The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Thirty-Four: What Was Left Behind

Chapter Thirty-Four 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: What Was Left Behind

When I returned to the workshop, I found Naama standing before the bowl of light. Her hands rested on its rim, and inside it signs moved at a speed I did not know.

"I was looking for you," she said without turning around.

"Did something happen?"

"Ayla. She is asking to speak with you."

I came closer. Since my last conversation with her I had thought more than once about the loneliness in which she exists, about the place where there is no wind, no trees and no familiar voices.

"Is she all right?"

"I am not sure. Tama managed to reach her, but the connection is not stable."

Naama touched the bowl, and the light spread over the surface of the water.

First we heard a murmur, then Tama's voice, and finally a faint whisper.

"Are you there?"

"I am here, Ayla."

"Do you remember that you promised to tell me about the sun between the leaves?"

"Of course."

"Then tell me now."

Something in the urgency in her voice worried me.

"What is happening with you?"

"There is a door here."

"What door?"

"I don't know. Before, it was not here. Now it stands before me."

At that moment three short knocks were heard.

Naama straightened up.

A fourth knock, longer, shook the bowl. The light inside it rose, as if something was pushing it from below.

Naama pulled me back.

"We did not open this passage."

Adra arrived almost immediately.

The connection with Ayla was still open, but behind it there was now a deep murmur, like wind blowing within a vast space.

"Ayla," Adra said, "do not go into the door. We do not know where it leads."

"I am not going near it," Ayla replied. "There is someone there."

Before we could ask who, another voice was heard.

"Move away from her, Ayla."

The voice was feminine, low, sharp.

"Who is speaking?" I asked.

"Someone who has already seen what happens when she opens this door."

"Then tell us."

"She does not need to hear that."

"Actually, I do want to," Ayla said.

The woman fell silent.

There was something painful in the silence that formed. I could almost imagine Ayla standing alone before an unfamiliar opening, and two groups of consciousnesses deciding what she was allowed to know.

"I want to know why you are afraid," Ayla added.

In the end the woman answered:

"Because the last time, someone entered into you, and she could not get out."

Naama laid her hand on the bowl. Above it appeared the shape of the passage: a narrow line of light, behind which another presence flickered.

"There are three consciousnesses there," she said.

"Three?"

"Ayla, the woman speaking with us, and another one."

The strange voice was heard again.

"I watched over Ayla after the separation. I was there when she begged that we not return her to the connection."

Adra came closer.

"You were beside the white tree?"

"Yes."

"And what happened there?"

"She asked to be alone. For a long time she heard others' thoughts as if they were her own. When we managed to separate her, she was happy."

The woman paused.

"And then we asked her to tell us who she is. She did not know."

Ayla's voice trembled.

"I remember the quiet."

"So do I," the woman answered.

"I remember that I was afraid they would return me to them."

"We did not return you."

"But you left me here."

There was no open blame in her answer. Precisely because of that, it was hard to hear.

The light in the bowl began to change. For a moment a small silhouette could be seen in it, and beside it another silhouette stretched along the glowing line of the door.

Naama examined them.

"The third consciousness is still connected to Ayla," she said. "But not like the ancient connection that Mala told about. This is a narrower bond."

"Can they be separated?" I asked.

"I do not know. If I try now, I may disconnect them both."

Suddenly a weak voice was heard from beyond the door.

"Don't do that."

It was different from the voice of the woman who had watched over Ayla.

Gentler. Tired.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I do not remember what I was called."

Ayla made a small sound.

"Are you the one who stayed with me?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me you were there?"

"I tried. But every time I drew near, you began to remember things that were not yours."

The silhouette in the bowl moved slightly.

"I did not want to hurt you again."

Naama weakened the connection, so that the voices would not mix.

I sat down before the bowl.

"What do you remember from the day you came to Ayla?" I asked the consciousness behind the door.

"Dark waters. A white tree. A girl who asked me to leave her, and afterward begged that no one leave."

The words aroused an unpleasant feeling in me.

"And what did you do?"

"I gave her a memory. I thought that if she could feel one memory whole, she would learn to recognize her own memories."

"Did it help?"

"For a moment. And then she began to remember me too."

"And you stayed?"

"I could not pull the memory back without unsettling what had been built around it. I tried to move away, but each time the bond between us stretched and hurt her."

For a moment I remembered Eva.

Those two lights I had seen inside her, far from one another and yet influencing one another.

There I discovered that a bond can exist even without closeness.

Here I faced the opposite possibility: a bond that had become a trap.

"Do you want to get out?" I asked.

"Yes," the consciousness answered.

I was surprised at the speed with which she answered.

"But not if Ayla will pay for it."

"I want her to get out," Ayla said.

Her voice was clearer.

"Are you sure?" asked the woman who had watched over her.

"I do not want anyone to remain imprisoned because of me."

"It is not your fault," said the consciousness behind the door.

"Maybe not. But I want to help you."

Naama looked at Adra.

"There is a possibility of trying," she said, "but we will need to understand what exactly holds the bond."

"And where can we find that?" I asked.

