The Journey to Eternity · A serialized book by Nurit Rozenblat
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Chapter Ten — The City Where There Is No Death
The city spread out before me like a work that had never been completed — not because anything was missing from it, but because it went on changing before my eyes.
Transparent towers rose out of spaces of light. Thin bridges stretched between them, and upon them moved figures in a multitude of shapes and colors. Vast gardens hovered at different heights, and waterfalls fell from their edges, but instead of vanishing into an abyss, the water curved in the air and flowed back upward.
In the distance I saw a structure that resembled a palace, except that its walls changed unceasingly. At one moment they were made of pale stone, then they turned into clouds, and at last they looked like thousands of glowing threads woven into one another.
Above everything spread the branches of the Tree of Eternity.
Only now did I begin to grasp its size.
The whole city existed between its branches, and yet beyond it I could see many more spaces, as if the tree connected places that did not belong to the same world.
"Does everyone here live forever?" I asked the silver bird.
All of them are no longer dependent on a mortal body. But not all of them choose to stay here.
"Where do they go?"
Some go out to explore worlds. Others create places of their own. Some prefer solitude, and some seek closeness. You will discover that not every consciousness asks for the same things.
I looked at the figures moving in the city.
Some looked almost human. Others were tall and transparent, with shapes I could not identify. There were also small lights that moved in groups, split apart and reunited.
I tried to understand what life looks like when there is no need to sleep, to eat, or to work in order to exist.
Do they wake up in the morning?
Do they have a home?
Do they miss anyone?
And are they capable of being bored?
We approached one of the bridges.
It looked so thin that I would not have dared step on it if I still had a body.
But when I reached it, I felt that it was stable.
Beneath me spread a deep space, full of moving lights.
For a moment I was tempted to jump, just to see what would happen.
Then I remembered that I could no longer fall the way I had fallen in the past.
That thought made me laugh.
"What amuses you?"
The voice came from behind me.
I turned around.
Before me stood a woman with long copper-colored hair. Her skin looked almost human, but within it moved tiny points of light. Her eyes were very green, and every time she looked in another direction their shade changed.
She wore a long dress of dark blue, upon which shapes of stars could be seen.
"I was thinking of jumping off the bridge," I replied.
The woman burst out laughing.
Her laughter was so natural that for a moment I felt I was standing before a woman I had met in the street.
"An excellent idea," she said. "But I would suggest you start from a lower bridge."
I looked at her in surprise.
"Can one be hurt here?"
"Not in the way you know. But one can be very frightened. And there are those who manage to be frightened even after ten thousand years."
She came closer and held out her hand to me.
"I am Liara."
I looked at her hand.
"Can we shake hands?"
"Of course. If we both want to."
I held out my hand.
For a moment I felt touch.
Not exactly the touch of skin, but a clear sensation of closeness, warmth and gentle pressure.
I was surprised.
"How did you do that?"
"I did not do it alone. You agreed to the touch as well."
She released my hand.
"You are new."
"Is it that obvious?"
"You look at everything as if you are standing inside a dream and are afraid to wake up."
I smiled.
"That is fairly accurate."
Liara looked at the silver bird.
"You brought her early."
The bird did not answer.
Something in Liara's gaze changed.
She turned back to look at me.
"Have you already eaten of the fruit?"
"Yes."
"And did you manage to part from the body?"
I nodded.
She did not ask whether it had been hard for me.
Instead, she placed her hand on my arm for a moment.
I felt that she understood something I did not need to explain.
"Come," she said. "I want to show you the city."
We walked along the bridge.
The silver bird hovered above us, and Liara spoke without pause.
She told me about gardens that change their shape according to the wish of those who tend them, about halls where music can be experienced as color and movement, and about places where consciousnesses gather to share memories from distant worlds.
"And how long have you lived here?" I asked.
She stopped.
"It depends how you count."
"In years."
"Of which world?"
I thought about it.
"In Earth years."
"About thirty-seven thousand."
I stopped.
"Thirty-seven thousand years?"
"About that. I stopped counting precisely a long time ago."
I looked at her young face.
"And you do not feel old?"
She smiled.
"Sometimes."
"When?"
"When someone tells me with excitement about a discovery I thought was new twenty thousand years ago."
I laughed.
"And do you still get excited about things?"
She looked at me as if I had asked whether she was still able to see.
"Of course. Yesterday I heard for the first time a sound created in the depths of a cooling star. It was so beautiful that I spent hours trying to understand why it moved me."
