Faint Resemblance

            “Do you think we’re getting close?” Dianna asked Alik as they walked from their house to the diner. Alik looked strangely back to Dianna.

            “Getting close to what?” Alik replied.

            “You know…closer to the end of this all; I want to stop waiting tables for Athena…it’s getting boring, and I hate the customers.”

            “I don’t see how you can hate working for a goddess…I think she pays well.”

            “She pays in patience, and I don’t have much of that left.”

            “I know that you don’t, you were telling this to me last night when we were drinking wine. Look, we’ll be out of here when Athena fires us from the restaurant. Then, after that, we go.”

            “But, where do we�"” Her sentence was cut short when Alik walked her into the diner, letting her into the fullness of the restaurant.

            The two of them absolutely hated working in the diner, for it was a tedious crowd that they had to attend to, day in and day out. None of the customers ever had a single shred of honor nor respect attached to their names. Alik and Dianna were waiters in the diner along with another couple, Timmy and Yvonne. The days were long, and the couples had to deal with every single mythical creature that had ever been thought of and had to serve them. The minotaurs and hydras were always the most difficult customers to deal with, since they only responded in grunts and hisses to whatever was asked to them. Not to mention, that both kinds of creatures had absolutely no inkling of knowing what table manners were.

            But at the end of this day in particular, the two couples ventured back to their house. The house was only about a city block distance away from the diner, and this night, they didn’t drown themselves in drink. During this night, they fully discussed their fates.

            They gathered around a table, the four of them, and they discussed why they think that they are where they are.

            “Before I got to here, I heard a voice say to me, ‘This will be a test of your patience.’…like I’m supposed to have patience for creatures that I can’t even understand.” Timmy said, his Irish accent pouring through his speaking.

            “Well, I think we can all agree that at some point we were told we’re here because our patience is to be tested.” Alik said. The group nodded their heads yes in reply. “As to why we’re waiting tables at a diner run by the Greek goddess Athena, I’m not sure. It makes no sense whatsoever, and I’d much rather have some old schmuck who smokes cigars and yells at his employees all day running the diner. That experience would be much more of a test of patience, in my consideration…”

            “I think, that the reason we’re under the management of a goddess, is because women give off some kind of air of waiting.” Dianna said. “And, women tend to be the ones who have to wait. And I just now made this connection, but since Athena is the goddess of war, and she’s teaching us patience, her doing so is akin to wives waiting for their husbands to come home from war…somewhat like in the tale of the Odyssey.”

            “Wow…I never thought of it that way…” Alik said. “It makes sense like that.”

            “Well, at any rate, if we’re being tested for patience or whatever, there is one thing that we should realize…” Yvonne said, having an Irish accent akin to Timmy’s. “…it’s a simple thing that my grandmother would tell me in nights that I had great difficulty. These nights I’m talking about would normally be in my teen years when I would struggle with chronic depression, and I would be haunted by nightmares and ghosts. She would always tell me some elaborate analogy that would have some deeper meaning that I would sleep on, but she would always end with the phrase, ‘All that life is, is a very faint resemblance.’ I never knew what she really meant by that. Maybe it’s some sort of, Confucius says kind of thing. It’s as if you aren’t really supposed to know the meaning, but you are. But, I’m tired for the night, and I’ve got to sleep. Let’s go to bed Timmy.”

            Yvonne and Timmy departed into their room for the night, while Dianna and Alik stayed at the table. As they sat at the table, they decided to walk outside of the house and into the park, down to the river. There, they would continue a conversation.

            At the water’s edge, they dangle their feet over the concrete bank. The sound of the water slowly moving along the bank created a calming ambiance, one that seemed to last forever.

            “In every single sense I can be, I’m sorry.” Alik said.

            “Sorry for what?” Dianna asked.

            “I never told you about how bad that my heart was. Its condition was horrible, and I’m surprised it didn’t give out sooner.”