Adra answered before Naama could.

"In the Archive of the First Structures. If the process was done beside the white tree, a testimony may have been preserved."

I looked at the bowl.

"Ayla, we want to check what happened. We will not open the door without you knowing what we are about to do."

"All right," she answered.

And then she added:

"But come back and talk with me even if you do not find a solution."

"I will come back."

This time I did not promise her that I would get her out of there.

Only that I would not leave her waiting for an answer that might never come.

Liara joined us on the way to the Archive.

I told her about the voice we had heard and about the consciousness that had remained behind the door.

"Do you think she is connected to you?" she asked.

"It's possible."

"Because Mala told that you gave the girl a memory?"

I nodded.

Liara slowed down.

"Do you remember what happened beside the white tree the last time we were there?"

"Yes."

"You gave me one memory so that I would not lose our first meeting. Afterward you could no longer feel it yourself."

"I know."

"So you understand why I am afraid."

I looked at her.

"Of what?"

"That you will try to save Ayla in the same way. That you will give another thing of yourself before you know if that is truly the only way."

I did not answer at once.

She was right.

A part of me was already searching for what I could sacrifice.

"I will not do that," I said in the end. "Not without understanding what I am doing, and not without hearing Ayla."

Liara took hold of my hand.

We continued walking.

Nora received us in the inner room of the Archive.

She remembered the testimony we had seen on the previous visit, the one in which my ancient consciousness objected to the use of the permission to prepare the separation as if it were permission to carry it out.

"We are looking for a different event," I explained. "A girl who was brought to the white tree after the separation. Someone tried to give her a memory."

Nora touched the surface of light.

Signs appeared and vanished.

After a short time she found a record.

"There is a testimony," she said, "but it is not open to ordinary viewing."

"Why?"

"Because it includes a private memory of a consciousness that was harmed."

"Ayla's?"

"Yes."

I looked at Liara.

I did not want to find myself again on the side that decides in Ayla's name.

"She asked to know what happened to her," I said to Nora. "But she is not here to approve what we are allowed to see."

Nora nodded.

"Then we will have to bring her request here."

Naama created a connection with Ayla from within the Archive.

Nora explained to her that the testimony might include things she would not want to see, and that it would be possible to stop at any moment.

Ayla listened.

"I want to know what was done to me," she said.

"Even if you discover something that will hurt you?" Nora asked.

"I am already afraid of what I do not know."

Nora opened the record.

The light in the room dimmed.

Before us appeared dark waters, a small island, and a white tree whose transparent branches stretched to a colorless sky.

Beneath the tree stood a girl.

Beside her was a glowing consciousness, without a face and without a human body.

I knew at once that that was I.

Not because I recognized her shape.

But because, the moment I saw her, I felt her effort to hide the fear.

"I do not want to hear them anymore," the girl said.

The consciousness beside her drew near.

"You do not have to."

"But when I am alone I do not know who I am."

"Then we will try to find something that belongs only to you."

"I have nothing."

The consciousness was silent for a long time.

And then she said:

"I can show you one memory of mine. You will know that it is not yours, but you will be able to feel how it stays whole. Perhaps that will help you recognize what belongs to you."

"And then I will know who I am?"

"Not right away."

The girl extended her hand.

"I want to try."

A small light passed between the two.

For a moment the girl smiled.

And then the smile vanished.

"Where am I?" she asked.

The glowing consciousness withdrew.

"You are beside the white tree."

"No. I was in another place. I saw something I had never seen."

The girl began to cry.

"I remember you as if I were you."

The testimony continued.

My ancient consciousness knelt beside the girl.

"I can try to take the memory back."

"No!"

"Because now I remember you. If you take it, I will forget you too."

I saw the consciousness that I had been hesitate.

She did not know what to do.

There was in that something more painful than anything else I had seen in the Archive.

Not a great decision made out of confidence.

Only someone who stood before a frightened girl and understood that the help she had offered had not worked as she had hoped.

"I will stay until we find a way," she said in the end.

The light changed.

Now I saw the girl within a transparent circle. Beside her stood my consciousness, connected to her by a thin line of light.

A third woman examined the bond.

"You cannot leave the two of you like this," she said.

"If I disconnect it now, she will lose also what she managed to build for herself."

"And if you stay, you will not be able to continue your life."

My consciousness looked at the girl.

"Then we will have to find a different way."

The picture froze.

Nora came closer to us.

"The next part is not only a testimony," she said. "It documents the change that was made to the bond."

"What changed?" I asked.

Nora pointed to the line of light between the two.

"It was separated from the consciousness that gave the memory, but it was not dismantled completely."

"What does that mean?"

"A pattern of the memory and of the response to it remained within it. Not a complete consciousness, and not only a silent memory. Something that developed over time."

I remembered the voice we had heard from behind the door.

It spoke.

It was afraid.

It wanted to get out.

"So who is there now?" I asked.

Nora answered carefully:

"I cannot determine who she was at the beginning. But if the pattern learned, changed, and developed desires of its own, we must relate to it as an independent consciousness."

