Southend U3A

Writing for Fun

October 2017

Secrets - Jeff Kebbell

‘If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy?’

When twins are born, occasionally one is less complete than the other; there are very seldom, completely identical twins. The second twin may well have an organ missing or a speech defect. So it was with my twin Brian. The gods had treated him unkindly and he was paralysed from the waist down and was unable to pronounce his vowels in speech. Mum worked to provide for us and I became, in effect, Brian’s carer.

I would come home from school and get his and my tea, then do my homework, first giving Brian my books which he would read while I made tea and then we would do my homework together. He was very intelligent and his explanations of the work would enable me to understand and compete work I hadn’t followed at school. I progressed well.

Brian had a beautiful painting which Dad had bought before he left, a beach scene by Marie Charles. It depicted a pretty Victorian girl and her mother, a beached dingy, sailing boats in the distance and a large bunch of sea purslane in the foreground. Brian had fallen in love with the girl in the painting and when he was thirteen or fourteen he started to have ‘Out of Body Experiences’ or OBEs.

Almost anyone can have an OBE but certain characteristics make it more likely. One is ‘psychological absorption’ Scoring high on this measure means a person is easily engrossed in films, books or music, ignoring everything around them. You may be susceptible to hypnosis, have a rich fantasy life and remember having imaginary playmates as a child. Other people have lucid dreams, visions and hallucinations and others have unusual dissociative experiences and disorganised thoughts. Many writers, artists and poets have OBE, and I read that scientists find that the brain’s right temporoparietal junction is disturbed when people have an OBE but the research is considered dubious and on the borders of the paranormal.

Whether OBEs are imaginary or not, at quiet moments and on the verge of sleep, Brian was able to enter the picture and play with the girl and sail the boat. He could walk, run and talk to the woman and the girl whose name was Felicity. One day when we had finished my homework, he spoke to me.

‘Jff the wmn nd Flicty wnt me to go and lve with thm. I dnt no wt t do? I cn rn n tlk. I lve Flicty. Help me.’

I loved Brian but sadly there was only one answer. ‘You must go where your heart tells you to.’

I got him ready for bed, we kissed and hugged and I left him.

The next morning I went into his room. The painting on the wall showed Felicity holding Brian’s hand, He was standing upright and then he waved and he and Felicity ran off. The Victorian lady walked after them, turning and waving as she went.

I looked at the bed. Brian had passed away. The beach scene was empty and I cried and cried although I knew Brian had found happiness.

The painting hangs on my wife and my bedroom wall over the fireplace. I watch and hope one day Brian will reappear and wave. My wife says, ‘Why don’t you get rid of that picture, it’s just an empty beach.’

But we all have our secrets, don’t we?