A Billion Wandering Souls

When I saw the falling snow, I said farewell. Finally, for the first time, I died.

Opening icy eyes, I was in a long line, surrounded by weary strangers. In the end, there was an old-timer in silvery crimson robes. He hid behind a grandpa's smile. Almost human, he betrayed divinity with piercing amber eyes, prying away at all one's secrets behind a rusted, wrought iron gate.

"What's your name, my wayward child?" He asked when I went up.

For a moment, I froze. It had been decades since anyone had called me a child.

"Anderson Melbury, sir. Are you the Greater God?"

He chuckled warmly.

"I'm terribly sorry, but I'm just a humble clerk in his service, as are we all."

"Right," I shuffled as I adjusted myself. The world around me was neither heavenly nor hellish.

It was a brick and mortar entrance to a pastoral train station. The old walls crawled with ivy. Children, sickly and scarred, played around a cracked marble fountain in the square. Guards in angelic uniforms, with horsehair helmets and polished rifles, slept on duty. Travelers buried themselves in winter.

Scarlet golden leaves flurried. By the track and station, a warmly dyed forest stretched beyond the horizon. Feeling lost, I wondered what awaits me.

"Anderson Melbury is an alias, I presume?" The frail old ticket vendor stared me down with those curious eyes.

"Yes, sir..." I replied, fearful.

"You must be weary, my wayward child. I believe you were born as Desmond Canzones."

I stared at my feet. "I remember now, sir. That was... a long time ago... before the wars... please don't use that name." I shushed.

"Cheer up, lad! There is little shame in a person's past, just meaningless mistakes and occasional happiness." He paused and then grimaced. "Sometimes, they come together as bittersweet memories."

"Well, I lived my entire life blunder to blunder, and I don't remember the good times," I answered, poorly concealing my anger.

"Misfortune dogs the life of every man, yet you must not scorn yourself or the Creator for his machinations. One's sins are often a product of circumstance. I'm sure you were happy before. The shortness of life tends to obscure those things." He glanced at a newspaper in a forgotten language, gingerly picking at the pages.

He continued. "I have reviewed your entire life in the span of this conversation, and even you could be forgiven. If you repent, the Heavens still love you, my child."

I stepped back. "My entire life, forgiven?"

"In all its extravagance and humility."

My ghoulish brown gloves reached to catch the tears from my disfigured face. Catharsis and shame washed over. I hid behind my elbows, masking my weakness from the one who knew them all.

"Do you believe me, my wayward child?" His expression darkened as if he did not believe himself.

"You are my arbiter in this afterlife, right, sir?"

"Only if you believe I have that power over you."

"What does it matter?"

"It's all you have left." He handed me a pulp paper ticket adorned with intricate inking. "Well, I hope you won't mind if I don't sell you a return."

"Where am I going with this?" It's ineligible.

"Wherever you believe you should, but never back to what you have left behind."

A silence sustained. Bowing towards the strange old deity, I shuffled solemnly into the square. I stopped by the fountain for a quick drink but bumped into a rambunctious child, causing a bored guard to mumble-yell something. We flinched, then we were on our way.

Guarding the inner gates were iron griffons. Their proving grounds had crimson hibiscus flowers in the crevices of the lattice-stone tiles as if to mourn the careless souls that trespass over them.

I expected the inner gates to have etched the stories of creation, of the venerated saints, of the angels, lesser gods, or even terrible monsters, but instead, it had been polished to a mirror sheen, betraying nothing about our world.

Glancing at my hazy reflection, I suddenly felt empty.

Up ahead, a guard with a fashionable mustache waved his arm. A wave of travelers swept me into the station. A few ruffian-like countrymen greeted me and handed me a smoke.

Passers-byes settled upon rows of varnished memorial benches. Inscribed were Names, yet there were no other hints to those cherished identities, so people seated themselves randomly.

They also brought all sorts of memorabilia. Some Easterners had offerings; a hearty feast of tropical fruit, braised salmon, and aromatic rice, prepared by the family left behind. Their meals were also nicely flavored by flowing tears. Other travelers carried valuable trinkets, smiling photographs, and ancient coins. Only the guards seemed to be armed.

I held out my cigar out for a light. A young lady approached my little gathering of kindred unfortunates, lighting it with a magical snap.

"My thanks," I puffed—what a pleasant surprise.

"So, what did the old gentleman say to you?" She smiled daintily but betrayed no innocence. Seemingly timeless, like the memory of a perfect summer day, she wore a silken navy sundress and a woven wicker sunhat, wrapped in frilly violet lace, even in this cold mid-autumn. An amorphous flower adorned her headpiece. Was it blue?

"Just some inspirational drivel for the upcoming journey, as I imagine he did with you," I replied.

"Did he not find your circumstances strange?" She quipped, bemused. The flower on her head was now somehow a light scarlet.

"What could you possibly find strange about me?" I chuckled dryly.

"No offense, mister, but you smell like a corpse."

"Well, that is none of your business. I happen to dislike bathing." I riposted poorly.

"What's it like? Cheating lady death for so long?" She asked.

"If you are wise, you would not pry." Anxiety seeped into my words. My scowl darkened.

