The Journey to Eternity · A serialized book by Nurit Rozenblat
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Twenty-Four — What Was Before the Beginning · Chapter Twenty-Six — The First Step Toward Freedom →
Chapter Twenty-Five — The Choice
When I returned to the passage room, I found Adara standing alone before the new structure.
It hovered at the center of the room, almost completely silent. Two transparent circles stood facing each other, and between them stretched a thin line of light. Every so often the line would widen slightly, as if something were breathing inside it, and then return to its previous dimensions.
Adara did not notice me at once.
She stood so close to the inner circle that I could see her reflection in it.
"Are you still working?" I asked.
She turned around.
"I am trying to understand what we did not see."
"Did you find anything?"
"Not yet."
I came closer to her.
"Perhaps there is nothing more that needs to be found before we speak with the young consciousness."
Adara looked at me.
"Are you in a hurry?"
I thought for a moment.
"I want to make progress. But I do not want to rush."
She smiled tiredly.
"That difference is more important than it seems to you."
I gazed at the passage.
"Are you afraid we will repeat your mistake?"
Adara lowered her gaze.
"I am afraid we will make a new mistake out of the desire to repair the old one."
I did not answer.
I knew she was right.
On one of the panels the results of the latest tests appeared.
The passage had managed to keep a connection between its two sides without transferring memories or pulling one consciousness toward the other. Each side could sever the connection itself. But one thing was still not clear: what would happen at the moment a consciousness crossed from the disconnected space into the open world.
"We tested it without a living consciousness?" I asked.
"Yes. With signals meant to imitate the movement of a consciousness's boundaries."
"And they returned?"
"All of them."
"Then why are you worried?"
Adara looked at me.
"Because a signal is not afraid."
I was silent.
"It does not change its mind in the middle of the way. It does not suddenly remember someone it left behind. It does not change its wish because it heard a familiar voice."
She placed her hand on the panel.
"We know how the system responds to movement. We still do not know how it will respond to a choice that changes during the movement."
I thought about that.
In my human life I made countless decisions.
Some were small.
Others changed the course of my life.
But almost always there was a point at which I could not know how I would feel after I took the step.
Sometimes I wanted something for years, and when I attained it I discovered it was not as I had imagined.
Sometimes I feared a change, and only afterward understood how much I had needed it.
Can one ask someone to choose her future, when we ourselves do not know exactly what will happen to her?
"We need to be able to stop even after the passage begins," I said.
Adara nodded.
"That is what we are trying to ensure."
Liara entered the room.
Behind her appeared Eliya and Sahar.
"Nera is ready," Liara said.
I looked at her.
"She is here?"
"On the outer side of the passage. She asked that we not create a direct connection between her and the young consciousness before they speak."
"Why?"
"She wants to make sure the young one can decide whether she is interested in her closeness."
I smiled.
I recognized that caution.
It no longer seemed excessive to me.
Adara activated the circle.
Within it a faint light appeared.
"I want to speak with her," I said.
Liara came close to me.
"I am here."
I nodded.
The young voice was heard almost at once.
"You came back."
"Yes."
"Did you speak with Nera?"
"Yes. She is willing to speak with you."
A short silence fell.
"Did she really come out?"
"Yes."
"And she did not disappear?"
"No. She has lived in another place ever since."
The voice came closer.
"I want to hear her."
Adara opened the outer connection.
Nera appeared in the second circle.
She did not come closer.
"Hello," she said.
The young voice was silent.
"Can you hear me?" Nera asked.
"Yes."
"What would you like me to call you?"
A silence fell.
"I do not remember my name."
"Do you want to choose one?"
"Not now."
"All right."
The young voice sounded hesitant.
"How was it?"
Nera looked toward the circle.
"The crossing?"
"Yes."
Nera thought for a while.
"At first I felt as if everything I knew was moving away from me. It did not hurt, but I was afraid I would not manage to hold myself."
"And then?"
"I heard a voice from the other side. It did not tell me to come. It asked if I wanted to continue."
"And what did you say?"
"Yes."
"And you succeeded?"