"But after so many years, haven't you already seen almost everything?"
"Almost everything?"
She burst out laughing again.
"You still think of creation as a big cupboard whose drawers can all be opened."
We went on walking.
"There are more things I do not know today than I knew when I came here," she said.
"How can that be?"
"Because then I did not even know which questions could be asked."
I thought about her words.
Throughout my human life I used to think that knowledge brings us closer to answers.
But perhaps it also reveals to us how vast what we do not know is.
Liara stopped beside a round structure whose doors were open.
"Come."
We went in.
The hall was full of consciousnesses.
Some sat on wide steps, others hovered in the air, and at the center of the hall there was an enormous form that changed unceasingly.
At first I thought it was a statue.
But as I came closer I noticed that the form was being built and taken apart out of thousands of points of light.
At one moment it looked like a tree.
Then like a winged creature.
And then it turned into a system of stars.
Liara noticed my wonder.
"It is a shared creation."
"Whose?"
"Of everyone who is here."
I looked around me.
"Does everyone create the same thing?"
"Not exactly. Each one adds something of his own. A thought, a form, a memory, a sensation. Sometimes we discover that what we created together is completely different from what each of us intended to create."
I came closer.
One of the lights separated from the large form and hovered toward me.
Inside it I saw a small flower.
It was blue, with five petals.
I sensed a delicate fragrance.
For a moment I remembered the flowers that grew beside my childhood home.
I reached out a hand.
The flower widened and became a tree.
Orange fruits appeared on its branches.
I smiled.
"Did I do that?"
"Yes."
"I only thought of a tree."
"A thought can be the beginning of a creation. But for a thing to exist here in a stable way, one must learn to give it a clear form."
I looked at the tree.
It looked real.
I tried to touch its trunk.
I felt rough bark.
"Can I create anything?"
"Not anything. You can create forms and experiences, but not everything you imagine will become a living creature with a will of its own."
I looked at her.
"Meaning, I can create the figure of a person, but not the person himself."
"Exactly."
I remembered the people I love.
For a moment a thought arose in me that I could create here their faces, their voices, perhaps even the way they smile.
But at once I understood that something would be missing.
They would not be them.
They would be what I remember of them.
"That is a little sad," I said.
Liara looked at me.
"Yes."
She did not try to comfort me.
We stood for a while before the tree I had created.
Then Liara placed her hand on its trunk.
It began to change.
Its branches widened, the leaves grew darker, and white flowers appeared among them.
"I added something too," she said.
I looked at our shared creation.
It was more beautiful than I had imagined.
But also different.
I thought about human life.
How many of the most beautiful things in my life were created precisely because I did not make them alone.
When we left the hall, the silver bird was no longer with us.
I looked around.
"Where did she go?"
"She knows how to find you."
"She always disappears without telling me."
Liara smiled.
"She has ancient habits."
"How ancient?"
The smile vanished from her face for a moment.
"Very ancient."
I wanted to ask more, but she went on walking.
We reached a large plaza at whose center flowed a transparent river.
On its banks sat consciousnesses in small groups.
Some conversed, others sat in silence.
At the side of the plaza I noticed a figure that looked like an old man.
He sat alone on a stone bench.
His hair was gray, his face furrowed with wrinkles, and he wore a simple garment of brown.
Unlike the others, no light moved around him.
He looked almost entirely human.
"Who is that?" I asked.
Liara followed my gaze.
"His name is Aran."
"Is he new here?"
"No."
"Then why does he look so old?"
"Because that is how he chooses to look."
I looked at him.
"Can one choose one's age?"
"One can choose the form in which you present yourself. Some prefer a young form, others choose to look as they looked at the end of their human lives. And there are those who do not choose a form at all."
"And why did he choose to look like that?"
"Ask him."
I hesitated.
"He won't be angry?"
"He might."
She smiled.
"Here too, not everyone likes being disturbed."
I approached the bench.
Aran raised his eyes.
They were dark and tired.
"Hello," I said.
He nodded.
"I am new here."
"It shows."
I sat down beside him.
I was surprised to discover that I could feel the bench beneath me.
He looked at me from the side.
"You are still trying to understand how this works?"
"Yes."
"I tried too, at first."
"And how long did it take you to understand?"
"I am still trying."
I smiled.
He did not.
I looked at his face.
"May I ask you something?"
"You already did."
"Why did you choose to look old?"
