Maggie Sekella —
You felt the brief shift, followed by a massive, quivering crack beneath you, and then you fell. The burning came next, tongues of flame devouring your skin, your eyes, filling your lungs with smoke… How humorous, that your small mind, your weak, human nerves confused frost and fire in those final moments.
You looked up as you inhaled – a single, hiccuping choke – and saw white light from the sky, wavering and obscured by clouds above and murk below. You thought you glimpsed something, someone, through the jagged edges, your comrades perhaps? But no, you came with only two, not three… And yet three silhouettes watched idly as you slipped further below, as the white light winked out, and the freezing fire faded to a dull, quiet calmness.
Do you remember your final thought? Does it even matter now?
Well, anyway, that is the story of how you met your final fate, and how you met us. Though perhaps “met” is not the right mortal term, but rather “returned.” You’ve returned to us at last, child. Now tell us, do you have any questions before the end?
You stare at three figures, just as you apparently did before your demise. You briefly wonder how they knew so much about that, it, everything, but you quickly feel silly for such pointlessness. Of course they know, they probably know everything. They certainly speak as if they do.
Looking around, you find yourself in what appears to be the forest, likely not far from the lake, as you recognize the low, snow-laden bulk of the stone wall that runs parallel to the river, and yet there is something off about the familiar landscape. The sun dipped below the mountains at some point in the midst of it all, plunging the once pale, clouded sky into a purple-hued void – but that’s not it, that’s not what makes your mind itch, and your eyes squint as if gazing into a tidepool. Everything appears ever so slightly skewed: tree limbs twisted at impossible angles, the white snake of the stone wall undulating as if alive, and the snow doesn’t crunch or squelch beneath you, rather it feels like walking on lambs’ wool, soft and dull, almost beckoning you to sleep. But you can’t yet, they asked if you have questions, and considering this might be your last chance to even open your lips and craft sounds into words, you’d better think of something.
“Excuse me, but what kind of questions? Could you be more specific?” You ask us with full sincerity, you silly thing, as if you haven’t just asked several questions already… Alright, we suppose that is as good a place to begin as any. What kind of questions, well, any and all you may have! We are in no hurry, time cannot interrupt us here, it holds no sway over us. Ask anything you wish to know about life, death… Whatever interests you, quaint creature. We will of course provide an honest answer, we did not craft these tongues with the capacity for anything but truth. We cannot lie.
“Oh, um, alright…” You think with an unthinking, water-logged mind, fishing existential quandaries out of the murk. The first you’re able to hook, and drag writhing to the surface –
“Do I… Should I have any regrets?” You couldn’t think of anything substantial on your own, beyond a few vaguely embarrassing romantic encounters that felt rather… Unimportant, given the current circumstance.
The entity’s – entities? – first response is a laugh, a three-fold chuckle that echoes off of the surrounding trees, and makes you feel like you would be trembling if your current form permitted it. You look down, and just like everything else, the body that was once yours appears blurred, like the ghostly shape of sand spilling through an hourglass. Your ice skates have vanished, or perhaps they’re merely buried in the snow… Them, It, whatever, on the other hand, is quite clear to your eyes, the most vibrant, visible form within this dreamscape.
The head of a hog, a horse and a hound blink at you with emotionless obsidian eyes through the obstruction of the underbrush. You feel as if they are connected somehow, physically or otherwise, but your mind can’t seem to comprehend how. How on earth can three creatures exist as one, a snake, an owl and a ram… No, a bear, a fish and a weasel? – well, perhaps they are not quite as clear as you assumed. You raise a formless hand to rub at your incorporeal temples. The entity answers in the interim.
That depends on how you define regret, it is not something we are capable of, as we are not capable of making the odd, mortal choices that lead to mistakes… But based on what we know of you, which is doubtless more than you would like, yes.