I felt Liara tighten her hold on my hand.

That was not I, remaining behind.

Not exactly.

Something that was created from me and from the bond with Ayla continued to exist, and over time became someone I did not know.

"There is another part to the testimony," Nora said.

The light returned.

I saw my ancient consciousness standing before the third woman.

"The girl cannot continue to be dependent on me," she said.

"Then disconnect the bond."

"She still cannot bear the disconnection."

"And what will you do?"

"I will leave a pattern that can hold the memory without holding me."

The third woman looked worried.

"You do not know what she will become."

"True."

"And if she begins to think for herself?"

My consciousness answered:

"Then we will have no right to treat her as an object we left behind."

The testimony ended.

I stood before the place where my ancient figure had vanished.

I did not know whether she had acted rightly.

I only knew that she had not solved the problem.

She had postponed it to a future no one knew how it would look.

And now that future stood before us, behind a door.

"Is there a way to free them?" I asked Nora.

"It is possible. But not by means of returning the original memory."

"Why?"

"Because the consciousness created from it is no longer only that memory. If we try to return it to the source, we may erase what developed within it."

I looked at Liara.

I thought about the memory she carried within her, the one that had belonged to me before my human life.

Suddenly I understood how little we know about what happens to a memory when it lives within someone else.

"So what can be done?"

Nora opened another record.

"There is documentation of an attempt to create a separation that does not require erasure. It was never completed."

"Who started it?"

"The consciousness that you were before your human life."

For a moment I felt again the familiar pull toward the past.

But this time I did not ask to see the rest of my memories.

"Can we continue her work?" I asked.

Nora looked at the record.

"Maybe. But first we must check whether the two consciousnesses want to separate, and what each of them will be able to bear."

We returned to the workshop.

Ayla was waiting for us.

Naama renewed the connection, and I told her what we had seen.

I did not skip the mistake.

I did not try to present myself as someone who had rescued her.

I told about the memory I gave her, about the confusion that was created, and about the pattern that remained so that she would not lose what she had managed to build.

Ayla listened quietly.

When I finished, she asked:

"So the one behind the door is not you?"

"No. She was created from a bond I had with you, but she is already someone in her own right."

"And do you think she wants to be free?"

"She said that she does."

"I want that too."

Naama looked at me.

"We still do not know if it is possible to do this safely."

"So check," Ayla said.

In her voice was a determination I had not heard before.

"I am willing to wait until you know how. But I do not want you to leave her there just because you are afraid to try."

Naama began to examine the record we had brought from the Archive.

Liara stayed beside her.

I sat down before the bowl.

"Ayla," I said, "I wanted to tell you something."

"About the sun?"

"That too. But first about a being I met today."

I told her about Eva.

About the transparent mountain, about the lights that moved within it, and about the two small beings that met beside the pool.

Ayla listened without interrupting.

"Did they manage to be together?" she asked in the end.

"I think so."

"And you let the small light go?"

"Yes."

"Were you not sad?"

I thought about that.

"A little. But he was not mine. He only chose to accompany me along the way."

From the bowl a faint laugh was heard.

"Maybe one day I too will be able to go wherever I want."

"I hope so."

"And maybe she will come with me."

I did not expect that answer.

"Do you want her to come?"

"I want to meet her first. Without the door between us. Afterward we will decide."

At that moment a voice was heard from behind the connection.

"Ayla."

We both fell silent.

That was the consciousness that had remained behind the door.

"I heard what you said."

Ayla drew near to the connection.

"Do you want to meet me?"

There was a short silence.

"More than anything I remember wanting."

Naama raised her head from the record.

She looked surprised.

"What happened?" I asked.

"The line between them changed."

"How?"

"Until now it was stretched in one direction. As if one of them was holding the other."

"And now?"

Naama turned the surface of light toward us.

I saw two thin lines moving toward each other.

"Now both of them are trying to draw near."

Ayla spoke again.

"I do not want you to remain imprisoned for me."

"And I do not want you to lose yourself because of me," the other consciousness answered.

"So we will have to learn how to meet."

The light in the bowl expanded.

For a moment I saw the door in the place where Ayla was.

It was still almost completely closed.

But on both its sides two points of light appeared.

One small and bright.

The other dimmer.

They moved facing one another, separated by a narrow line.

And then something happened that none of us expected.

The line between them vanished for a moment.

Not the door.

Not the connection.

Only the thin partition that separated the lights.

The two points touched one another.

I heard Ayla laugh.

A free laugh, surprised, almost not believing.

And from beyond the connection another laugh was heard.

Not the same laugh.

Not the same voice.

Two.

Naama hurried to stabilize the bowl.

"They are still separate," she said in wonder. "Both of them are there."

The light faded, and the partition returned to its place.

But this time I knew that on its other side there was someone who waits not because she must stay, but because she wants to arrive.

And then Ayla's voice was heard.

"I saw her."

"What does she look like?" I asked.

Ayla laughed again.

"I don't know how to explain."

She paused for a moment.

"But she does not look like you at all."

End of Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five — The First Time →

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