On the woody banks of Eastville, the St. Johns Hospital sat calmly among verdant trees, supple with new energy from the advent spring. The owners painted the building a slightly bold lilac color that reminded viewers of a square eggplant, albeit dried for a bit too long.
The normally very mellow hospital rang with chaos. Room 204 on Floor 2 was having a baby. Inside, an exhausted woman lay moaning and whimpering from a pain that only women know. Her faint-hearted husband cried freely as she squeezed his hand comfortingly, well the best she could in her few lucid moments.
His brown hair loosely, very loosely, crowned his balding head and from his wrinkled forehead dripped a shower of sweat and tears. The husband’s name was of no import, but because the unborn baby had been named Thomas Jeffery Jr., it was well assumed that his name was Thomas Jeffery. Thomas Jeffery turned 45 last month, and today he witnessed his pretty 39 year old wife contract in labor pains. Michelle Jeffery looked quite young for her age, though it did not disguise the condition of her eggs. After 13 years of marriage, they were finally having their first child.
Nurse Rose hefted the heavy clipboard on her arm as she pushed the thin metal ruler against the gap of brown and pink flesh, pursing her fat lips. She flipped through the countless records of past in vitro fertilization procedures to pause at a line that measured the contractions. She noted with perplexity that the baby should have been delivered twenty minutes ago.
They had called the doctor nearly seven times, but he could neither hold responsibility, nor care enough to, and only sighed as he administered her with more grateful drugs. On his way out, the doctor made a remark to the whole room, which mainly went unheard. It was going to be one gruesome delivery.
Unknown to him, the foreseeing remark did enter the ears of a most majestic being located an uncountable number of kilometers above. The Lion purred, full of dissatisfaction, as he watched the scene unroll from his snow-white screen, which was approximately 30 by 27 meters. He could not find a match for the baby impatiently waiting in his mother’s womb. He first scrolled the mouse down a long list of names. Then, he rolled back to the top, and scrolled down, painstakingly slow this time around, but soon enough he reached the bottom of the list. Agitated, he flicked his powerful tail with annoyance and moved his warm, amber eyes to the bottom left hand of the screen. Then with a shake of his wet nose, he flashed his eyes back to the list in the center. The rather long list, full of codes and entry numbers, was titled in large, bronze print: AVAILABLE.
The reason for the gruesome delivery was that the enormous Lion could not simply decide.
Or rather yet, he had decided, in fact he had decided from the moment he pulled up the blood red list titled RETIREES and placed it so meticulously, at the bottom left hand corner, in a manner where only the top bar of the window showed. After much deliberation he looked down upon the hospital scene and saw Michelle Jeffery’s body wrenched with agony. The RETIREE list soon found itself in the center, and he quickly scanned through the much shorter list.
A223 had done 1,004 missions successfully and presented a snip bit of information that it preferred girls to boys and if possible a peaceful death. A456 and A798 had similarly impressive records. As he zipped through the short list, his eyes skipped over one name in particular. Twice. E56, one mission, retired.
He had decided, but it took him a few more minutes to really decide when he bowed his head and precariously moved his furry paw over and clicked.
ZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM! The blank, white circular room rumbled at the appearance of a rather harmless looking entity. Its spherical body was the color of the lightest pink identifiable, and invisible currents snaked around it constantly.
It was a Soul.
“Aww, man you just had to call me when I was making the finishing shot,” it grumbled.
“Empyro,” he acknowledged before he continued the conversation, “And what was the score?”
“A pretty close match - Infinity to Infinity and Beyond,” Empryo said excitedly. “I see you, uh, have your lion gear on today.”
“Always observant,” the Lion said in a manner quite hard to distinguish. “And who were your teammates?”
“Well, obviously there are too many to name, but Angel’s decent and Celestion is alright I suppose, but we’re probably losing now that I’m not play-” His sentence stopped midway for the scenery around him began to change imperceptibly. Flowers of a non-existent variety bloomed along the white tiles and trees sprouted from a thin layer of grass as the air cooled into a crisp, fresh scent that tingled its nose.
“What’s this?” It asked suspiciously, for now it started to see the beginning of the path that the Lion had constructed for it.
“What do you mean?” The Lion asked innocently, belying his true intentions.
“I mean why are you making the scenery all vernal and the atmosphere the cool, mountain-range way that I like.”
“So you like it still?”
“No, I’m on the retired list, if you forgot already,” Empyro said defensively, whirring in anger.
“Officially, you haven’t done enough missions to claim retirement,” the Lion replied, his huge, magnificent face looked at the Soul with sympathy for the choice he forced it to take.
“Well it’s already a cleared and done deal. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be getting back,” it said hurriedly.
“Oh, by no means, I wouldn’t want to keep you here,” the Lion said graciously, and relaxed comfortably while swishing his tail.
“Um, you forgot the door.”
“Oh my, you’re quite correct,” he said, and at the same time slowly tapped the screen. An old, empty sidewalk appeared. A young black girl jauntily rode her bike for the first time. The bike was old so the wheels squealed, but the accomplishment itself outshone all the disappointing factors. Her pigtails flapped in the air, like the wings of an inexperienced bird.
“Why are you showing me this?” It asked angrily.
“Why am I showing you this?”
“That’s the question I asked you.”
“Yes, but you know the answer better than I,” the Lion said pensively.
