The Palace of Violet and Red Clouds (Third Person)

A philosophical story about a young Spirit and regret.

Drifting within the shadows of ambiguity, desires washed the tattered blackness that once consumed the Spirit’s soul. Staleness was expected, but the final breath was anything but that. All faculties that once beckoned life’s mobius unexpectancies had been surrendered. Without hesitation, she dropped her palm into a hand that was blacker than the void. Coldness was expected; yet Death’s cruel warmth enveloped the Spirit. She found her feet, and her feet found the ground. Delicate ripples extend from each toe. The blackness consuming, yet not evil, had wholly taken her: body, mind, and soul.

            This realm tasted sweeter than the realm of life. Here there was a place for all souls whom Death deemed worthy. Those unfit for his holy palace were left behind to rot six feet under, lies carved sharply into headstones. But what aptitude had the Spirit that He deemed her worthy to receive such immaculate treatment? For what reason had she to grace the halls of Death and walk amongst the most honored of the afterlife? The other spirits passed by, but it was only Death who acknowledged her presence. Multitudes of souls in one place, yet she was completely alone.

           Death needn’t her voice to understand that doubt had since consumed her conscience. His hand came to each cheek, and His lips touched her forehead. His voice resonated as neither male nor female; he said: “Do not fret, child.” It was assuring, but the uneasiness of the Spirit remained unchanged.

            His hand again had taken hers, and He guided her through His palace. The walls of his palace were of violet and red clouds; the roof was absent in most light, but if the nearby stars struck it just right, the shingles of steep spires glittered. Death brought her to a round room that had neither a floor nor ceiling clearly present so that the entire universe could be seen by either looking up or down. At the center of the room there was a basin crafted in gold and garnished in eyes that followed her movement, and it was here that they stood, where the Spirit could look into a silver pool reflecting her astral form.

Dying, for the Spirit, it was an indescribable feeling. She was not capable of remembering the feeling of life or death. Her previously lived life did not come in the form of a memory. It was an intuition, like in order for her to have come to this place she needed to have first lived a life. But she, too, could feel regret �" a pang so aching it has prevented her from completely being able to accept her fate. The needing to know became a desire that choked her present state, and Death was well aware of this dilemma. He understood her plight, as He understood all plights. This soul was not the first, nor the last, to come into His palace having regret. Death told the Spirit that she shan’t hold regret for life that was barely lived. And learning this, the Spirit was greatly confused, for she remembered a life so long lived that she may have very well witnessed the resurrection and the rapture within a single lifetime. Death could be expected without complexities, without conflictions, that in giving to the void resolution would be found.

            The silver ripples broke the image of the Spirit, and she was reminded of her imperfections, that she was once human �" the primary necessity of ascension. The ripples echoed in likeness to a human’s heartbeat �" lub-dub, lub-dub �" and upon feeling the pulse, she was able to recall the first beat within the womb, just as she was able to also recall the last. It echoed faintly as a memory within her astral chest.

            “What are your regrets?” Death asked.

            But the Spirit had not an answer for Death, for she still had yet to understand the life she had once lived. Regrets plundered deeper, and she began to ponder this thought. What regrets had she? She was troubled it seemed. If only she understood why her life had felt so long lived when Death spoke of it as a mere blink. She could sense a past lived but not remember it, and neither was she able to remember the time before life. The first heartbeat, it was powerful; but the final was weak. She felt as if she was plummeting into an even deeper void than that of death.

            Death directed her gaze into the silver of the pool. The ripples intensified before settling; faint memories were extracted. She was drawn into the mirror. Death remained at her side as they came into a room lit by candlelight in the dark, storm covered evening. Rain pelted the windowpanes of the second story home. They stood at bedside with mother-to-be and midwife. Rushing into the room was a young girl and behind her the father. All things that would happen in such a moment did happen, but there was struggle, and a child was born. The baby was small for its nine month incubation, and a long while passed before a single cry came from the infant.

            “She will live maybe a month or two,” said the doctor the next day to the father in privacy.

            The father exhaled and was without words. He thanked the physician for his time, paid the man for his service, and escorted him to the door for his leave.

            The Spirit understood these scenes, remembering the first of these moments. She remembered her first breath; it was the most powerful of them all. She remembered opening her eyes to look up at a hazy mother. And the voice of her mother was also recalled; but it faded overtime.

