‘Well, nor does anyone, not for absolute certain. But the best we can tell is that brain cells remain active for quite some time after the heart stops beating. Where do these people go, Will? Where is their conscious self? What seems likely is that this period of time feels much longer to the dying person than it actually is, in much the same way as time seems to move slower when we’re in danger. There’s a strong possibility that these last throes of consciousness, which might last just minutes to an outsider, to the dying person could feel like weeks. Even months. A dilation of time, smoothing the shock of death.’

‘Wow.’

‘Wow indeed!’

‘Is this the out-of-body experience people who’ve come back from the brink talk about?’

‘It seems likely, doesn’t it?’ She nods solemnly. ‘Maybe these are the souls we mean when we talk of ghosts. Who knows?’

‘So you reckon that, in that period of time, their conscious self is able to be in different nows? But able to communicate between those nows?’

‘Well, not communicate with just anybody. But if they could find someone to share the same frequency, then maybe.’

‘You really think that could happen?’

She has the look of someone weighing up how much they should reveal. ‘Recently, I’ve become sure of it. Only very recently.’

‘So, if you could sense someone trying to pass on messages about things that haven’t happened yet, it would likely be someone who’s dying?’

‘Well, they’d be technically dead. Medically speaking.’

‘But when might they have died, do you reckon?’

‘Think about it, Will. They are no longer bound by their physical form. Time has dilated and stretched, leaving their present different from our own.’

‘With you.’

‘Are you, though?’

‘What am I missing?’

‘So, say I have a massive heart attack right now, and drop dead on this very floor.’

‘OK.’

‘And, some minutes from now, my brain, my conscious self, will …’ She fumbles for the right word.

‘End?’

‘Oh, I don’t think it ends. No way. It just stops being my own. I suspect my consciousness returns to something universal. Like a fallen oak tree dissolving into the ground from which it grew. Not ending, just different. What’s that Newton law?’

‘Energy can’t be created or destroyed?’

‘Spot on, young man! Life is far too full of energy to be ended by something so insignificant as death!’

‘I like that.’ Another one for Alfie, Will fleetingly thinks with a smirk.

‘But we digress. We were talking about the short time it takes for my conscious mind to close down. The process of dying, itself.’

‘Which feels much longer to you – to the person dying.’

‘You got it. That period will feel to me like – who knows – weeks, say. During which I’ll be aware, conscious, somewhere or other.’

‘Yes.’

‘To eventually slip away, a few minutes or hours from now. From this now.’