Chapter Eleven

"If we were shown thereafter, I don't know. If our eyes and minds deceived us, I don't know. If our entire experience was real, I don't know. I can only bear testimony to what was my perception of our surroundings to the best of my knowledge."

"If I will be so blessed to be welcomed to Paradise when the Lord decides to take me home I now understand that my previous expectations were but a pitiful shadow of His infinite beauty. If Terra Two is real, or even if our minds could fathom it as a vision, then the boundaries of our inadequacy can't allow us to imagine Heaven. Perceiving a universe of infinite dimensions would be as impossible as appreciating the mastery of a symphonic piece if you've never been endowed with hearing. It would be as impossible as defining the color purple if you don't know sight exists."

"We have eyes but don't see. We have ears, but don't hear. We are so small, so feeble, so incomplete."

 

An unusually bright light shone through the view screen and in the first seconds of her awakened state Sarah didn't fully realize where she was. The fact that she woke up from her sleep while the real light penetrating her eyelids was interpreted through her REM state into a very vivid dream about her childhood made it even more confusing. In her dream the sun was shining brightly over the wheat fields and her brothers were flying colorful kites in the midst of a racket of barking dogs and fiendish shrieks.

It took her a few moments to remember how far away that image was and to become aware that the surrounding light was not part of the dream. A few other sisters were also awake, staring intently at the window.

Covering half the view screen in strong contrast with the blackness of the void shone Terra Two, formally known as 90354 ENOS. Its surface was a stunning paisley pattern of islands surreally iridescent in light chocolate and deep rose and its sky was studded by a million shiny metal dots that sparkled in the light of dawn, scrumptiously delightful like an enormous chocolate raspberry soufflé bedazzled in rhinestones. 

The sun peeked from behind Terra Two, festooning its edge with a very thin and sharply intense sliver of light that broadened quickly, casting coffee colored shadows on the chocolate rose surface, shimmering on the plane of the water and making it shine like old gold. The images of the methane containers echoed on the restless liquid surface and thin wisps of foam got carried by the breeze to form even and delicate crests between the islands. The waves interfered and harmonized creating complex ephemeral patterns almost as if the planet was trying to tell the newcomers a story in a language so ancient and abstruse only it understood.

Everyone stood absolutely still  in awe of this sight which indeed looked as if it were not of this world, as if it could not have happened because of the whims of an oblivious universe, but was crafted by a most sophisticated artist to impassion the soul.

A steady streak of tears flowed freely down Sarah's cheeks, tears she wasn't even aware of in the ecstatic experience of bonding with this strange new home, this world of coffee caramel sunsets bedazzled by a million artificial stars.

Since Sarah still hadn't figured out whether she was alive or dead this moment brought to  her attention that she might be contemplating Paradise, or at least her understanding of it, for what other place in creation would be so beautiful, calling directly to her soul like a forbidden siren song?

The planet got larger and warmer as they continued approaching, lost its curvature showing dimples and ridges and waves crashing softly on the islands' perimeters. As they pierced the edge of the atmosphere the light diffracted in the thin air, creating a refined interpretation of the Northern Lights, if one could imagine them in a warm range of chocolate, rose and rust.

The sun was now high above the horizon, or suns, was more appropriate to say, to the confusion of them all. Terra Two didn't have two suns, just one, but one of its natural satellites was a gaseous moon that refracted light like a sparkling gemstone. Following the path of two suns in the caramel sky was a hypnotic experience, made even more disorienting by the fact that they were following completely different trajectories. Their paths brought them at times very close together and soon following at complete odds, so one couldn't tell if it was morning, sunset, or high noon until the very second the real sun hid behind the horizon and took with it the reflected light of the satellite. Both suns disappeared suddenly as if they melted in the hot chocolate of the sky, soft like marshmallows, leaving behind nothing but one subdued corona of opalescent gas.

The sky of Terra Two was so fascinating they almost forgot to breathe. So overwhelmed they were by the continuously changing backdrop that nobody bothered to look down at the deserted surface covered with a fine debris that no root could grab hold of, a wretched mix of what looked like crushed brick with little pieces of cement mixed in, the perfect combination of nutrients, the ideal agricultural land, the miraculous cradle of life that was the soil of their new home.