            Amongst this family the doctor became a regular as the weeks had continued to pass. He would stop in at the same time every evening and see the child, give his say, and take his pay and leave. It was to his surprise that the child had survived until her fourth month, and they celebrated this feat. But the mother’s fondness for the child became distant. That the child was born ill should have meant that everyday was a blessing, and friends and family had seen it this way; but the mother believed it a wretched curse. The mother refused her time be wasted in the chapel, denying her fear for God and his might. She cursed the creator for letting her waste nine months only to deliver a child doomed to death. So instead she stayed with the damned creature, rocking the child to sleep and watching her suffer. The coming moments of the ticking clock made the mother apprehensive as the conditions of the infant worsened.

            Life, for the Spirit, seemed to have stretched across the eons; yet it was but six months her soul had known this defective organic vessel. Six months for a child was an eternity, while as an adult but a blink.

            Time continued to pass. The mother sat at the crib of her child, unknowingly rocking a corpse back and forth. She saw the child plastered pale, dressed in white gown and bonnet.

           There came a knock at the front door and the servant answered. The father had called upon the priest. And the child, too ill to be removed from her home, was to be baptized and blessed so that when she finally crossed the coil, she would have her place with God in Heaven. It was during the baptism that the priest realized the child was no longer breathing and had been long touched by Death. The Spirit, while watching, found Death’s hand and grasped it tightly as she waited to hear their grievances. But grievances they had not and neither had they remorse for this loss. Death, to them, was pictured black and stern without pity, and grim. But upon the Spirit’s witnessing, she began to question who this child was to them, and whether or not Death �" whose hand she still grasped �" knew pity.

            They hastily lay the child to rest in a casket crafted from plywood, without adornment or flowers. The corpse was lowered and buried; the mother, father, young girl, and all attendants of the family �" including the doctor �" were present. The child’s death would become the talk of the town, first entry in the obituary, and written by the father, conveying false grievances. The town will give their false condolences, and as Death had assured, life would continue without the child. The family lingered for a moment longer and took their leave. It would be the last time that any one of them stood at the gravesite, where lies were etched in stone:

MARGARET DAWN DE BAAS

BELOVED AND CHERISHED

GOD BLESS HER SOUL

Birth 21 Apr 1901

Death 3 Nov 1901

Yes, that was the Spirit’s given name … But she was without name now; she was without human form. It was wondered by the Spirit why she had not been damned to lie eternally six feet under.

            The mother rocked in her chair, knitting a blanket, yarn putrid yellow. The father had returned home that evening, hanging wet coat and hat on the hooks near the front door. He came to his wife, questioned how she was feeling now that a week had passed since her child’s passing. She answered him with great relief that the child would finally be with God, and that the torment had finally ended; because they hadn’t the morality to physically end the torment themselves. But if the Spirit could, she would relay to the wretches that the child had not suffered and had never suffered. This torment, as the mother had called it, was an aspect of the child’s birth. The reality of pain was excused by the not knowing �" that the child was born and died having known only pain to not be able to perceive it as such. To the Spirit, to the nimble body of the child from wince she had come, it was natural. It was not torment or pain, but Life.

            This was enough for the Spirit. She couldn’t bear another minute, and Death returned her to His realm. Regret still lingered. Death provided again his inquiry, and she began to wonder what regrets had she to keep and bring to this palace. She was tainted with regret, which had come from a life barely lived. It was a burden believed unjust for such a young soul. It was not hers to have; yet she continued to question his inquiry, recognizing the regret, but not wanting to admit it.

            Death knew without her answering. “You see, Child, why your form seems incomplete?”

            The Spirit nodded.

            “You must resolve your regret before I give you a home in my palace.”

            The ripples of the silver pool vibrated: lub-dub.

            It would seem impossible for a formless creature to shed a tear, but this soul had shed many tears in the coming moment. Her form met with the invisible floor. “I have not lived!” she cried. “I died before I lived! Where is the fairness in that?”

            Death stood motionless above, watching through the black cowl of his shadowy form. “Come with me now. I know now what must be done. If you do not come and you cannot resolve yourself, then you will be doomed to purgatory.”

            She rose, again finding her feet and letting them touch the floor of his violet and red palace. The Spirit followed Death down lengthy corridors, passing golden doors, and stained windows, and fountains of rippling colors that sparkled like the stars. The following gate they passed through brought them outside. Here stood a guard. The Guard’s form faded in and out under plated uniform, his eyes dark yet kind and full of wisdom.

            “Another, Your Majesty?” asked the Guard. “If I may say, you are most generous to the regretful.”

            “There have been many wars in the Living Realm,” answered Death.

            “Yes, but that is good. The Balance has been skewed for sometime now. Do not forget the Universe’s order.”

            “You fall under my command,” said Death. “Do not forget that.”

            “Yes, yes. My apologies,” he said with a bow.