"I managed to come out. But that was not the end of the difficulty."
The young voice was silent.
Nera continued:
"I had to learn how to live in a place with no walls defining the distance for me. I had to learn how to come close to others without fearing I would lose myself."
"But you were free."
"Yes."
"Then it was worth it."
Nera was in no hurry to answer.
"For me, in the end, yes. But I cannot know whether it will be so for you too."
The young voice was heard again.
"I want to ask you something."
"Ask."
"Do you remember how wind feels?"
Nera looked at her.
"I remember the idea of wind. But I have no body that feels it the way I once felt it."
A silence fell.
The young voice moved slightly away.
"Then outside, too, I will not feel it?"
"Not necessarily. There are worlds in which one can receive a body. There are different ways to experience reality. But the exit itself will not grant you a body."
The voice was silent.
I felt its disappointment.
I did not need to enter into it in order to understand.
"I thought that if I came out, everything would return," she said at last.
Nera answered quietly:
"I know. I thought so too about some of the things."
"Then why did you come out?"
"Because I wanted a possibility of living differently."
The young voice was silent.
"And if I come out and do not like the place?"
"We are trying to create a possibility of returning," I answered. "But we have not yet tested it with a living consciousness."
"Then you do not know if I will be able to return."
"True."
A long silence fell.
At last she said:
"I still want to come out."
I felt no triumph.
Only a heavy responsibility.
"Are you sure you want to try now?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Even after hearing what Nera told you?"
"Yes."
"Do you want more time to think?"
"No."
She paused.
"I have been thinking about this for a long time. I do not want you to ask me again and again until I am afraid to answer."
I felt embarrassed.
"You are right," I said.
She was silent.
"But there is one thing I want," she added.
"What?"
"If I manage to come out, I want you to tell the others what happened to me. Even if it is hard."
"We will do so if you agree to let us share your experience."
"I agree."
"And if you want to change your mind afterward?"
"Then stop."
I nodded.
"All right."
Sahar approached the passage structure.
"We are ready for the final test," he said.
Adara looked at him.
"Check the stopping point again."
He nodded.
Eliya stood beside me.
"Do you want to stay here?" she asked.
"Yes."
"You know you will not be able to hold her if she loses her boundaries."
"I know."
"And you will not be able to decide for her to continue."
I looked at her.
"I know."
She smiled slightly.
"Then you are ready."
I was not sure.
But I stayed.
The passage began to light up.
The two circles moved slightly apart, and between them a narrow corridor of light formed.
At one end a small point appeared.
The young voice.
At the other end stood Nera.
She kept her distance.
"I am here," she said.
The small point flickered.
"I hear you."
"Do you want me to come a little closer?"
"No."
"All right."
The point moved forward.
Slowly.
Almost hesitantly.
I felt the tension in the room.
Sahar stood by the stopping mechanism.
Adara tracked the boundaries of the consciousness.
Liara guarded the connection.
Eliya stood beside me.
And I listened.
"I do not know if I can," the young voice said.
Nera answered:
"You can stop."
"And if I stop now?"
"We will stay here until you decide what you want."
The point stopped.
We waited.
We did not try to encourage.
We did not say she had almost arrived.
We did not tell her how important it was that she succeed.
We only waited.
After a while she asked:
"Are you still there?"
"Yes," Nera answered.
"Why do you not come closer?"
"Because you asked me not to."
The point flickered.
"And if I ask?"
"Then I will ask how close you want me to be."
A silence fell.
Then she said:
"A little."
Nera came a little closer.
No more.
The point moved again.
For a moment it seemed everything was proceeding as it should.
The boundaries remained clear.
The connection was stable.
The corridor did not pull additional consciousnesses.
Then another voice was heard.
Very faint.
"Do not go."
The young point stopped.
"Who is that?" she asked.
The voice returned.
"Do not leave me."
I looked at Adara.
She looked worried.
"There is another consciousness close to the passage," she said.
"Can she be moved away?" Sahar asked.
"Not without harming her connection with the others."
The young voice sounded frightened.
"I know her."
