write a book yourself? Turner Maxwell Books are an alternative co-operative of new writers, working towards publishing inspirational literature.

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom for Turner Maxwell Books.