Part Three

We now enter the third and last part of Between Life and Death (yes it has three parts, like Dante's Divine Comedy).

It opens with a poem written to an unknown lover, which is explained as being the work of an obscure 12th century Occitan troubadour named Rodouf Miramond. Yes, it is Rudi himself, and his surname is very similar to Miranda! You can see that even before he met his soulmate Miranda at the Waystation, he was longing for her with every fibre of his being but unable to comprehend why.

I wrote the poem myself. I read a book of poems from medieval French troubadours, and tried to get a little of the style and flavour. You might think that medieval poems would be very archaic and filled with, "My lady doth loveth me as a flower loveth the sun" type language, but no. Once they're translated into modern English they read very much like contemporary poems.

Underneath the poem it is explained that this is a modern translation by the British poet Julian Peter Barratt – yes, it is the other Julian! We knew nothing about him except for his strange parallels with Julian Barratt Pettifer, and that he also drowned and went into a coma after slipping over in the bathtub and hitting his head.

Now we know he was a published poet and translator of medieval French texts – the traditional "scholar and a gentleman". Julian Peter Barratt was also a performance poet with the stage name of Juli B – note how similar this is to Rodouf Miramond being called Rudi. Julian Peter Barratt's shtick was to revitalise medieval poetry through the lens of postcolonial discourse and contemporary urban rhythm.

Hopefully the subtext is clear to the reader that Julian Peter Barratt is black or mixed race. You'll remember that when there was a mix-up at the Assessment Centre at the Waystation, our Julian's photo was thought to have too dark a skin tone to be a genuine photo of him. (Marcus explained it away as a problem with the photographic process.)

This is a callback to the episode "The Priest and the Beast" on The Mighty Boosh TV show where Julian Barratt plays a guitar-playing monk named Rudi with his skin browned. This also suggests that the two Julians are physically quite alike, apart from one having fair skin and the other dark. Of course they are, because Rudi is played by Julian!

The note about Julian Peter Barratt goes on to say that he died young (like Rudi) the previous year, but is said to have been a soul who never ceased striving for greater understanding and wisdom. Not only a poet, performer, scholar and gentleman, but also an enlightened soul and a spiritual seeker. Julian Peter Barratt was in fact an incredibly special person, and one of those cases of the good dying young. There is a deliberate parallel here with Jimi Hendrix, who Rudi was based on.

Julian Peter Barratt managed to succeed even from beyond the grave, with a posthumous collection of his works published in 1993, the year after his death. Its title is Waiting For a Sign From Heaven and published by the meaningfully named Pilgrim Press (I think this little fictional press has managed to publish quite a number of fictional books for me!!!!!)

https://youtu.be/Qjmn5S8pHJI

Juli B
Julian Peter Barratt's stage name of Juli B is based on another one of Julian Barratt's characters - Julie B, a hyper-experimental urban poet and rap artist who appeared on the TV sketch show Comedy Nation. This 1998 program aired in the middle of the night, and was described as "the cheapest comedy show ever made". [see above] 

At the time, Julian was one half of an experimental comedy duo called The Pod with his friend Tim Hope; they billed themselves as The Cyberdance Collective, and the Julie B character was part of that. Tim Hope has since gone to become an award-winning director of animation films. He's made a name for himself directing music videos and commercials for big name artists and brands.  

Chapter Title
The title of 'Blue Train' is a reference to the classic jazz album by John Coltrane that our Julian's dad brought to the hospital hoping to wake him from the coma. Here it becomes literal, with a blue train taking souls Forward. There's a lot of songs and stories about train rides to Hell, but not many about going to Heaven. It's reminiscent of the bus ride to Heaven in C.S. Lewis' novel, The Great Divorce. 

Quote
It's the opening stanza of 'Poem 490' by American poet Emily Dickinson, which often has the first line used as the title (since Dickinson did not title her own work). The poem is from her 1890 posthumous collection, Poems: Series 1. She had her work published after her death, like Julian Peter Barratt, and it is not known whether the poem was completed or abandoned.

Although the subject of the poem travels in a horse-drawn carriage with Death (like a funeral procession), I thought it would be fun to reimagine it as a train carriage with Death. I love Emily Dickinson, and this is one of my favourites of her poems.

