The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Thirty-Six: The Place Beyond the Wind

Chapter Thirty-Six 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: The Place Beyond the Wind

The next day I found the silver one hovering above the pool in the garden.

She was so absorbed in what she was seeing that she did not notice me approaching.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"I am not looking. I am listening."

I stood beside her.

The water was clear. Small fish moved among the plants, and on the surface rested leaves that had fallen in the night.

"What are you listening to?"

"To the place that is behind the water."

I bent down and looked into the pool.

"I do not see anything."

"Neither do I. But I hear footsteps, people talking, and someone playing music."

She drew closer to the surface of the water.

"Yesterday they sounded far away. Today I feel they are right here."

Suddenly a small circle appeared on the surface of the pool.

Then another one.

The water rose at one point, and a large droplet remained hanging in the air.

Inside it, an eye opened.

It looked at the silver one, then at me.

"Hello," I said.

The eye closed.

The droplet dissolved, and in its place a narrow path of light opened.

On its other side I saw a street.

Low houses, open windows, and people walking among stalls laden with fruit.

The silver one turned to me.

"I think they are inviting us."

I called Liara and Adra.

Adra examined the passage, but she did not know the place on its other side.

"The way looks stable," she said. "I do not know for how long."

"Then let us go and see," I suggested.

Liara smiled.

"You cannot see a door without opening it."

"Actually, I have learned to leave some closed."

We crossed together.

The first thing that surprised me was the smell.

Fresh bread.

Damp earth.

Ripe fruit.

We stood in a small square surrounded by houses with red roofs. People sat in cafés, children ran among the benches, and someone played a flute beside a fountain.

The place reminded me of a town I could have visited in my human life.

A boy who ran in front of us tripped and fell.

He burst into tears, and a woman hurried to him.

She knelt beside him, examined his bleeding knee, and kissed his forehead.

The wound remained.

I looked at Adra.

"Did you see?"

"Yes."

The woman carried the boy into one of the houses.

In the place where we lived now, an injury like that could have vanished in a moment. Here no one hurried to make it disappear.

"Come," said the silver one.

She had already moved ahead into the square.

At the center of the square stood a large tree laden with golden fruit.

Beneath it sat an old man, busy mending a wooden chair.

The silver one stopped before him.

He raised his head.

"At last," he said.

"Do you know me?" she asked.

"No. But I have heard you approaching since yesterday."

He set down his tools.

"My name is Aris."

"And I still have no name."

"That is no problem at all. A chair does not need a name either for me to be able to mend it."

The silver one circled around the chair.

"Why are you mending it?"

"Because it broke."

"Can you not simply create a new one?"

"I can."

"Then why do you work so hard?"

Aris laughed.

"Because I love this chair."

She examined him for a long moment.

"Strange."

"Wait until you meet my wife. She has thought me strange for two hundred and thirty years."

Aris invited us to his home.

On the way we passed a small bakery. The baker was taking a tray of loaves out of the oven, and the silver one stopped before it.

"What is that?"

"Bread," the baker answered.

"I know what bread is. I do not know why everyone is standing in line."

The baker tore a piece from a warm loaf and held it out to her.

The silver one tried to touch it, but the bread passed through her light and fell.

She drew back in embarrassment.

The baker picked up the piece.

"Never mind. It took me time too to learn how to hold things here."

She held out her hand again.

"Think about its weight, not about its shape."

The silver one came closer.

This time the piece of bread rose a little above the baker's palm.

"I am doing it!" she cried.

She tried to hold it one more moment, but the bread fell again.

The baker laughed.

"Tomorrow you will do better."

The silver one remained before her, flickering with excitement.

That was the first time I saw her try to do something that was not connected to her release, to her past, or to the one who had created her.

She simply wanted to hold a piece of bread.

The home of Aris and Mira stood at the end of a quiet street.

The door was blue, and white flowers grew on the windowsill.

Aris opened it without knocking.

"Mira, I brought guests."

"I hope you did not promise them a meal," a voice was heard from inside. "You ate everything I prepared this morning."

"I left you a slice."

"The burnt slice."

Aris winked at us.

We went in.

Mira sat beside an open window, and around her were scattered books, colorful fabrics, and a bowl full of fruit.