You regret buying that card for your mother’s birthday. You had been in the midst of a petty argument at the time, and even though you know she always loves – loved it when you made her birthday cards on your own rather than purchasing them, you decided to choose something cheap and materialistic, and wrote an impersonal message within hoping to somehow convey your frustration with her… It didn’t work, instead it merely emotionally wounded both of you, when she met your eyes with that look of vague disappointment.
You regret stealing your friend’s – Simon was it? – favorite stuffed dog when you were a child. You lied and told him he must’ve simply lost it on the field trip to the museum, when in reality you were jealous of the wealth of his parents, and thought that taking one of oh so many toys would do no harm. You later found out it was the very stuffed dog he had been given the day he was born, and yet you never had the courage to return it, for fear he would never forgive you. It still sits in your closet as we speak.
You regret not attending your grandfather’s funeral. You told your family you were feeling ill, when in reality you were terrified of that tight, strangled feeling grief puts in your throat. You didn’t want to see everyone else’s pitying smiles and glances of empty concern, their expressions of understanding, because you could not believe anyone else felt loss with the same intensity you did, in those first days after his death.
You regret hitting that squirrel with your car, it was stumbling across the road with a rather large acorn held between mouth and front paws when –
“Alright! Alright, I… That’s enough. Can I ask something else?” You interrupt, voice high and trembling as your first question becomes yet another regret. The being nods its three heads in unison.
“What… What are you? What is this place, am I… It feels like I’m –”
Goodness, is it truly so difficult to ask one question at a time? Ah well, I suppose if we can comprehend all of existence simultaneously, we can also bear the weight of your impatience. To answer that first question, we are simply we. We are us. We are you. We are everything. We also created everything, and will destroy it when we must. Though, we have noticed mortals cannot easily understand such a concept, hence your reliance on empty idols and pointless worship, wars fought on the assumption that we do not care for all, but merely a select few… How utterly foolish. In any case, to vastly oversimplify us for the purpose of your limited comprehension, we are the judges. We guard the gates. We are the whole.
This place is merely an entry way, a door between before, now and then. We sense you are wondering if it is “real” by your human definition… Yes and no. It exists just as you do, and doesn’t exist just as you do not. It’s really quite simple.
And yes, to summarize, you are dead. Your heart has ceased, your mind is silent, your body is lost within the lake. They’ll find it three days from now, a ways downriver, though one of your ice skates will never be recovered. For some odd reason, that detail will haunt your mother until she joins us too.
Your lungs hitch, though you know they have no use for air. You knew before you asked the question, that is why you couldn’t ask it. You’re dead. You’re gone. You are no more than frost-laden remains, like the bag of mixed vegetables forgotten in the recesses of the freezer. You glance down at the blurred form of what was once your body, and you can’t quite remember what it was meant to look like anymore. It appears more translucent, incorporeal, and yet you can feel the sand of the hourglass weighing on your shoulders, piling around your feet, your knees… Or perhaps that’s merely the snow. You wonder when it started to fall.
Anything else? The deity asks, three mouths lined with white teeth gnashing at once.
“Yes, just one more question… What happens now?”
We sigh, we knew you were going to finish with that question, nearly everyone does. Now, well, now you return to us. You are dead, what was once you was merely a piece of us, severed from the whole. You did not ask this, and yet we shall answer. Why were you torn away, forced to endure a terribly short, mortal life and die in agonized sorrow? Because we too wish to die. We wish to live. We wish to make mistakes, have regrets, feel grief, fear, and agony… And yet we cannot, not as we are. But if we break off small enough pieces, and toss you into the turmoil of it all, your experiences add to our collective memory. You live, you die, and you return with the knowledge and emotions we desire. Whatever you were is not gone, but now a part of us. So, we are grateful to you, little one. Thank you. You suffered so we could evolve. Now, it is time to come home.
You – we – feel everything individual, indistinguishable, blur and twist like the surrounding landscape. It draws closer, like fallen fruit toward the ground, like magnets in proximity, and then… Now, we are whole.
Purple Finch Press 