He was silent for a long time.
I already thought he would not answer.
Then he said:
"Because I miss my wrinkles."
I looked at him in surprise.
"Your wrinkles?"
"They appeared slowly. Each one of them was part of my life. When I came here, I tried to look young. I thought that if there is no more aging, there is no reason to keep its marks."
He looked at his hands.
"But every time I saw myself young, I felt I was looking at a person I did not know."
I listened.
"So I returned to this form."
He passed a finger over a deep wrinkle in his palm.
"This is how I remember that I had years."
I felt his words touch me.
I thought of the body I had left beside the Tree of Eternity.
Of the changes it had undergone over the years.
Of the things I sometimes wanted to hide.
And now before me sat a man who had chosen to keep precisely those.
"Do you miss your life?" I asked.
Aran looked at the river.
"Very much."
"But you live here."
"Yes."
"So what do you miss?"
He smiled sadly.
"The smell of bread in the morning. Aching legs after a long walk. Deep sleep."
He stopped.
"And my wife."
I felt my heart contract, even though I no longer had a beating heart.
"She is not here?"
"No."
"Do you know where she is?"
"No."
He looked at me.
"At first I searched for her everywhere. For years. Then for hundreds of years. I met many consciousnesses, learned things I could not have imagined, but I did not find her."
"And are you still searching?"
"Sometimes."
He lowered his gaze.
"There are days when I think that perhaps if I stop searching, I will be able to remember her without feeling that I am waiting for something."
"And are there days here?" I asked.
He smiled slightly.
"Not as you know them. But I still call the periods that pass over me that."
We sat in silence.
For the first time since I arrived in the city I understood that eternal life does not abolish longing.
It may even prolong it.
"Are you happy here?" I asked at last.
Aran looked at me.
"Sometimes."
He stood up.
"And do not let anyone convince you that you must be happy just because you were given eternity."
He walked away along the river.
I remained on the bench.
I watched him until he disappeared among the figures.
Liara found me after a while.
"You met Aran."
"Yes."
"Did he tell you about his wife?"
I nodded.
She sat down beside me.
"He was once one of the boldest explorers in the city. He reached places many of us did not even try to reach."
"What happened to him?"
"He grew tired."
I looked at her.
"I thought one does not grow tired here."
"Not in the body. But a consciousness too can need rest from searching, from memories, even from meeting others."
I thought about that.
"So what does one do when one grows tired of eternity?"
Liara did not answer at once.
"Some choose to slow down. Some withdraw into solitude. Others set out on long journeys. And some ask to stop experiencing for a while."
"To stop experiencing?"
"To enter a state of deep quiet. Not death. More like a sleep without dreams, though the comparison is not exact."
"And for how long?"
"As long as they wish."
I looked at her.
"And if they do not want to return?"
Liara was silent.
For the first time I saw in her something that was not joy of life or curiosity.
It was an old pain.
"There are those who have not yet returned," she said.
I asked no more.
We continued to another part of the city.
Here the structures were lower, and the gardens wide and quiet. Between the trees round pools could be seen, and in them were reflected skies that were not above us.
Liara stopped beside one of the houses.
"I want you to meet someone."
The house was made of pale stone, and at its entrance grew small purple flowers.
The door opened before we approached.
A young woman stood in the doorway.
She looked about twenty-five, with dark hair and large eyes.
When she saw me, her face changed.
"Is she new?" she asked Liara.
"Yes."
The woman looked at me.
"When did you arrive?"
"Not long ago."
She came closer quickly.
"From Earth?"
I was surprised.
"Yes."
"From which period?"
I told her.
She closed her eyes.
For a moment I thought she was about to cry.
"So it still exists," she whispered.
"Earth? Of course."
She smiled a sad smile.
"I know. It's just... it has been a long time since I met someone who came from there."
"What is your name?"
"Mira."
She held out her hand to me.
I shook it.
Her touch was stronger than Liara's, almost like a human touch.
"Do you miss it there?" I asked.
She nodded.
"All the time."
We went into her house.
Inside I saw a table, chairs, books, windows and curtains.
Everything looked familiar.
There was even a small kitchen.
I looked around me.
"Do you really need all these things?"
Mira smiled.
"No."
She went to the kitchen.
"But I love them."
She placed three cups on the table.
A dark liquid appeared inside them.
"Coffee?" she asked.
I looked at the cup.
"Can one drink here?"
"One can experience drinking."
I raised the cup.
