2022-01-08 19:47:23
Of Shapes and Bones
by Joshua C. Pipkins
“Are you the devil?” The man asks me. His eyes are no longer eyes, but milk. "No," I say, "but I am dead like you."
“So I have died,” he says, and there's a hint of melancholy in his otherwise deadpan voice. His body is stiff and unmoving, caught against a collection of rocks at the edge of the stream. I plant my knees in the grass next to him.
“You are my guide,” he says.
“I am. My name is Vergil,” I say.
He falls silent, the water sparkling like stars against his skin. After several moments, he answers. “I was a good father. I need you to know that.”
“I know,” I tell him, “I know everything about you, Daniel.”
“Then take me,” he says, “I want to see my husband.”
A gust of wind blows through the meadow. Trees bend and rustle. The flowers whisper solemnly in my ears. I take his hand into my own, flesh and bone intertwined, and snatch the Shape from his body.
I lead him into the Crossing, where the pit awaits at the heart of the sea, vast mounds of colors falling and rising like time-struck mountains beneath our feet. “It’s beautiful,” he says as we walk. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Then I ask him, “If you’d seen everything in life, what would be the mystery in death?”
“I guess that’s true,” he laughs, though it sounds more like leaves being blown in the wind. “It’s just… I stopped believing in a Heaven so long ago. I figured that if one did actually exist, I wouldn’t ever see it.”
I say, “You loved who you loved.”
“Yes, I loved who I loved,” he says.
Then he asks, “Am I going to hell, Vergil?”
“Do you believe you’re going to hell, Daniel?”
“I don’t know,” he says, “I spent my entire life hearing that I would. I guess I’d be a little disappointed if I didn’t. All that time spent wondering when I ran away from home with Henry, worrying that I’d done something unforgivable.”
“There’s no such thing,” I tell him, “In the end, love is still love. I don’t think there’s anything more worthy of Heaven than a man who sacrifices for love.”
He can’t smile, but I feel as if he is, and as we near the pit at the heart of the Crossing, a deep sapphire light burning in its core, he lets go of my hand and drifts toward the edge.
“My daughter,” he says, “Does she… know about me?”
“She received a call this morning. She’s grieving, but she’ll be okay.”
“I became so… distant after Henry died,” he says, “I closed myself off from the world when she was still in college. I stopped accepting her calls. I wanted nothing to do with the world if he wasn’t there by my side. I just lied in bed and let the time take me. I was so selfish, Vergil.”
Then he says, “I was a good father. I need you to know that.”
“I know. I know everything about you, remember?”
He nods, then stares down into the light with apprehension. For an eternity he stands there, saying nothing, the world around him living and dying again and again.
He jumps.
“Are you God?” the little girl asks me. “No,” I tell her. “But I am dead like you.”
#review #ShortStory
110 viewsedited 16:47
P