Her hair was white, and her eyes were dark and alive.

"Do not stand there," she said. "Come in. Just do not step on the green fabric. I have been working on it for a week."

We sat down.

Mira examined the silver one.

"What a beautiful light."

"Thank you," the silver one answered.

"Do you know how to change colors?"

"I have not tried."

"Then you should. There is a fabric shop here that would be glad to take you on for work."

The silver one flickered in a faint pink shade.

Mira burst out laughing.

"You see? You have already begun."

Aris sat down beside his wife.

Only then did I notice the bag that lay beside the door.

It was small, made of brown cloth, and inside it were a thin book, a scarf, and a comb.

"Are you traveling?" I asked.

Mira looked at the bag.

"I am traveling. In three days."

"Where to?"

"To begin anew."

I thought she meant another world.

"Are you returning to Earth?"

"Maybe. I have not yet chosen where."

"And how will you know when you have arrived?"

"I will not know. That is part of the point."

She lifted the scarf from the bag and folded it again.

"I am about to be born without my memories."

I looked at Aris.

He sat quietly, his hands resting on his knees.

"And you are staying here?"

"Yes."

"After two hundred and thirty years together?"

Mira set down the scarf.

"We were not together all those years. We also had periods apart. But these were the most beautiful years of my life."

She reached out her hand to Aris.

"And I still want to go."

I could not hide my astonishment.

"Why?"

Mira rose and went to the window.

"Yesterday it rained here," she said. "Aris stood outside and got completely soaked, only because he wanted to finish mending the fence. I was angry with him. Then I made him soup, and he said he was not hungry. I was angry again."

Aris smiled.

"I was hungry later."

"After the soup had gone cold."

She turned to me.

"Do you understand? I love my life. Even the small, annoying things in it. But for a long time now I have felt that I know myself too well. I know what I will fear, what I will forgive, when I will be moved."

She went to the bag.

"I want to meet a world without knowing in advance how I will react to it."

"And if the next life is hard?"

"It may be."

"And if you are not happy?"

Mira looked at me seriously.

"Even now I am not happy every moment. Why should I demand that of the next life?"

I had no answer.

The silver one hovered over to the bag.

"Why are you taking these things if you will not remember them?"

Mira smiled.

"I am not taking them. I am preparing them for Aris."

She took out the thin book.

"I wrote in it things I want to manage to say to him before I go."

Aris lowered his gaze.

"Most of them she has already told me."

"And you still do not listen properly."

He laughed, but I saw the sadness in his eyes.

Mira sat down beside him.

"I am not asking him to understand my choice. Only to respect it."

"And you?" I asked Aris.

He thought for a moment.

"I want her to stay."

Mira laid her hand on his hand.

"I know."

"But I do not want her to stay only so that I will not be sad."

They looked at one another.

For a moment I felt as if I was intruding on them.

When we left the house, the sun already stood low above the roofs.

Aris accompanied us to the square.

The silver one stopped again beside the bakery.

The baker recognized her at once.

"Have you come back to try?"

"Yes."

This time she placed a small piece of dough before her.

"Try to roll it."

The silver one concentrated.

The dough rose a little, turned in the air, and fell.

She tried again.

This time she managed to form a small ball.

The baker clapped her hands.

"Very nice!"

The silver one spun around herself for joy.

Aris looked at her.

"I think you have found yourself a teacher."

"I want to stay here," said the silver one.

I looked at her.

"Already?"

"I want to learn more things. How to hold bread. How to mend a chair. Maybe also how to bake."

She came closer to me.

"Until now I only tried to get out of one place. I want to discover what can be done when one is already outside."

I could not think of a good reason to ask her to return with us.

The path to the pool began to blur.

Adra called to us to hurry.

We parted from Aris and from the silver one.

"Do you know how to come back?" I asked her.

"I still hear the way."

"And if it closes?"

The silver one looked around.

"Then I will stay until I find another way."

She turned to the baker, who had already prepared another piece of dough for her.

I smiled.

"Take care of yourself."

"I will try."

We crossed through the path of light.

A moment before it closed, I saw her manage to hold the ball of dough between the two ends of her light.

The baker cheered for her.