"Do you want to speak with her?" I asked.
"Yes."
Adara opened a separate channel.
Another voice was heard.
It was faint, almost childlike.
"Are you really going?"
"Yes," the young one answered.
"But you said you would not leave me."
A silence fell.
I felt the pain in the words.
Another promise given inside a place where it is hard to believe anything will change.
"I do not want to leave you," the young one said.
"Then stay."
The point began to move backward.
Sahar looked at Adara.
She signaled him to wait.
"I do not know what to do," the young one said.
None of us answered.
Then Nera spoke.
"You do not need to decide at once."
"But she will remain alone."
"Perhaps. And perhaps you will be able to keep talking even if you are on the other side."
"Can you promise that?"
I looked at Adara.
She checked the system.
"We can try to keep the connection," she said. "But we will not promise it will always be stable."
The childlike voice was heard again.
"I am afraid."
The young point trembled.
"So am I."
I stood there and felt a strong desire to intervene.
I wanted to tell the young one to continue.
That she had already come a long way.
That she must not give up now.
But I stopped.
I understood that would be the easy way for me.
If she continued and succeeded, I could say I had helped her.
If she stayed, I would have to bear the knowledge that the passage was open and she chose not to cross.
And there was another thought in me, a harder one.
Perhaps I wanted her to succeed because her success would prove I had not been wrong to return and investigate the door.
That my past does not end with the decision to close.
That the promise I once gave was not empty.
But her life was not meant to be my proof.
"I want to stop," the young one said.
Sahar looked at me.
I said nothing.
Adara activated the stopping point.
The light in the corridor dimmed.
The young point gradually returned to the inner side.
Nera remained in her place.
The connection between them was not severed.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
The young one was silent.
Then she said:
"I think so."
The childlike voice came closer.
"Are you staying?"
"For now."
A silence fell.
Then the young one turned to us.
"Are you angry?"
I felt pain.
"No," I answered.
"But I failed."
"No."
"I did not come out."
"True. But you asked to stop, and you managed to."
She was silent.
"Is that important?"
"Very much."
After the connection ended, we remained in the room.
No one spoke.
Sahar turned off the passage.
Adara examined the records.
Liara came close to me.
"Are you disappointed?" she asked.
I thought for a moment.
"Yes."
She nodded.
"You are allowed to be."
"But I am also glad."
"Why?"
"Because she managed to stop."
Liara smiled.
"And that means the passage met the most important condition you set for it."
I looked at her.
"But she is still there."
"Yes."
"And the others are still waiting."
"Yes."
I felt the weight of the things.
The technical success did not cancel the suffering.
But the fact that the young one stayed did not cancel what we had learned either.
Adara raised her head from the records.
"There is something else," she said.
We all looked at her.
"When the second consciousness approached, the system managed to keep two separate connections."
"Is that good?" I asked.
"Very much. In the past this was one of the points of failure. When several consciousnesses approached the gate, the boundaries between them began to blur."
"And now?"
"They remained separate."
Sahar smiled for the first time.
"Meaning, we do not have to close the passage when another approaches."
"True."
Eliya looked at me.
"That means it may be possible to let consciousnesses keep a connection with those who remain behind."
I felt excitement.
"Even after the exit?"
"We still need to test it. But now we have reason to think it is possible."
I asked to return to the connection room.
I wanted to speak with the young one.
Not about the experiment.
Not about the data.
About her.
Her voice was heard after a short while.
"You are here again?"
"Yes."
"I thought you would be busy with the tests."
"The others are testing. I wanted to hear how you feel."
She was silent.
"I do not know."
"Do you want to tell me?"
"I am angry at myself."
"Why?"
"Because I was so close."
I listened.
"And then I heard her and I was afraid."
"Do you love her?"
"I think so."
"Do you remember how you met?"
"No. She was simply there. For a long time."
The voice grew quiet.
"Sometimes we would talk. Sometimes only listen to each other."
"And you promised her you would not leave?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because she was afraid I would disappear."
I felt the words.
"And do you want to stay with her?"
She was silent.