Go Forward
The travel magazine that Julian reads on the train is a pastiche of in-flight magazines. It gives pilgrims going Forward a taste of where they are headed – stunning images of beautiful scenery, interviews with denizens of Forward about their afterlives, and handy tips for new arrivals so they don't get to their destination in complete ignorance. Its title is reminiscent of the Let's Go travel guide series, which are really fun reads as they are witty and irreverent. Maybe that's what the magazine is like too.

Julian at the Waystation
From the luxurious blue train and its helpful blonde tea lady who tells him it must seem like a very long wait, we then go to a flashback to see how Julian got to the train going Forward. Of course we know all about the Waystation, but Julian doesn't remember it, so the reader gets to enjoy being more informed than the character and can fill in a lot of missing information for themselves. (This may be a tiny trap.)

House of Healing
Julian had five days at his House of Healing being cared for after the shock of discovering he had died and is now in the Afterlife. Five days is longer than Julian stayed at the House of Healing before, suggesting that this time he is getting the correct treatment and they are being far more careful.

Hotel
Julian was then taken to a luxury hotel which we know to be the Rose and Star, where Noel was accommodated. When he said he didn't need such luxury, he was immediately upgraded to the penthouse suite as a reward for his humility. I think it's reasonable to assume that's how Noel got the penthouse the first time. And most likely Julian has been put in Noel's old room, Suite 3, since it has the same view of Mandala Park.

Mandala Park
In the two days that Julian spends at the hotel he leaves it only once – to walk in Mandala Park. Here he sat in the white rose garden on the bench and found himself filled with a strange feeling almost like a memory. This is his only clue that he has been to the Waystation before.

Julian even asks the concierge at the hotel why everything feels familiar to him. The concierge hesitates before saying that each Waystation is made to resemble the major city of the country new arrivals came from. This is actually the first time the reader learns for sure that there is a Waystation for each country or region and that it is modelled on its biggest city.

We know that the concierge must be truthful in what he says so this is accurate information, but Julian correctly intuits that he is not telling the entire truth. He doesn't wish to tell Julian about his previous visit to the Waystation for reasons we must be allowed to guess by ourselves.

(Julian apparently doesn't go to the Hall of Mirrors either, which seems to be another attempt by the Waystation to limit his knowledge of his past lives.)

The Assessment
The most surprising thing for Julian is how fast his assessment is. He has a massive file, but the judge doesn't even open it. Instead he only wishes to make sure that Julian really is the correct person this time. The instant he is assured of that, the judge sends Julian Forward. This isn't a surprise for the reader but is for Julian!

Not only does the judge send Julian Forward, he shakes his hand warmly and expresses a profound gratitude to him. To add to his bewilderment, his Case Worker hugs him and says he will be a friend and a brother for all time. But however confused Julian feels, he is told he has truly earned his place among the blessed.

The Apology Note
When Julian takes his train ticket out of the envelope to present it at the station, he discovers there is a printed note inside. It turns out to be from the management of the Waystation, apologising for any inconvenience he has experienced and appreciating his patience while changes were made to their procedures. His train ticket Forward is thus a gesture of good will from the Waystation.

I got this idea because a friend of mine was once treated appallingly by a particular company who shall remain nameless (cough piece of fruit logo cough). They eventually backed down and meekly handed over the bag with the item she had paid for. When she got home, she discovered that at the bottom of the bag was a little card apologising for any errors made and enclosing a gift card so she wouldn't sue/make a complaint/give them bad reviews/badmouth them to everyone.

I was probably also thinking of the Douglas Adams novel, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. At the end the characters get to read God's final message to His Creation written in letters of fire thirty feet high, which is: We apologise for any inconvenience. Also in his earlier book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, a 900-year wait for lemon-soaked paper napkins receives the response, "Thank you for your patience."

The end of the note which welcomes Julian to the first day of the rest of his Afterlife is an obvious play on the saying, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" (credited to Charles Dederich who worked with self-help groups in the countercultural movement of the 1960s). It's an interesting thought that one day we will embark on the first day of our Afterlife!