The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Forty-Three: The First Time

Chapter Forty-Three of my book, The Journey to Eternity, shared here chapter by chapter as I write it. Earlier chapters: Chapter One · Chapter Two · Chapter Three · Chapter Four · Chapter Five · Chapter Six · Chapter Seven · Chapter Eight · Chapter Nine · Chapter Ten · Chapter Eleven · Chapter Twelve · Chapter Thirteen · Chapter Fourteen · Chapter Fifteen · Chapter Sixteen · Chapter Seventeen · Chapter Eighteen · Chapter Nineteen · Chapter Twenty · Chapter Twenty-One · Chapter Twenty-Two · Chapter Twenty-Three · Chapter Twenty-Four · Chapter Twenty-Five · Chapter Twenty-Six · Chapter Twenty-Seven · Chapter Twenty-Eight · Chapter Twenty-Nine · Chapter Thirty · Chapter Thirty-One · Chapter Thirty-Two · Chapter Thirty-Three · Chapter Thirty-Four · Chapter Thirty-Five · Chapter Thirty-Six · Chapter Thirty-Seven · Chapter Thirty-Eight · Chapter Thirty-Nine · Chapter Forty · Chapter Forty-One · Chapter Forty-Two.

Chapter Forty-Three: The First Time

On the morning we were to open the boundary, it rained.

Thin drops gathered at the tips of the leaves and fell to the earth. I stood beside the window and listened to them. I thought about the seventh, who was a few steps away from us, yet still separated from the world by a wall that would not let him pass.

I wondered whether he heard the rain as I heard it. Whether he could distinguish between a drop falling on stone and a drop soaking into earth.

Naama entered the room, a small board in her hand.

"We are ready," she said.

I turned to her.

"To open the boundary?"

"To try to open a passage within it."

She spread the diagram on the table.

"The three consciousnesses that agreed to the examination released their hold on the area we found. Sera agreed to release another part, after we made sure it would not affect her connection."

"And what about Veda?"

"Her part lies outside the area being opened. It will remain closed. The parts the others did not agree to release will also remain as they are."

"So not everyone's consent is needed?"

"Not to create this opening. We are not dismantling the whole boundary. We are opening only the part that is no longer held by anyone who objects to it."

I looked at the diagram.

"And Ora?"

"She gave me the details about the mechanism she activated at the station. I did not allow her to take part in the opening."

"And the seventh?"

Naama folded the diagram.

"He knows we are preparing. But before we open, there is one more thing we must tell him."

We found Liara in the garden.

She sat beneath the fig tree, her injured arm resting on a cushion. When we approached, she set down the book she was reading.

"Today?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

She looked at Naama.

"Are you sure the opening will hold?"

"I am sure we are able to stop if it does not hold. That is not the same thing."

Liara nodded.

"I am coming."

"Adra asked that you not strain your hand," I reminded her.

"I do not intend to open the wall myself."

I smiled.

She rose carefully and walked beside us.

On the way we passed the room where Mala was recovering. The door was open, and she sat beside the window.

"I heard you are trying today," she said.

"Yes."

She looked at me for a long time.

"When you see him, do not look for the one you thought you would find."

"What do you mean?"

"I think he is about to surprise even himself."

Naama placed three small devices around the corner of the wall.

The earth was damp, and the smell of wet leaves filled the courtyard.

Adra arrived and stood a little behind us. Ayla appeared a short time after her.

She did not ask for an explanation and did not come closer to the wall. She only said she wanted to be there, and remained beside the great tree.

Naama activated the connection.

"Can you hear us?"

"Yes."

The seventh's voice came out of the stone.

"We are about to open the passage," she said. "But first I need to explain something to you."

"I am listening."

"Your form still rests in part on the space where you were held. There is also an old connection between you and the six consciousnesses. It has weakened greatly, but it has not disappeared entirely."

"I know."

"If you cross, we will have to sever the last part that allows that connection to hold you. Otherwise you will not be able to exist here independently."

The seventh was silent.

"What does sever mean?" he asked at last.

"That you will not be able to go back and be connected to them as you once were. Not by means of that connection."

The rain strengthened a little.

"Forever?"

"As far as we are able to know."

He did not answer.

Naama continued:

"I can keep the passage open for a limited time, but I cannot choose in your place. If you do not want to give up the old connection, we will stop here."

Long moments passed.

"I need to think," he said.

"Of course."

Naama turned off the connection and left the devices in place.

We sat beneath the tree and waited.

No one tried to fill the silence.

I thought about the seventh, who had lived for so long with the presence of the six consciousnesses inside him or around him, even after they parted from him. About their fear of a connection they could not free themselves from, and about his fear of remaining alone.

I understood why the decision was hard for him.

That connection had been part of the way he knew himself.