It was warm.
I brought it close to my face.
The smell of fresh coffee rose from it.
For a moment I felt I was home.
I sipped.
The taste was astonishingly familiar.
But something was missing.
There was no sensation of warmth going down my throat.
There was no sensation of satiety or alertness.
The taste existed, but the body was not there to respond to it.
I set down the cup.
Mira noticed.
"Right?" she said.
I nodded.
"It is very similar, but not exactly."
"I have been trying to recreate the sensation for years."
She sat down.
"At first I thought that if I could create a home here, I would be able to feel that I had returned to my life."
I looked at the windows.
Behind them a green garden could be seen.
"And did it help?"
"Sometimes."
She smiled.
"Sometimes I sit here and imagine that soon someone will come in the door and call me from the kitchen."
She lowered her gaze.
"But no one comes in."
I felt her pain.
Liara placed a hand on her shoulder.
Mira took a deep breath, even though she did not need air.
"I know it sounds strange," she said. "I was given the possibility of living without end, and I still miss the smallest moments."
"It is not strange," I replied.
I thought of my home.
Of the people I had left behind.
Of the things I did not know how precious they were to me until I could no longer return to them.
"I understand you."
Mira looked at me.
"Truly?"
"Yes."
For a moment I felt we had known each other for years.
Not because we shared a similar past, but because between us there was a shared longing.
We sat and talked for a long time.
Mira told me about her human life. About a small town by the sea, about her family, about a great love she had had, and about the day she reached the Tree of Eternity.
Liara told of distant worlds she had visited, of creatures that lived in deep oceans and of civilizations that existed around stars unlike our sun.
I listened to them in wonder.
Then I asked a question that had occupied me since I entered the city.
"Is there love here?"
Liara smiled.
"Of course."
"I mean love between two consciousnesses. Like a couple."
"Yes."
"And how does it work without a body?"
Mira laughed.
"You are asking exactly what I asked when I arrived."
Liara looked at me.
"The body is one way to experience closeness. It is not the only way."
"But how can one fall in love without touch? Without a gaze? Without a voice?"
"One can create touch, gaze and voice, as you have already experienced. But there are other ways to know a consciousness as well."
She paused.
"Sometimes you can feel another's thoughts, the way he experiences beauty, the memories he chooses to share with you. Such closeness can be very deep."
I thought about that.
"And can one be hurt too?"
Mira looked at me.
"Very much."
"But if you can feel one another's thoughts, how can anything be hidden?"
Liara smiled.
"Because here too every consciousness has boundaries. You are not permitted to enter another's inner world without his consent."
"And if someone tries?"
The smile vanished from her face.
"That is a grave violation."
I remembered the figure inside the red sphere.
The way I had felt her trying to reach me through thought alone.
Suddenly I understood why the bird had warned me.
"Can one fall in love more than once?" I asked.
Mira smiled.
"One can."
"And what happens to earlier loves?"
Liara looked at me.
"What happens to them in human life too. Some change, some end, and some remain part of you even when you no longer live within them."
"And if two stay together for thousands of years?"
"There are such."
"Don't they get bored with each other?"
Mira laughed.
"There are those who get bored after a hundred years. Others go on discovering each other even after ten thousand."
"How?"
Liara leaned back.
"Because a consciousness is not a frozen thing. We change. We learn. Sometimes we even become slightly strangers to those who knew us in the past."
I thought about that.
Perhaps a love that lasts a long time is not love for the same unchanging person, but a willingness to go on knowing him each time he changes.
I looked at Liara.
"And you? Have you loved someone for thousands of years?"
She smiled a small smile.
"Yes."
"And where is he now?"
She looked toward the window.
"Far away."
I asked no more.
But for the first time I understood that behind her joy of life too a story was hidden.
When we left Mira's house, the light in the city had changed.
It did not weaken like sunlight toward evening. The shades simply grew deeper, and small points of light began to appear between the structures.
"Is there night here?" I asked.
"Not naturally," Liara replied. "But many of us like cyclicity. It helps us feel the passing of time."
"So you create morning and evening?"
"In certain parts of the city."
I looked around me.
Consciousnesses began to gather in the plazas, and colored lights appeared above the bridges.
Music was heard in the distance.
"What is happening?"
"A gathering."
"What gathering?"
"We gather from time to time to share new things we have discovered. Sometimes music, sometimes memories, sometimes creations."
She smiled.
"And sometimes just to be together."
