500: An Anthology of Short Stories

A broad, radiant path leading off towards an even brighter light. A haziness to the environment, as if things still needed to coalesce into recognizable shapes. The path is solid enough though: soft, warm, slightly resilient, feeling very much like … like … memory foam. Yes, that was it.

I suddenly pause to bury my bare feet deeper into the unresisting loam. Strange. Now the ground underneath my feet feels slightly moist; it molds itself around my exploring toes like wet beach sand. Aah, how I love strolling along a beach of white, slightly gritty sand. Love … or is it loved?

I am confused; my brain, my soul, struggles to assimilate my turbulent, haphazardly disconnected emotions. Where am I? I turn around in a slow circle, gazing intently into the still-merging and forming and shaping landscape. I see sketchy outlines of hitherto known objects; their labels now inexplicably escape me. Gently, as if an artist is drawing them leisurely, languorously upon a grand palette, the objects come into further, clearer focus. I blink, blink. My eyes finally identify what they are looking upon.

I am on a glorious forest trail, one that meanders invitingly, intriguingly between towering, towering trees the likes of which I have never before witnessed. Their sheer massive shapes – incredibly huge trunks that span what seems to be the width of fifty trees melded together – stagger my mind. I look up to the distant canopy of interlaced branches, nearly toppling over in the effort of craning my neck so far back. Feather light leaves drift down randomly in slow motion, landing upon the green carpet of fallen leaves under my feet. I’m not surprised by the yet further alteration of the quality of the path. What does pique my interest is why the leaves haven’t turned yellow or brown here on the ground…

Then, as if it is what I’ve been yearning to hear all along, I am awash in sound. Harmonious chirping, tweeting, twittering, cooing of birds; the sibilant song of a zephyr playing among the lofty branches; millions of unidentifiable yet familiar other forest sounds that soothe me, calm me, call to me as if connecting to my essence.

I am abruptly aware that something is missing: it is the one thing that I’ve become so intimately familiar with over the past year that it became inseparable from me. Yet, here I am. And I feel no pain. It is utterly absent; banished; expelled as if it had never existed. I swoon in relief at the release of the agony.

“Daniel.”

I hear my name said with such all-encompassing Love and Compassion that I burst into tears. Hot, swollen ones stream unbidden and copiously from my eyes. My heart overflows with emotions for which I have no names. I feel a blaze of purest bliss ignite deep inside me. I know instinctively that it’s my soul absorbing my physical presence. I transform into something else…

“Welcome home, beloved child.”

The greeting completes my rebirth.