The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Twelve: What Was Taken Before Birth

Chapter Twelve 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: What Was Taken Before Birth

"It is time for you to return what you took before you were born."

The creature standing in the doorway did not move.

He looked like a man in his fifties. His hair was dark, with thin streaks of grey at the sides. His face was narrow, his eyes slightly sunken, and along his neck stretched a long mark that resembled an old scar.

But it was not his appearance that troubled me.

He was breathing.

I could see the movement of his chest, the air entering through his nose, and the way his lips parted slightly with every exhalation.

For a moment it seemed to me that I could even hear his heartbeat.

I stood before him without a body, without lungs and without a beating heart, and yet I felt that I was the one who did not belong in this place.

The woman beside me, the one who had waited for me for so long, tightened her grip on my hand.

"Do not come near her," she said.

The man looked at her.

"I did not come to take her. I came to talk, if she agrees to listen."

Something in the way he said it reminded me of the promise I had heard in the ancient memory.

I promise that I will listen before I decide.

I gently released my hand from the woman's grip.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Sahar."

"And how did you come here with a body?"

He looked at his hands, as though he had forgotten for a moment how exceptional they were in this place.

"Because I never left it. Not every body is made of the matter you know."

He took one step closer. The woman beside me tensed, and Sahar stopped at once.

I tried to sense his thoughts, as I had learned to do with the consciousnesses I had met, but I felt nothing.

He noticed my attempt.

"You will not be able to read my thoughts. My consciousness is not separate from my body as yours separated from your body. The body protects me from such intrusion, but it also limits me. I cannot move as you do, enter the memories of others, or reach certain places without an actual passage."

He leaned for a moment against the doorframe.

"And I still need to rest."

There was real weariness in his face.

For the first time since I had bitten into the fruit, I felt a small envy of another creature.

He could still grow tired.

And he could still rest.

⸻

"What do you want me to return?" I asked.

Sahar looked at the woman beside me.

"You did not tell her?"

She did not answer.

"I am here," I reminded him. "And I prefer that you speak to me."

He nodded.

"Long ago, something was taken from a certain place in creation, something that did not belong to any single consciousness. The possibility of being separate, without losing the connection to others."

I did not understand how such a thing could be taken.

Sahar continued:

"You know that you are yourself, and that another person is someone separate from you. And yet you can love him, recognize his wishes, and understand that his existence does not depend on you. This quality seems natural to you, but it is not self-evident in every form of existence."

I thought of my children. Of how each of them was a world unto himself, even when they were small and dependent on me.

I also recalled what the Guardian had told me about consciousnesses that had gradually lost the ability to discern others.

"You are speaking of the place where consciousnesses disappeared from the connection with the rest of creation."

"Yes. They went on existing, thinking and experiencing, but their inner world kept closing until they could no longer recognize that there was anything outside their own thoughts."

"And you think that I took this possibility from there?"

"I think that a consciousness that was here long ago carried something from that place with her into the world of human life. She believed that something could be learned there that we had not managed to learn here."

I recalled the bright figure that had stood by the silver tree and asked to experience life in a body.

"You think that was me."

"It may be."

His honesty surprised me.

"Then why did you come to demand that I return something you do not know I took?"

He lowered his gaze.

"Because since you returned, that place has begun to change. For the first time in a very long time, we are detecting signs of connection."

The woman beside me came closer.

"That cannot be."

"We thought so too."

"Who is 'we'?" I asked.

"Those who still try to reach the lost consciousnesses."

⸻

Outside, a movement was heard.

I looked toward the window.

Liara and Aran stood by the silver tree. Liara looked tense, but Aran gazed at the house with a strange quiet.

Sahar noticed them.

"You brought others with you. Do you trust them?"

I thought about it.

"I am beginning to trust them."

He nodded.

"That is a better answer than I expected."

The woman beside me moved away from the table.

"You cannot take her there. You know what will happen if she enters."

"I did not ask to take her," Sahar replied. "And none of us knows what will happen. But we know what happens when no one enters."