"I want to come out," she said at last. "But I do not want her to feel I abandoned her."
"You can want both things."
"But I cannot do both."
I thought.
"Perhaps we have not yet found how."
She was silent.
"Do you think you will find it?"
"I do not know."
She sighed.
"I am getting used to that answer of yours."
I smiled.
"So am I."
After a while she asked:
"Would you leave someone you love in order to be free?"
The question struck me.
I thought about my home.
About my children.
About the woman who had returned to them.
About the moment I chose to eat the fruit of eternity.
"I did something similar," I said.
The voice was silent.
"And did you regret it?"
I thought for a long time.
"There are moments when I do."
"Then why do you not go back?"
I looked toward the window.
"Because the life I left behind goes on now without me. There is someone there living it, and I do not want to take it from her."
"But you long for it."
"Very much."
"Then you are not free."
I felt the words.
I did not answer at once.
"Perhaps not entirely," I said.
"But you can go wherever you want."
"Yes."
"Then why are you not free?"
I thought about that.
"Because freedom does not cancel our connections with others. Nor what we feel."
She was silent.
"I think I understand."
When I left the connection room, I found Eliya waiting for me.
She stood by the window.
"How is she?" she asked.
"Angry at herself."
Eliya nodded.
"That is natural."
"I do not want her to think she did something wrong."
"You cannot decide what she will think."
I looked at her.
She smiled gently.
"You can speak with her. Listen. But that too she will have to understand in her own way."
I approached the window.
"Do you know what is hardest for me?"
"What?"
"That I see a possibility of helping, but I cannot make it happen."
Eliya was silent.
Then she said:
"Perhaps you do not need to make it happen. Perhaps you need to keep being there while it happens."
We stood together for a while.
Through the window the lights of the city could be seen.
I thought about everything I had learned since I arrived here.
About the boundaries.
About listening.
About choice.
About how it is not always possible to separate love from fear.
Sometimes we stay in a certain place because we love those who are in it.
And sometimes because we fear what will happen if we go.
Sometimes both reasons exist together.
And it is not always possible to know which of them is stronger.
After a while Adara returned to the room.
"I have a proposal," she said.
We looked at her.
"We can create an in-between place."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"A small space between the inner side and the outer side. Not a place where the consciousness must choose at once whether to come out or go back."
Sahar approached.
"That will require a more stable system."
"True. But the new structure makes it possible to keep separate connections."
Eliya looked at the panel.
"Meaning, the consciousness could reach the in-between place, get to know it, and then choose whether to continue or return."
"Yes."
I felt excitement.
"And what about those who remain behind?"
"We can keep a separate connection channel, if both consciousnesses want it."
I thought about the young one.
About the childlike voice.
About the promise she did not want to break.
"This could change everything," I said.
Adara shook her head.
"It could change something important. Not everything."
I smiled.
"You are right."
We worked on the new structure.
This time we did not try to open a wide door.
We built a small space, almost modest.
A place where it would be possible to stop.
To observe.
To grow accustomed.
Not to decide at once.
I thought about my human life.
How many times had I wanted someone to give me time to think without pressing me to choose?
How many times was I required to decide when I still did not understand all the possibilities?
And perhaps I did that to others too.
I asked for an answer.
I wanted to know.
I insisted.
Sometimes I forgot that other people have their own pace.
When the structure was ready for an initial test, Adara asked us to stop.
"We need to let the system stabilize."
"How long?" I asked.
"Until we know it is able to keep the three spaces separate."
I nodded.
I did not want to rush.
For the first time I felt that the waiting itself was part of the work.
I went out to the garden.
Mira sat by the pool.
She raised her head when she saw me.
"How was the attempt?" she asked.
"The young one began to cross, but chose to stop."
Mira nodded.
"And are you disappointed?"
"A little."
She smiled.
"I understand."
I sat down beside her.
"And what about you?" I asked.
"What about me?"
"You said you wanted to see a new place."
She looked at the water.
"I went."
I smiled.
"Where?"
"To a world with blue trees."
"How was it?"
She smiled.
