10 Near Death Experiences (but there's only 5 NDEs because I'm still alive).

Ten near-death experiences.

I don’t remember this NDE, but I’ve got reliable witnesses lined up to testify, although not on me, that it’s true. I was born true-blue in Hellensburgh, my head the wrong way round. Some people say I’m still the wrong way round. Some people even say I’m bald. But nobody can say I’m blue.

A ragtag of us, stinking of chlorine, trekking with towels flapping, back from Clydebank Municipal Baths along the canal path. We spot guys fishing in a concrete bay. One of them has a moustache, which is the equivalent of a fishing permit in Dalmuir, but the two of them have carry-oot bags stuffed with cans. We slow, kick dust, and communicate telepathically CARRY OOT, CARRY OOT, CANS OF LAGER. Next thing, I’m breathing canal, left behind, flailing with legs too short to touch murky bottom. I can tell the fisherman above there’s no fish.  A useful distraction as the older boys run away with a carry-oot bag.

School disco. I’m in that far away corner everyone pretends they can’t see. Weirdo. Short-back and sides hair. I’ve not got any bands of multi-coloured tartan on my denims, because they’re that passport to hell, acrylic grey trousers. They’re not flared. My feet aren’t encased in ankle-breaking platform shoes. And I don’t own a Bay City Roller jumper. I’m wearing a nice-boy white shirt, altar boys, and the kind of jumper all mothers’ love, which is the equivalent of a flare gun sending one up. Every second song played by the ever cool DJ is Shangalang. Even I mumble the words into my lap. Some of the guys amble over and stand with their backs to me, getting a heat from my burning cheeks. It’s a Moony song. That’s when everything slows down, even Shangalang. A queue builds up round half the hall to get underneath the mistletoe and get a peck off Pauline Moriarty. She’s the most beautiful girl in the world, and I love her. Someone dares me. Go on. Go on. Shitebag. Dance with her. I go for it. The music changes suddenly. Bouncy, bouncy, Tina Charles, ‘I love to love’. I’m caught on the squeaking wooden dance floor in two worlds. One of them is all female. The other empty space. My mate’s last act is to shoves me into Yvonne Goulagong. Yvonne’s mate, whose name I can never remember, whips out the mistletoe and holds it hovering above my head, like the spaceship in the series V. Aliens in the telly blockbuster disguise themselves as human in order to colonise the earth. They snack on live rats; humans are the main dish. There’s no disguising Yvonne. Her mouth opens like a creaking wardrobe on a spaceship and clamps onto mine. She’s swallowing me whole, saliva specked whistling sounds coming from her nose. ‘She really fancies you,’ says her pal whose name I can never remember.  

We’re in Balloch. The train has taken us right up to the pier. The fresh water below is freezing cold, but it’s a Scottish sunny day with bits of rain. Some of the bigger boys are showing off, clambering up the wooden slatted cabin, and diving off the disused booking office for Maid of the Loch which still tethers there. Some of our crew go up, but quickly come back down again. It’s too high. I decide I’ll show them. I’ll dive off the roof. I stand with my toes firmly planted and peer over. Beside me a bigger boy takes a run, and it seems like half an hour later I hear the splash. ‘Shitebag,’ shouts a familiar voice from below. I do it. Leap over the side. Not a dive and not a jump. My chest hits the water with an almighty splash and my head does an Olga Korbut. I’m not sure which way is up. I surface. ‘Wiz that sore?’ my mate crys. ‘Nah, you should try it. It’s easy,’ I splutter.   

We decide to swim between the old pier and the new pier, where the Maid of the Loch docks. The old pier is raggedy teeth rotting into the water. It’s not far. About two swimming pools away. I can swim two lengths no bother. I might even be able to manage two and a half. We spread out. Not intentionally. Some of the older ones are better swimmers. But even the ones that are not particularly good swimmers, the ones I should beat in a race, are ahead of me. I flail at the water to catch up. But I don’t seem to be getting any closer. The old pier seems the same distance away. I look back. We’re half way across, the new pier is just as far. I splash and go under. Surface. Splash and go under. Then somebody’s holding onto my arm and helping me float, dragging me along. It’s Wendy. That’s when I knew there was no god, because he’d have let me drown. Anybody but Wendy, grinning like a buck-toothed shark.