I felt the tension between them.

"I want to see this place," I said.

The woman turned to me.

"Not now. You are still learning to distinguish between your own consciousness and what comes from outside. There, that distinction might disappear."

I looked at Sahar.

"And you still want me to go there?"

"Because you may be the only one who can enter without losing herself."

"On what basis?"

He paused.

"Because you have already done it once."

⸻

The room fell silent.

"Before you left for human life," Sahar continued, "you entered that place. Our records describe a consciousness that entered and returned."

The woman beside me closed her eyes.

"You do not know what took place there."

"True," he replied. "We do not know what happened to her inside, nor how she managed to return."

I felt frustration.

"You know very little about something for which you want me to risk my existence."

"True."

He did not try to persuade me.

Precisely for that reason, I kept listening.

"But there is one thing I can show you."

He put his hand inside his garment and took out a small object, round, dark and rough, about the size of a walnut.

For a moment I thought it was a stone.

But as I came closer, I noticed that at its center a tiny light was moving.

"This is part of an ancient passage," he explained.

He placed it on the table.

The light inside it grew stronger.

Suddenly I heard a faint sound, almost imperceptible, that resembled the breathing of a sleeping person.

I came closer.

The sound became a melody.

And then I heard a voice.

A little girl's voice.

Is anyone there?

I froze.

I don't know where I am.

I felt a strong urge to answer her.

I opened my mouth, but the woman beside me grasped my arm.

"Do not answer. You do not know what you are hearing."

"But she is asking for help."

Sahar looked at me.

"You hear a little girl's voice?"

I turned to him.

"You don't?"

"Only the sound."

I felt unease.

"Then why do I hear her?"

He looked at the object.

"That is exactly why I came."

⸻

The small voice went on sounding.

I am here.

I felt I had to do something.

But I remembered the practice with Liara.

Not every voice heard within my consciousness was necessarily the voice of the one I thought I was hearing. Not every feeling was proof.

I closed my eyes and tried to distinguish between my own thoughts and the voice.

At first I felt only the fear that had awakened in me.

And then I managed to identify it.

The fear was mine.

The voice was not.

It came from somewhere else.

I tried to listen without answering.

I don't know if anyone hears me.

I felt the loneliness in the words.

But beneath it there was something else.

Expectation.

As though the voice already knew that perhaps there was someone outside.

I opened my eyes.

"I want to answer her," I said. "Not to enter into her and not to let her enter into me. Only to say that I hear."

The woman beside me looked worried.

"You do not know what will happen."

"True. But I know what it means to call for help and hope that someone hears."

Sahar came a little closer.

"You may try."

I turned my thought toward the voice.

I hear you.

For a moment nothing happened.

And then the light inside the object grew stronger.

Really?

Yes.

Where are you? I asked.

There was silence.

I don't know.

Are you alone?

The silence lengthened.

I thought I was alone.

The light expanded.

Sahar stepped back.

The woman beside me released my arm.

And inside the small object another point of light appeared.

And after it, another.

Three small points moved around one another.

And then I heard a second voice, deeper.

I hear too.

I felt as though something immense was taking place inside the tiny object.

A third voice joined.

Is there someone else?

I wanted to answer.

But at that moment the light burst forth.

The object trembled on the table.

Sahar reached his hand toward it.

"Get back!"

I did not manage to.

A wave of sensations passed through me.

Fear.

Joy.

Confusion.

Loneliness.

Dozens of sensations at once.

For a moment I did not know which of them belonged to me.

I saw faces I did not know, places I had never visited, black skies and deep waters.

And then, within all the sights, I saw my home.

My children.

Myself standing in the kitchen.

The sight was so clear that I wanted to enter into it.

But I stopped.

It was my memory.

Or so I thought.

But the other voices were not mine.

I tried to hold on to that distinction.

I am here, I thought.

I did not know to whom I was saying it.

Perhaps to them.

Perhaps to myself.

I am here, and I am not you.

The light began to fade.

The sights dissolved.