And then the town vanished.

We returned to the garden.

The pool looked completely ordinary.

Liara sat down on the stone beside it.

"Do you think we will go back there?"

"I want to."

"Because of the silver one?"

"That too."

I thought about Mira.

About the way she folded the scarf, about the book she had prepared for Aris, and about the calm with which she spoke of the future she did not know.

I myself once chose to be born as a human without knowing who I had been before.

But Mira was about to do it while loving her present life.

That was the thing I could not understand.

Later I found Adra in the garden.

"There is something I want to ask you," I said.

"About Mira?"

"Yes."

Adra smiled.

"I thought you would ask."

"She said that in three days she will leave. How does such a transition happen?"

"There are places that allow a consciousness to part from the life it knew and begin another life."

"Like what happened to me?"

"Perhaps. But not every such transition is like another."

"And who decides where she will arrive?"

"She chooses what can be chosen. The rest she does not know."

I looked at her.

"Can one be there when she leaves?"

"If Mira agrees."

The next day I returned to the pool.

The passage did not open at once.

I sat on the stone and waited.

I thought about the years when I was a mother, about the times I wanted to stop time when the children were small, and about the times I wanted them to grow up already and discover the world.

A small circle appeared on the surface of the water.

After it, a droplet rose.

The transparent eye opened again.

"Hello," I said.

This time it did not vanish at once.

It looked at me for a long time, as if trying to understand why I had returned.

"I want to speak with Mira," I said. "If she wishes to see me."

The eye closed.

The path of light opened.

Mira sat in the yard of her home, busy cutting blue fabric.

When she saw me, she set down the scissors.

"I knew you would come back."

"Really?"

"You asked me so many questions, but not the one you truly wanted to ask."

I sat down before her.

"Are you not afraid?"

She laid the fabric on her knees.

"Very much."

I was surprised.

"I did not see fear on you yesterday."

"Because I was busy talking."

She smiled.

"At night I almost changed my mind. Aris slept beside me, and I thought that perhaps I would stay another hundred years. Perhaps two hundred. After all, no one is hurrying me."

"And what did you decide?"

"That I still want to go. The fear did not disappear, but it did not change my desire."

She lifted the blue fabric.

"I am sewing him a coat. He always complains that he is cold when he works in the rain."

I laughed.

"You are about to leave him, and you still worry that he will be cold?"

"Of course. He is capable of living forever without learning to take a coat."

We went on sitting in the yard.

Mira told me about the places where she and Aris had lived, and about the years when they did not see each other.

Once, she told me, they did not speak for seven years.

"Seven years?"

"It is not much when you have eternity," she answered. "But it is certainly enough to understand that we are both stubborn."

"Who spoke first again?"

"I did."

"What did you say to him?"

"That if he intends to go on being angry, at least let him return my books."

I laughed.

"And he?"

"He invited me to dinner."

She smiled to herself.

"We did not solve everything that evening. But I stayed until morning."

When I was about to leave, I asked whether I could be present on the day she left.

Mira examined me.

"Do you want to see how it happens?"

"Yes. But not only because of that."

"Then because of what?"

"Because I want to be there for you."

She smiled.

"I will be glad."

And then she added:

"Only do not come with a funeral face. I am still here."

When I returned to the square, I saw the silver one beside the bakery.

She had managed to hold a small loaf of bread.

The baker stood beside her proudly.

"Look!" the silver one cried when she saw me.

The loaf trembled in the air, but it did not fall.

"I see."

"Tomorrow I will try to make one myself."

She set the loaf on the table carefully.

"Are you returning to your city?"

"Yes."

"Then tell Ayla I am learning to bake."

"I will tell her."

She came closer to me.

"And if she asks who I am?"

I thought about that.

"I will tell her I met someone who wants to know her."

The silver one flickered with a warm light.

"That is good."

On the way back I passed the home of Aris and Mira.

The blue door was open.

Aris stood in the yard and mended the chair I had seen the day before. Mira sat beside the window and sewed the blue coat.

Every so often Aris raised his head from his work and looked at her.

She noticed him and smiled.

He smiled back, as if hundreds of years still lay before them.

In two days she would go.

End of Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven — The Last Day →

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