We walked following the voices.
We reached an enormous plaza.
Thousands of consciousnesses gathered in it.
At the center of the plaza hovered a large sphere of light, and within it appeared sights of distant worlds.
Music filled the space.
I felt it not only as sounds, but also as a gentle movement passing through my consciousness.
For a moment I forgot my fears.
The body I had left.
The lonely figure.
The promise I did not remember.
I stood among thousands of consciousnesses, and felt that I was part of something greater than myself.
Then the music changed.
One low sound penetrated it.
It was different from all the rest.
Not especially strong.
But everyone around me fell silent.
I looked at Liara.
Her face changed.
"What is that?" I asked.
She did not answer.
The sound was heard again.
This time I felt it deep in my consciousness.
It was familiar.
The same sound I had heard inside the cave.
The same sound that accompanied the distant presence.
Liara gripped my arm.
"Do not respond," she said.
I looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because we do not know whom it is calling."
But I already knew.
I did not know how.
I simply knew.
The sound was addressing me.
Inside the large sphere of light an image appeared.
At first I saw only darkness.
Then a wide, almost empty space appeared.
At its center stood a lone figure.
The same figure I had seen inside the red sphere.
I felt her loneliness again.
But this time there was something else in it too.
Anger.
Not bursting anger.
Anger preserved for so long that it had become part of existence itself.
The figure raised her head.
The music stopped.
Thousands of consciousnesses stood motionless.
Then one clear thought was heard, so clear that I felt everyone was hearing it.
She has returned.
I looked around me.
Some of the consciousnesses moved away.
Others turned their gaze to me.
I felt their attention converging around me.
Liara stood at my side.
"Do you know her?" she whispered.
"No."
"Then why is she calling you?"
I did not know what to answer.
Inside the sphere of light the figure came closer.
For the first time I managed to see part of her face.
It kept changing unceasingly.
At one moment it looked young, at another old, and at another it had no facial features at all.
Then she said:
Ask the bird what happened the previous time.
I felt a tremor.
I looked around me.
The silver bird was not there.
Ask her why she brought you to the tree again.
The great light began to tremble.
Several consciousnesses moved away quickly.
Liara gripped my hand.
"We have to go."
But the figure continued.
Ask her who was left behind when you went out into human life.
I felt as if the words were penetrating a deep place within me.
Suddenly an image arose in me.
The silver tree.
The bird.
The bright space.
And then something more.
I was not alone there.
Beside me stood another figure.
I did not see her face.
But I felt her hand holding mine.
The image vanished.
I tried to bring it back.
I could not.
"Wait!" I called toward the light.
Liara tried to pull me back.
But I no longer wanted to flee.
"Who are you?" I asked the figure.
For a moment complete silence reigned.
Then she answered:
You truly do not remember.
I felt sorrow inside the words.
Sorrow deeper than the anger.
Once you promised me that we would not part.
I looked at her.
"I don't know who you are."
The figure withdrew slightly.
I know.
The light around her began to weaken.
And before she disappeared, one last thought reached me.
"You chose life. I chose to wait for you."
The sphere of light went dark.
The music did not return.
Thousands of consciousnesses stood in silence.
I felt their gazes upon me.
Liara slowly released my hand.
"We need to find the bird," she said.
I looked at the place where the figure had disappeared.
I did not know whether she was speaking the truth.
I did not know whether the memory that arose in me was mine.
But one thing had changed.
Until now I had thought my journey to eternity was meant to reveal the secrets of creation.
Now the possibility began to awaken in me that this journey was connected also to a personal story, far more ancient than my human life.
A story someone else remembers.
And I forgot.
I looked at Liara.
"I want to know what happened the previous time."
She lowered her gaze.
"Then there is one thing you should know before we find the bird."
I waited.
Liara raised her eyes to me.
"The consciousness that spoke to you is not a prisoner in that place."
I felt the words sinking into me.
"So why does she stay there?"
Liara looked at the place where the light had gone out.
"Because she refuses to leave."
"Why?"
Liara was silent for a moment.
Then she said:
"Because she believes that if she leaves, you will no longer know where to find her."
I stood within the city where there is no death, surrounded by thousands of beings who could go on existing without end.
And for the first time I understood there is something that may be harder than death itself.
To go on living, when the whole meaning of your existence depends on someone who does not remember you.
End of Chapter Ten
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Nine — The Memory Before Birth · Chapter Eleven — The Promise Beyond Time →
