Or would you rather be a pig?

As if this guy wasn't nutty enough, he now expected me to psychically pull his name from the ether. I was running out of all sorts of things, but mostly names to call this guy in my head. This went beyond 'needs a good slapping' right into 'needs a good strong jacket and a padded room'.

'Come on, you're a smart guy Jacob, I would have thought you'd have it figured out by now.'

Nobody's called me Jacob since I was 5 years old and a while back I legally changed my name. He'd just gone from 'nutty' to dangerous.

'If Sandringham sent you to kill me then you can get it over with. Here is as good a place as any.' If that was true I wouldn't get the choice anyway.

'Do I look like a killer?' He carried on, already knowing the answer. 'I don't, because I'm not. I'm an old friend, a very old friend that you've forgotten about. I've been forgotten for a long time, haven't I Jacob?'

I searched back through my early memories, trying to find where this guy fit into being raised by just my mum and then in foster homes. I couldn't find any glimmer of recognition, it just wasn't a face I knew.

'I don't know you. Not unless you've pulled some kind of 'Doctor Who' malarkey and changed your face.'

'Be careful Jacob, you only get three chances.'

'What?' He was back to being his old confusing self and it just wasn't fair. 'Look, if you've got all the answers why don't you just share some with me? For God's sake, I'm not freaking superman, or the memory man, I'm just a man, like you.'

There was a collision of expressions on his face and he shook his head. 'Please don't blaspheme, its really not worth it.'

'Worth what?'

'Your soul.'

I sighed and made a series of exasperated sounds, then had an idea.

'You're not my mum's priest, are you?'

'No, but you might say I was a friend of his and your mother.'

'I don't know you.' I was adamant this time and he looked crestfallen.

'Please, thats twice now, be careful.' I was tempted to shout it again at him a million times, just to rile him, to make him tell me, to make it stop. I screamed it in my head and let it echo around. I waited impatiently for him to advance us again.

'Do you remember the song that your mother was always singing? You'd both sing it, together. You used to sing it... to me.' He'd gotten quiet at the end and I wasn't sure I'd even heard him right.

It took me only a moment to remember the song that had stayed with me throughout my entire life, one of the few true memories of my mother I'd ever had. A song she would sing on and on, over and over. It wasn't really a song, it was some kind of composition, she had loved that refrain. It had been written by some guy called Gavin Briars and haunted me my entire life.

All of a sudden I knew, I realised who he was. I swore out loud and he looked up.

'Hello Jacob.' I couldn't look at him, couldn't stand it. I tried to start a sentence a few times then gave up. Finally I managed to croak something out.

'Don't look at me.'

'I missed you Jacob.'

'No.'

I heard one guy say that the world will end by toppling on its axis, by spinning right around. That was how I felt now, my natural centre tumbled and I clung to the ground for support - somehow I'd arrived at my knees. 'Please let this be a dream.'

'You know it isn't.'

I cried then. A single tear fell from my eye straight to the earth and he moved towards me. I scrambled back. 'Don't touch me! Don't touch me. Don't... You're dead, you can't touch me.'

He held out his hands and looked like a thousand posters, a million drawings, but I couldn't take the hug. I wasn't good enough. I turned, I needed to escape.

'Would you stay, we've a lot to talk about.'

'No, I can't stay with you, here. I have to go, I have to.' One step became two and he called after me. I slowed but didn't turn or stop.

'Do you remember what your mother used to say to you every morning when you woke?' I stumbled to a halt and it came flooding back. I roared in pain and took off down the hill, unprepared for the memories this 'get away from it all' trip had wrought from me. In the background his voice carried effortlessly with what she'd said every morning I'd seen her.

'God's swiftest blessings to you, dear heart.'

I chased myself away, finally reaching the sanctuary of my car and wept like a small child. It could have been 3 minutes or 53, I didn't count. I was sure I would never see him again and a small part of me was weeping for that.

As I collected myself, I wiped my face and set about the car, getting ready to leave. Then the thought hit me; I still had my last chance.

I turned off the ignition and got out of the car, I could just see the tree from here, but I couldn't quite make him out. I drew a deep breath and set off up the hill.

It was a favourite hill, a favourite hill with a favourite tree and I still had my last chance.