"Strange. Beautiful. A little frightening."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"Yes."
She paused.
"And then I returned to the memory of the kitchen."
I looked at her.
"And you felt guilt?"
"At first."
"And afterward?"
"I understood that my son does not disappear from the memory just because I saw something new."
She smiled sadly.
"I still love him. But perhaps I am also allowed to love things that were not part of our life together."
I felt the words.
"I think so."
We sat in silence.
Mira looked at the water.
"You know," she said, "I once thought that if I stopped longing even for a moment, it meant I loved less."
I looked at her.
"And you no longer think so?"
"I am beginning to understand that love is not measured by how much time we suffer because of it."
I felt as if the words opened a window inside me.
I thought about all the people I had lost.
About the days when I felt guilt because I laughed, enjoyed myself, or forgot the pain for a moment.
As if joy were a betrayal of the memory.
"Perhaps you are right," I said.
Mira smiled.
"I hope so."
When we parted, I continued walking among the trees.
The city was quiet.
I thought about the young one who had stopped before the exit.
About Nera, who crossed the door and could not return.
About the woman who chose to stay in the disconnected space.
About Mira, who dared to see a new place.
Each of them stood before a different change.
And each chose at her own pace.
I began to understand that there is no single moment in which we become free forever.
Life places choices before us again and again.
Some are large.
Others almost invisible.
And sometimes the most important choice is not to continue on a way we already began only because we are afraid to admit we want to stop.
When I returned to the library, I found Adara standing before the new structure.
It glowed with a steady light.
Three separate spaces appeared in it.
The inner.
The in-between.
And the outer.
Between them passed thin lines of light.
"The system has stabilized," she said.
I felt excitement.
"Can we try?"
"After we speak again with whoever wants to take part."
I nodded.
Adara looked at me.
"You know, there is something I did not tell you."
"What?"
She came close to me.
"When the door was closed in the past, I thought the most important thing was to prevent the consciousnesses from being harmed."
"I know."
"But I did not understand that when I decide for them what risk they are allowed to take, I take something else from them."
"The choice."
"Yes."
She paused.
"Now I understand that it is not enough to open the door. One must also be ready for someone to stand before it and decide not to cross."
I looked at the passage.
"Or to cross and decide to return."
Adara smiled.
"Exactly."
We stood there for a while.
I thought about the golden fruit I had eaten.
About the choice I made without understanding all its consequences.
About the life I left behind.
About everything I had discovered since.
I could not change the moment in which I chose.
But I could choose what to do now.
And that was a comforting thought.
Not because the past had lost its meaning.
But because it was not the only thing that determined who I would be.
Adara turned off the lights around the passage.
Only the three circles remained lit.
I gazed at them.
Three places.
Three possibilities.
To stay.
To draw closer.
To come out.
And perhaps also to return.
I did not know whether the system would succeed.
I did not know whether the young consciousness would choose to try again.
I did not know whether we would ever manage to free all those who want to come out.
But this time I was not looking for one decision that would solve everything.
I wanted to create a possibility.
A place where there would be no need to choose out of fear alone.
A place where it would be possible to change one's mind.
A place where the choice would not become a punishment.
Before I left the room, I looked again at the passage.
I thought about how in human life we tend to admire those who continue despite the difficulty.
Those who do not give up.
Those who reach the very end.
But sometimes we forget that stopping too requires courage.
To admit we are not ready.
To ask for more time.
To change direction.
Or to return to the place we came from, not because we failed, but because we understood something new about ourselves.
Perhaps not every way needs to end in the place we intended to reach.
And perhaps not every opened door must be crossed.
I looked at Adara.
She smiled at me.
And I understood that this time, unlike in the past, we would not stand before the door and decide whether to open it for the others.
We would build it so they could open and close it themselves.
Because freedom is not only the right to choose a way. It is also the right to stop, to change our mind and to choose anew — without losing, because of that, our place in the world.
End of Chapter Twenty-Five
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Twenty-Four — What Was Before the Beginning · Chapter Twenty-Six — The First Step Toward Freedom →