The object remained on the table.

And inside it, three points of light now moved.

Sahar stood motionless.

"What did you do?" whispered the woman beside me.

I felt exhausted, even though I had no body that could tire.

"I answered someone."

Sahar came close to the table and looked at the points of light.

"We never received more than a single signal. Now there are three."

⸻

Liara and Aran entered the house.

Liara came straight to me.

"I felt the reverberation. What happened?"

I told her.

Aran approached the table and looked at the object.

"You are one of the Guardians of the Passage," he said to Sahar.

Sahar nodded.

"And you are one of those who tried to enter."

For a moment I saw an old recognition between them.

"You know each other?" I asked.

"We met many years ago," Aran said.

Sahar looked at him.

"So you were searching for someone."

Aran lowered his gaze.

"I still am."

Sahar nodded slowly and asked no more.

I felt there were things between them that were left unsaid.

The woman beside me sat down.

For the first time since I had met her, she seemed older.

Not in appearance.

In feeling.

As though all the years she had waited for me had grown heavy all at once.

I came close to her.

"Are you all right?"

She raised her eyes to me.

"I did not think I would hear voices from there again. I did not hear them as you heard them, but I felt the connection that was formed."

I sat down beside her.

"What is your name?" I asked.

She looked at me in surprise.

For a moment I understood how strange everything that had happened between us was.

We had spoken of promises given thousands of years ago, of memories that had been forgotten, and of a bond that continued beyond whole lifetimes.

And still I did not know her name.

She smiled sadly.

"Eliya."

I repeated the name quietly.

"Eliya."

Something in the sound was familiar.

Not a memory.

Only a pleasant feeling.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Eliya."

She looked at me for a long time.

And then she smiled.

A real smile.

"For me too."

⸻

Sahar put the object back inside his garment.

"I must return to the passage."

I looked at him.

"And do you still want me to come with you?"

"I want you to know that there are those there who may be able to hear you. But after what happened here, I am not sure it is right for you to enter there now."

I was surprised by the change.

"Before, I thought we were searching for something that was lost," he explained. "Now it may be that we stand before a connection being renewed. Those are two different things."

"And what about what you said I took before I was born?"

Sahar lowered his gaze.

"Perhaps we were wrong about that too. Perhaps you did not take anything, but carried with you something that had to be preserved until it could awaken again."

"And what is this thing?"

"I still do not know."

He turned toward the door.

Before he left, he turned back to me.

"There is one thing I do know. When the first voice called, you did not try to control it and you did not try to draw it toward you. You only said that you hear."

He looked at me.

"Perhaps that is what we have been missing all these years."

He left.

The four of us remained in the room.

Eliya sat by the window.

Liara looked at me thoughtfully.

Aran stood by the door, sunk in silence.

And I tried to understand what had taken place.

During my human life I thought more than once about loneliness.

About people who live surrounded by others, and yet feel that no one truly sees them.

About children who try to say something and cannot find the words.

About adults who grow used to silence because they are convinced no one is listening.

And suddenly a thought rose in me.

Perhaps the connection between consciousnesses does not begin with the ability to understand the other.

Perhaps it begins with the willingness to acknowledge that he exists, even when we do not understand him.

I looked at Eliya.

She returned a quiet gaze.

For the first time I did not feel that she was waiting for me to be who I had been.

She simply sat with me.

And that was more important than all the memories I had not yet managed to restore.

But before I could tell her that, a faint voice was heard.

It came from the place where Sahar had disappeared.

Not a little girl's voice.

Not the voice of one of the creatures I had heard before.

It was deep, slow, and almost inaudible.

The connection has opened.

Liara turned to the door.

Aran straightened.

And then more words arrived.

Now the others will also be able to find it.

I looked at them.

"Who are the others?"

No one answered.

And for the first time since I had bitten into the fruit of eternity, I understood that perhaps I was not the only one who had set out on a journey into the unknown.

Perhaps something of the unknown had also begun making its way toward us.

End of Chapter Twelve

---

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