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| Image by OiMax |
At eight-forty five AM on a sunny morning in June, a man named Henry Swales was in the process of purchasing a newspaper from a London street vendor when he put one hand to his forehead, said the words, "I think I might be a little unwell", and then promptly collapsed to the pavement and died.
The late Mr Swales had, as it happened, had a particularly interesting week up until that point. He had only just returned from Tokyo, where he had been attending a conference on the translation of classic literature (Mr Swales was a university lecturer). The conference itself had been thoroughly enjoyable: he'd had the run of an astonishing hotel with its own spa and pachinko parlour attached, and had enjoyed several excellent meals in tiny roadside cafes which he and the other delegates had discovered as they explored the streets of the largest city in the world. He'd even managed to find some decent souvenirs for his two children, in the form of a pair of handheld games consoles.
Everything had been well, right up until it came time to make the journey back to London. Mr Swales had passed through the Security checks at Narita airport without hassle, and boarded his plane in plenty of time. He had been sitting comfortably in his seat, checking email on his laptop, when the commotion began. The first thing he noticed was that the stewards, who had previously been strolling back and forth checking the luggage bins, were now all clustered by the galley, whispering tensely. Shortly thereafter there was an announcement asking everyone to remain in their seats. Puzzled, but not yet worried, Mr Swales did so.
Over the course of the next hour and a half he observed through his window the arrival of two emergency vehicles alongside the plane. A multi-lingual announcement asking everyone to stay seated was delivered several times, and at one point all of the passengers from first class came trooping back to business class with grim looks on their faces, only to wait around for a few minutes before being ushered back into their own area. Shortly thereafter the emergency vehicles departed, the remaining passengers boarded, and the plane began to taxi for takeoff.
Mr Swales never learned that someone had died of a sudden brain embolism during boarding, nor that the gentleman who had died was in fact the small, grey-haired Japanese man who had sat on the seat next to him in the departures lounge as they waited for the gate to open.
Mr Swales went home, caught the tube back to his home in Limehouse, hugged his wife and children and presented them with their souvenirs. They were ecstatic. He took a long nap, and then ate dinner with his family, before sitting down to work through some of his notes from the conference. He had booked himself a few days off work in order to relax and unwind after his trip, and he was looking forward to doing just that.
It was three days after his return to England that Mr Swales once more put on his work suit and stepped out of the house to make the twenty-minute walk to his on-campus office. He never arrived. The decision to purchase a newspaper was a spur of the moment one. It was also the last decision he would ever make. He had just handed over his money, when a wave of intense dizziness swept over him, and a powerful headache asserted itself suddenly over his left eye. He barely had time to utter his last, bemused words before the world went black, and he knew no more.
It being rush hour when Henry Swales passed away, the street was busy. A good-size crowd built up around him as he lay on the pavement, being tended to by two yellow-clad paramedics and a motorcycle police officer. One baggy-trousered youth even took a moment to film the unfortunate man's lifeless body on his mobile phone, in order to show it to his friends later on.
On arrival at hospital, Henry Swales was declared dead. The cause was found to be a sudden brain embolism - a blood clot that had starved his brain of oxygen. It was unfortunate, especially for a man only forty-two years of age. His wife was informed. Funeral arrangements were made. Family travelled from all over the country in order to attend.
Seventy-two hours later, as the sun rose on the morning of his funeral, Henry Swales's wife went to wake her two newly-fatherless children, and found that she could not.
