He regained consciousness in the hospital corridor, finding himself standing in the middle of a stream of people flickering past without pause. He was dimly aware he couldn’t be seen. The world he had emerged into was grey, faded and separated from the world he had just left. It was also silent. He reached out to touch a nearby nurse, but his hand, insubstantial, entered her arm and passed through without making contact.

As soon as the time of death was recorded most of the staff cleared the emergency room, moving onto the next crisis. She stood over his shell, stunned, ignoring the nurses who fussed around him, tidying up the detritus of the failed attempt to save him. She thought back to the accident; they had been walking across the road, moving from pub to pub, then boom, the taxi had hit him. The next few minutes were a…