If he gave it up, he would no longer be able to define his existence by means of the others.

Liara sat down beside me.

"Do you want to speak with him?" she asked.

"I do not want to influence his decision."

"You can be beside him without deciding for him."

I looked at her.

She added nothing.

After a while I rose and went to the wall.

"Can you hear me?" I asked.

"Yes."

"I only wanted to say that I am here."

"I know."

I leaned lightly on the stone.

"I am afraid," he said suddenly.

"Of what?"

"That if I give up the connection, nothing will remain of me that I know."

I looked at the trees.

"I do not know what you will feel afterward."

"And if I discover I was wrong?"

I had no answer that could promise him he would not regret it.

"Then it will be a mistake that you chose," I said at last. "Not something someone else did to you."

He was silent.

"That is not especially comforting," he said.

"I know."

To my surprise, I heard him laugh quietly.

Then the connection was cut off from his side.

When the seventh called us again, the sun already stood high above the trees.

Naama activated the system.

"Have you decided?" she asked.

"Yes."

He breathed deeply.

"I want to come out. And I am willing to give up the old connection."

"You understand we will not be able to restore it afterward?"

"Yes."

"And you want us to continue?"

"I want to."

Naama looked at me, and then at Liara.

"We will begin."

At first nothing happened.

Then a vertical line appeared on the stone, thin and bright. It lengthened slowly from the ground to above my head.

The wall became half transparent.

Beyond it I saw a white space, almost without depth.

And inside it stood the seventh.

For the first time I saw his face.

He looked like an older man, with a broad forehead, dark eyes and light hair that fell on his shoulders. But the lines of his body were not entirely stable. The light around him sometimes passed through his arms, as if it had not yet been decided where he ended and the space began.

He looked at us.

I saw how his eyes moved from face to face, stopping on the trees behind us, on the wet earth, on the sky.

"There are so many colors," he said.

Naama moved closer to the devices.

"You can advance one step."

He stepped.

The sole of his foot touched the line of light.

"What do you feel?" she asked.

"Cold."

"Pain?"

"No."

"Reach your hand beyond the opening."

He reached out his hand.

His fingers passed through the light.

For a moment they became transparent, and then they took shape again.

The hand was close to me.

So close that I could have reached out my hand and touched it.

But Naama asked us not to do that yet.

The seventh looked at his palm.

"I feel the air," he said.

He turned it slowly, as if trying to understand what exactly was touching his skin.

"It moves."

"That is the wind," I said.

He looked at me.

"I know what wind is."

He paused.

"But I did not know it felt like this."

Naama allowed him to advance.

He passed his other arm through, and then his shoulders.

The moment his body reached the boundary line, his form began to blur.

One of the devices sounded a low tone.

"Stop," said Naama.

The seventh froze in place.

"What is happening?" I asked.

"The old space still holds part of his form."

She looked at him.

"Now we will have to sever the connection. Do you still agree?"

He looked back.

I saw the white space reflected in his eyes.

For a moment I thought he would go back.

"Yes," he said.

Naama activated the mechanism.

The low tone grew stronger.

The seventh closed his eyes.

The light around his shoulders scattered, and his form became almost transparent.

He reached a hand backward, as if searching for something not visible to our eyes.

"I do not hear them," he said.

Naama stopped the operation.

"Do you want us to stop?"

He did not answer at once.

"There was always something," he said. "Even when I did not want to hear. I always knew they existed beyond the silence."

He opened his eyes.

"And now there is nothing."

I stood facing him.

I did not know whether this new silence would be a relief for him or a loss.

Perhaps both.

"Do you want to go back?" I asked.

He looked at me.

I saw the fear in his face, but also something else. A determination I had not known in him until that moment.

"No."

He lowered his hand.

"I want to continue."

Naama renewed the operation.

The light around him vanished.

For a moment the seventh stood between the two places, with no support from the space he knew.

And then he stepped forward.

He came out.

No great sound was heard, and the earth did not tremble.

The opening remained behind him, thin and bright, while he stood in the courtyard looking around.

I had imagined this moment many times. I thought I would feel triumph, perhaps elation, as if we had managed to return to the world something lost from it.

But the man standing before me looked lost.

His hands hung at his sides, and he did not know where to put them. His eyes moved ceaselessly, unable to stay on one thing. When a rustling rose from the trees, he turned around in alarm.

Everything that was natural and simple for me reached him all at once.

The wind.

The light.

The smell of the earth.

The sounds of the birds.

The distance between his body and our bodies.

He tried to step, but stopped when the sole of his foot slipped slightly on the wet ground.

I took one step closer.

"Are you all right?"

He looked at me.

"I do not know."

I smiled at him gently.

"You do not have to know now."

He lowered his gaze to his feet.