"It's fine, sir; I'm a bit of a rascal myself." She laughed wryly.

"Cheating death, eh?" A gruff older fellow in heavy bandages chimed in. Unlike the strange girl, he wrote his life all over himself. His thick bumpkin accent mingled with breath that smelled of moonshine. He likely bled to death in some village hospital when his bandaged right arm got mangled by machinery. Soil, seeds, and callouses clung to his good hand like a lifelong infection, mirrored in his earthly face, dominated by an unruly beard.

With a destitute man's bravado, he asked, "What's that about?"

Around our little group, the small talk died. Slowly, gazes lifted off the floor.

"I got cursed a little. It's nothing special." I sang nonchalantly, hiding my emotions.

"Pray, tell. You have a fawning audience." The strange girl flirted, adjusting her sunhat. Black, was it always like that?

"I came across an elixir." Do sins follow a man after death?

"So how did the old gentleman finally catch you, then?" She inquired, a curiosity finally betrayed by her shimmering turquoise eyes.

"Are you familiar with the Ice-Castle islands north of my homeland of Loria? I searched there, alone, for years, until I found the antidote."

The noisy silence erupted into incredulous murmurs.

"Well, why the hell did you give it up?" The old farmer drawled.

"There was a price, you see," I explained. "It had simply cost more than my life was worth."

"How dreadful," Spat a bejeweled priest in a stark, black and white habit emblazoned with a silver sun. His powdered cherry face was incorrigibly pale, like a poisoned man. "Could such vile sorcery even exist under Belenatum's sky?"

We Lorians were always proud to trace our lineage to the sun that descended. The lesser god Belenatum, emerging from a fallen star, founded his kingdom near modern Loranisburg, claiming it from the woods' sorcerers. Afterward, the borders of man and wilderness were law. That is why no sunlight can illuminate the deep caverns and great forests. That is why no sorcery can exist beneath Belenatum's great eye.

"Who can say?" I answered as the priest fidgeted incoherently.

"I'm sincerely sorry." The strange girl fixed her bluish, silvery hair, staring intensely into her past. Now the floret was a cheerful yellow.

"Who are you anyway? And that old vendor at the gate?" I pondered aloud.

"For simplicity's sake, consider me a sorceress. And the old gentleman at the gate is a griffon. He was one of our greatest creations, but he fell in love with lady death." She replied, full of life. She was very unlike the parade of sickly or wounded whispers we were.

"So did you die? Like the rest of us?" Impertinently, I asked.

"No"

An audible gasp arose from the bejeweled priest. The old farmer nodded as if unable to comprehend.

"Oh, Belenatum, protect us! Why are you here, then?" The bejeweled priest spat.

"I'm waiting for someone."

"Have you any success?" The old farmer chimed in furtively.

"It's been a thousand years."

"Maybe he's already gone" I studied the tracks ahead and wondered what the schedules were.

"He promised he'd wait." her voice broke like a cold shower on a sunny day.

"Well, I wish you the greatest luck in your endeavor, then." I exchanged a meaningless platitude, softening my expression. I felt a strange sympathy for this little sorceress. "When I left for the wars, I left behind someone too. After I was cursed, I never saw her again."

"Was she comely?" The old farmer smiled for the first time, revealing a mouth of missing or wounded teeth.

"Comely?" My voice lit up, then stuffed itself with laughter. "She was just a shepherd's girl, a rascally thing with the charm of a malignant weed. She was just tolerable enough that no farmer ever uprooted her. She had dirty brunette hair, an annoying laugh, and a smile that melted your worries into new worries." I paused, turning to the sorceress. "A thousand years?"

"Surprised?" She smiled in return.

"Not so much your age, but your tenacity," I observed. "It's commendable."

"For him, I'll do anything. Very few things are worth these long, lonely years." She replied.

The bejeweled priest chuckled. The old farmer reached for a cheap silver locket. Inside was a photograph so faded no face remained.

She spoke again. "Desmond, do you want to see your sweetheart again?"

Never back to what you have left behind. "I never told you who I was."

"Your past is not meaningless, my friend. It's written into your soul. It follows you to the ends of time and earth. And here, by the grace of the Greater God, your soul becomes your face." The bejeweled priest reached gingerly with fingers armored in rings. While I was unaware, He found a pocket in my musky trench coat and dug. He plucked out the ticket. "My, my, quite the record you've got! You're no stranger to sin!"

"Everything was for King and country." I lied, covered with cold sweat. Could I atone for the life I led?

"I'll wager our old griffon coaxed you with some nonsense. Well, I apologize, but some of us will roast for quite a little while. Desmond Canzones, do you want to see your sweetheart again?" The sorceress posed the question again. Finally, the flower turned green.

"How?"

"We should sneak you guys out of here!" She cheerfully replied, eager at my confession of interest. The others nodded in sudden agreement.

"What about my affliction?"

"If you get out of here, someday you could undo it. Stay here, and you'll say goodbye to everything left behind." She sang, lighting a fire within me with those shimmering turquoise eyes. My mind went to the smiling faces of my homeland. No matter the cost, could I have them back?