            “I leave her with you.”

            Death left with those words.

            The Spirit was alone with the Guard, standing in a garden of black wrought trees and strange golden fruit. At the center was a large pool of unfathomable depths. There was nothing within it, just pure blackness; so black, in fact, that even the degree of darkness was without tangibility.

            The Guard spoke: “If you chose to return to Earth, what I say to you will not be remembered. I am to help you resolve your regret, and in the end it is your decision to choose life or death.

            “There is a balance between the realms of the living and the dead, and this balance must be sustained. All souls born on Earth are given life at the death of another. The Balance cannot be broken, lest the Cosmos collapse. When and if that day is to ever come the Universe will descend from His throne and right the wrong. But it is our job in this realm to assure that never happens. You see, Child, there is a great sacrifice that comes if the Universe ever must descend from His throne. Many will die and their souls will perish. They will not have the ability to come into this realm like you have. Instead they will cease to exist. It is the ultimate finale to a problem without control. Do you understand?”

            She stared into the blackness, feeling the consumption of its endless pit. There was a nod; yet she continued to question Death and now the Universe. She questioned the souls that had perished so that others may be born�"that a soul had withered away so that she could breathe life; but her ineffectual aptitude had been her body’s pathetic ability to sustain life feebly six months. All souls, as the Guard would continue to explain, cross with having some degree of regret. But infants who die prematurely before their cognitive awareness reflects the self of their consciousness, and before able to distinguish right and wrong, are brought here to this pool where they must decide whether they choose life or death. In choosing death, all regrets will be acknowledged and resolved. She would have a room of her own to do with as she pleased.

            “There,” he pointed to the golden fruit hanging from the trees. “You were once a seed inside a fruit here. I can tell because you are a young and naïve soul. Some souls are given the chance to live over and over again depending on their goodness. However, a single falter can prevent them from ever returning. And depending on their falter, Death must decide where to take them after He has helped them cross the void.”

            The stem of a plump fruit dropped from a branch and disappeared into the blackness. Death, the soul continued to tell her, had taken the life of an old man of ninety-nine-years-three-hundred-and-sixty-days. “You might assume that he has lived a satisfied life being as old as he was in Earth years, but you will be quite surprised at how regretful even the old can be. It is a pity, truly, to have not found happiness even after a century of life.”

            She imagined herself hanging from the tree, either too ripened or not ripe enough when her stem was plucked and made the plunge. The stars above gleamed as she wondered, and she could hear the whisper of each flicker flash and another second pass on Earth: the wisest of all souls seemed to guide her, like she would be a fool for not choose to live the life unlived. And now, now she was no longer the fruit; she was the bared seed ready for plantation, life guaranteed.

            “I know what I want,” said the Spirit to the Guard.

            “You have chosen already?” said the Guard.

            “I would be a fool not to listen to the stars.”

            “So you can hear them. Ah, that is good. They are your ancestors, Child. And when you are on Earth, it would be wise to listen to their voices as they sing and guide you.”

            “But I will forget what you have told me,” said the Spirit. “Is there anyway I will remember your words?”

            “You are a soul, Child,” said the Guard. “Souls have a natural instinct. Sometimes they hone it, sometimes they do not. I cannot say that you will.”

            It didn’t matter, she supposed. His words were enough to comfort her in her decision.

            He looked into the blackness. “Time passes differently here. When you return it will not be the same time period. There will be many years that have passed by the time you make it into your mother’s womb and break into life again. And it is unfortunate that I have no knowledge of the current turmoil of Earth since it is forever changing. Are you sure you wish to return?”

            “I will not know where and to whom I am born?”

            “No. That is the risk of choosing life over death.”

            “To experience life in anyway,” said the Spirit, “would make living worth it, or else I would have never known life at all. Is there justice in that?”

            “Justice is an ambiguous word, Child, that you do not quite understand. Live by your heart. That is all you need worry of. When you are ready, all you have to jump.”

           Jump. The decision was easier made than to actually find the motion that would bring her into the unending pit below.

Lub-dub: her feet pulsed, and lift was found beneath her astral form, and she let go of death. The void was consuming, and the palace fading. She glided. Regret was absent from her soul, and there was, in the fall, perpetual peace. The words of the Guard became a distant memory, but the beautiful voice of the pulsing stars never faded. Her form found growing limbs. And in absorbing warmth and color, all regret that had tainted her soul gray was washed away. The blackness, as she descended deeper and deeper, enveloped her; her mind faded. The time that had passed was just a fraction within the void, yet momentarily perpetual.

 

In that moment there was let light; and in this moment she, again, was given life.