“I’m afraid I don’t, and I’ve been away from the game quite too long now,” Empyro snarled as he whizzed around the once more circular and white room.
“Empyro, Empyro,” the Lion chided, “Come, let me show you something.” The floor underneath them softened until it became a fluffy substance and a moving platform among startlingly blue skies. To the horizon, the feeble rays of blue darkness began to climb upon the day’s regime.
“The world is one of a difficult and fickle balance. Without night, there would be no day. Look at those mountains, they bide by the lethargic rule of time. They submit, at times proud enough to pierce the clouds...at times beneath the tidal ocean.”
“You know, as much as I enjoy nature, I don’t see how I have anything to do with mountains,” Empyro retorted.
The Lion ignored him and continued, “It is from light that shadows grow. From work you learn pleasure, and love seeps from hate. The contrasts of the world contrast less than it would have you believe. In their animosity, they find mutual friendship - the need of each other to survive.” The world beneath them began to orbit insanely and they rapidly passed over green rice paddies and barren desserts, rocky terrain and turquoise seas. Night swallowed day, day vanquished night without change.
Now once more the setting morphed into the white, circular room that glowed so blindingly bright.
“You, you know what happened last time.” Empyro struggled to find more reasons and excuses, but his defence was worn thin.
The Lion did not persuade any further as he laid out his ultimate weapon. The pixels on the screen rearranged themselves to showcase the angelic face of a three year old baby with snow-white hair and soft, pink skin that glowed in the way only a baby’s skin can. His face stretched into a smile without fear and knowledge, pure through ignorance.
The Soul stared silently at the screen, and through the boy’s face it saw another. Although the smile remained, the pigmentation darkened into a rich chocolate and the hair grew longer and more wiry until it made an unruly mess of black corkscrews.
And now the Lion could see that his work was done, for a Soul could never refuse the temptation of life.
“The world is a cruel and terrible place,” it cried suddenly, impassioned by the past it could never forget.
“There is a terrible beauty in such a cruel world. And only from pain can we distinguish pleasure,” the Lion responded. “With tragedy, we can truly appreciate those few, sparse happy seconds. The incomprehensible yet strangely simple balance goes on endlessly. Death comes after life, and life comes after death,” the Lion consoled philosophically. He stared pensively at the clearly anguished Soul.
The conversation came to a full stop, and pity had no place among the necessity of life itself.
“Thomas Jeffery Jr. needs you now,” the Lion said solemnly, holding out his paw toward the Soul.
Without another word, Empyro orbited its spherical figure around the Lion’s paw, signaling its agreement to the precious mission entrusted to it.
The bleach, white floor opened into a gaping hole. Woosh. The Soul Express had arrived in its customary wraith-like way.
And in the time before Empyro felt the forceful pull of the Soul Express, it visited her one last time. Her beautiful, brown face frozen in an eternal terror as a myriad of knife wounds punctured through her cold, still body. A drunkenly sweet scent desecrated the frigid night air and the roaring of engines passed by callously. They had screamed helplessly through the horror together, but only Empyro survived. She left as bloody and bare as when she first came into the world.
Then the everlasting moment ended as Empyro fell through. He knew himself to be locked inside the long circular pipe that transported Souls directly to their mission.The Soul Express allowed a wonderful view through its clear-glass shuttle.
The Soul fell through the divinely bewitching constellation, of burning stars and sparkling moon dust particles twirling in a forever waltz of their own pace, that only higher beings of a celestial nature can see. A slow peaceful melody floated through as the black and white keys rose and fell to a slow tempo. Outside, Empyro gaped in awe at the silent explosion between two colliding stars as a tornado of diamonds erupted to be followed by a red-white halo that lasted for only a few seconds.
After Empyro passed the elusive Space, it spiraled down waves of crimson molecules that constantly spurted to destinations unknown. They gave way to the vividly vibrant bubbles of verdant and yellow colors which passed authority to azure beams that left no atom unlighted.
A bumpy and pulsating meteor winked mischievously at him before it crashed down the murky depths below. Although Empyro had fallen down to earth before, the enigmatic ride somehow managed to reveal different secrets about the universe each time. The Soul Express beeped tranquilly as it finally entered the galaxy of black, white, and grey known to humans, and Empyro knew his falling journey was nearing its end.
He thought that perhaps just now he barely understood the magnanimous complexity of life, its mystifyingly terrible yet beautiful contradiction. Black and white coexisted, defined by their opposing traits. Tragedy was life's last name, and the happy times were so fleeting and forgettable. Screw the balance, it was obviously unfair. Oh well, if he fell he just needed to get back up. Or rather go back down.
And with a pop, the Soul Express spit him out into the cruel world. He found himself nose to nose with an angrily pink-face lined with snow-white eyelashes. In the penultimate second, Empyro tried to remember a face quite as gorgeous, perhaps a little darker, but who - when the newborn baby boy pulled back his lips to draw his first breath, and in Empyro went. Skillfully he avoided the sticky mucus lining the trachea, and flew past the esophagus. Empyro concentrated on finding his new home - there - ba bump, ba bump.
“Well, here we go again,” he sighed knowingly before wrapping his tendrils around the tiny heart to deliver one impressively powerful squeeze.
Waaaaaahhhhhhhhh!
. I saw this with 100 views and no replies and thought, "That has to change!" This is a long piece, so it'll be hard for me to review it paragraph by paragraph. I'll try to get as much in as possible. As always, good comes first:
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