            “Alik, don’t guilt yourself about this…”

            “But the thing is, you shouldn’t have been there with me. In all mammals, they have an instinct…the instinct is to be at their home when they know they are about to die. They don’t want to be around their pack when they face death. That’s why I didn’t come to school for a week…that’s why I never answered your phone calls or any of your emails…it was just that one phone call that I made to you; the last one. I wanted you to be by my side while I was on my death bed. If there were going to be anyone that I wanted to see before I died, it was you. And when I died, I wanted you to keep on living. I didn’t want you to do what you did…”

            “Alik…I couldn’t live without you.” As Dianna said this, tears rolled down her face. “If I couldn’t be with you in life, then I would be with you in death. That was what I promised to you. And I planned to keep that promise, no matter the consequences.”

            “But the consequence now, is that we’re both dead.” Alik replied.

            “But isn’t that what we wanted?” Dianna said. A silence overtook them. They knew not what to say to each other, as the words they tried to speak could not be coughed out.

            “Yes…” Alik whispered.

            “I knew you would say that.” Dianna replied back.

            “So…I don’t think we have much longer to wait. Eventually, we’ll go back into the cycle, as we’ve been told. There isn’t any chance to avoid going back into the cycle of life. We’ll probably be thousands of miles apart, and our bodies will have no recollection of what our past lives were. We won’t know why we were here, and we wouldn’t know we were here. And I can’t stand being apart from you for the rest of eternity.”

            “I know…” Tears rolled down both of their faces. They could not hold back their sorrow. If they were to progress beyond this façade of paradise, they would no longer be together. But they could stay in this place for eternity…or at least, so they had both thought when they were living. They had journeyed to this place before during meditation, but they had only had a slight taste of what this all was. The possibility of their forced reincarnation could still be prevalent. The entire situation could still happen; this is why they were crying.

            An angel appeared behind the two of them. Alik and Dianna held each other in the tightest of embraces because they both knew what this angel was for; the angel was to take them away into their new lives. They would not know each other, never see each other, and they may never be able to return to each other’s arms again. They kissed each other for one last time, and then looked at each other.

            “I love you, Alik.” Dianna cried.

            “I love you too, Dianna.” Alik cried back.

            The angel took the two of them away.

 

            A young boy had trouble sleeping, and came to his mother.

            “Mom…” The boy said.

            “Yes, dear?” The mother replied.

            “I can’t sleep.”

            “Come here.” The mother wrapped her arms around her son. She knew what his problem was, and she would tell him something that would help him to sleep.

            “Everything that you will ever feel, see, hear, experience in life, will almost be real. It won’t be completely real, but it will almost be real. This life is not the place to experience everything in their entireties; no…far from it. We are here to learn; we are not here to live. These hands that we’ve been given will shape the things that we see now, but it won’t matter. At some point, when we go further down the road from here, that is the place where we truly learn about life. That place, to which we all go, that is where we learn; that is how people come into this world and perform the great things that they do; it is all because they were somebody else in the time before the paradise, and they were someone greater in the time of the paradise. Now, I know that you won’t understand this fully until later in your life, but I’m telling this to you know because I know, deep down, this will ease your mind.”

            “And mom, I had this dream about a man and a lady.” The boy said.

            “And?” The mother asked.

            “And they were smiling at each other…and I feel like I know those people.”

            The mother just smiled and said something that her son would not understand:

            “When you were sleeping, you were a flicker of light among the darkness. In the shadows, you were part of them. In your dreams, you were some of the characters that you met, and you are some of the characters you meet. This life is just one thing that continues onto another. All that life is, is a very Faint Resemblance.”

Reviews

[Jess Morgan]

Beautiful. I was actually quite humbled by your story, and am thankful for the experience you have provided. It has great direction and you have imaginatively captured a plethora of concepts in a neatly bound package. This is a great example of one of those pieces that can leave you contemplating for days. A sincere bravo to you, new friend.

[Hayley]

Wow. This story is very interesting and different, but you have managed to make it work! The ending is very thought-proking, which I am a huge fan of. Simple, but sweet. Good job!

[Coyote Poetry]

"Women tend to be the ones who have to wait. And I just now made this connection, but since Athena is the goddess of war, and she’s teaching us patience, her doing so is akin to wives waiting for their husbands to come home from war…somewhat like in the tale of the Odyssey.”
I like this story. I have always said. Woman have the power. Just need to learn to control and take charge. The complete story was entertaining. A very good ending to a outstanding story. Thank you.
Coyote