And then he bent down.

He placed his hand on the wet earth.

His fingers sank slightly into the mud.

He raised his hand and looked at it.

"It stays on me," he said.

"Yes."

He rubbed the earth between his fingers.

"And I can remove it."

"Yes."

A small smile appeared on his face.

He opened his palm and let the wind dry the mud.

Naama examined the gauges.

"His form is stable. I am closing the opening."

The seventh turned around.

The bright line shrank slowly.

He looked at the white space that kept vanishing.

He did not try to stop it.

At last the wall closed completely.

In the place where the opening had stood remained the old stone, wet from the rain.

The seventh stood before it for a while.

"Is it over?" he asked.

"The passage is closed," said Naama. "But you are here."

He turned to us.

"Yes," he said quietly. "I am here."

Ayla came closer to him.

He noticed her and stopped.

"You are Ayla," he said.

"Yes."

He looked at her in embarrassment.

"I know what happened to you at the station."

"I know it was not you who spoke to me."

"And still I am sorry."

She nodded.

There was no great forgiveness between them, and no promise of friendship.

Only two who stood facing each other for the first time.

A raindrop fell on his hand.

He raised it and looked at the drop spreading on his skin.

Ayla smiled.

"Do you want to see the pool?"

He looked toward it.

"Perhaps later."

"Agreed."

She moved away and let him stand alone.

Adra led him to a small room beside the garden.

Naama asked him to stay near the station in the first days, until she could make sure his body continued to exist stably.

He agreed.

The room was simple.

A bed, a table, a bowl of water, and a window facing the trees.

The seventh entered slowly.

He touched the table, then the back of the chair. He ran his fingers over the window frame and looked out.

"Is this for me?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Can I stay here?"

"Of course."

"And can I go out?"

"Whenever you wish. Naama only asks that you let her know if you go far from the station in the coming days."

He nodded.

Then he turned to the door.

"Can it be closed?"

"Yes."

"From inside?"

I showed him the bolt.

He examined it at length.

He slid it to one side, and then back.

He opened the door and closed it.

And opened it again.

I did not hurry him.

At last he left it open.

"I never had a door I could close myself," he said.

I looked at him.

"Now you do."

In the evening I returned to him.

The door was half open.

He sat beside the window, in his hand a fruit he had taken from the garden.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

"I do not know."

"Then why did you take it?"

He set the fruit on the table.

"I wanted to feel its weight."

I sat down facing him.

He looked at me for a while.

"Do they know I am here?"

"Yes. Naama informed them."

"What did they say?"

"Some of them have not yet replied."

He ran his fingers over the fruit's peel.

"I do not want to go back to what we were."

"Neither do they."

He raised his gaze.

"Then perhaps there is a first agreement between us."

"Perhaps."

We were silent.

Then he said:

"I want to speak with them. Not in order to become part of them again. I want to know whether we can meet without fearing one another."

"I think that is a good beginning."

"But not today."

"Not today," I agreed.

He looked at the window.

"I need to get used to this silence first."

"Is it hard for you?"

"A little."

He smiled a hesitant smile.

"But it is mine."

I rose to leave.

The seventh accompanied me to the door.

"Thank you," he said.

"For what?"

He thought a moment.

"For not pulling me out."

I looked at him.

"You came out yourself."

He nodded.

"Yes."

I went out into the corridor.

Before I moved away, I heard the bolt move.

He closed the door.

I stopped for a moment.

Then the bolt was heard again.

The door opened slightly.

The seventh peeked out, saw that I was still there, and smiled.

And then he closed it once more.

This time he did not open it.

When I went out to the garden, Liara sat beside the pool.

I sat down beside her.

"How is he?" she asked.

"I think he is beginning to understand that he is free."

She looked at the lit window.

"And you?"

"What about me?"

"How do you feel now, when you have managed to reach him?"

I thought about the question.

About all the ways I had searched for, about the dangers we took, and about the fear that we would not succeed.

"I am glad," I said. "But not as I thought I would be."

"Why?"

"Because all the time I imagined the moment we would free him. I did not think enough about the day after."

Liara nodded.

"Tomorrow will be a new day for him too."

I looked at the window.

The light still burned in his room.

I did not know whether the seventh would manage to adjust to the world, whether the six consciousnesses would agree to meet him, or whether the old fear could ever disappear entirely.

But there was no longer a need to find another way to him.

He was here.

I rose from the bench and saw his silhouette pass behind the window.

For a moment he raised his hand toward me.

I raised my hand in return.

And then I moved away, and let him remain alone in the room he had chosen to close or open as he wished.

End of Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four — What Remains Between Us →

---

FOLLOW ORORGANI    Website · Blog · YouTube · Instagram · Facebook · Threads · Medium · Substack