features seem tentative as if still not belonging on her broad face. A funny face really. She could be beautiful if she wanted to. Her face lacks confidence. Or is it faith?
“The colour is always there. We just have to learn to see it. Again.” Why did I say again? It just sort of slipped out. She didn’t notice. “It’s like learning to walk, or talk.”
I can’t tell her that all of reality is only what she can perceive. It’s pretty meaningless until you learn that for yourself.
We arrive at my house. Originally Barbara brought me here. It was a bit grey then. I fixed it up since. Not much. To me, it is exactly what I am. Almost satisfied but still searching. I suppose you never stop searching. Now and again I move a wall or a window. You can do that here. Not too often or you go crazy. I tried it once. When you first learn how fluid is your own reality you experiment with it. You change everything. You lose your point of reference. Things get grey then. You have to start from scratch. Next time you take it easy. There is time enough.
The house is really three rooms. A sitting room, a bedroom, a study. We don’t cook here. We eat but we don’t cook. There are all sorts of fruit and vegetables that taste better raw. Wonderful aroma. My house smells green, red and yellow. Of apples and citrus fruit. It’s like being out in the garden. When you first come here, you miss hot, greasy, heavily seasoned foodstuff. You can get it if you really want to but you lose taste for it. In my house there is a large bawl of fruit in the centre of the low table in front of the sofa. You can nibble. You don’t get hungry here. Unless you think about it.
Marion is standing in front of a large window. No glass, an archway, really. I step against the wall and watch her face. She is looking at my view. I give her plenty of time. She seems happy. I pat myself on my back.
“Do you like it?”
She doesn’t have to answer. I can see. Then she starts crying.
It goes on for quite a while. It’s not easy coming here, on your own. Everything is strange. Alien. Then she stops.
I make her sit down.
“I’m sorry?”
“You want to talk about it?” I look at her wrists covered with overlong cuffs. She hides them behind her back. Then, very slowly, she brings them back to her lap. Her eyes wonder away, again, into my view.
“It’s a long story...”
They all start that way. They think their story is the only one. The only important one. I offer her an apple. She holds it carefully as though it were a crystal sphere—stares into its polished, multihued surface. My apples are full of colour.
“I thought he loved me...” That’s often the second sentence. It’s also the end of the story. She loved him. She had lost her own tiny universe. She gave up her own world to live in his. When he left, she had no universe of her own. None. She had never really built one.
“It’s all right,” I say. “We all have to start from scratch, here.” She keeps staring into the apple. “Eat it!” I tell her.
She obeys me like a child. That must change. Soon.
“It tastes wonderful.”
I know. It’s my apple.
The next day I show her the park. It looks like a park. It is what you want it to be. For me it’s a park. The trees are all mature oaks, maples, elms, clamps of birches against the background of conifers. Streams meander through with lazy indifference. Houses, like mine only different, hide behind tall, flowering bushes—funny how lilacs can stay in bloom forever. Some houses belong to my friends. People I have known for some time. Others are new to the area. They came from other parts. We all share a common vision. That is why we live here, together. This park also belongs to the last dream Marion had before she gave up her universe for her lover’s. She is lucky to be starting here. Very lucky. I started in a rat race for recognition.
We spend days walking, talking. Marion is beginning to see colour, on her own.
We sit down on a flat boulder overlooking a small valley framed by dark, walls of a silent forest. A small lake picks up the lazy puffs of cotton wool drifting along the sky. It’s what you make it. Marion takes off her sandals and puts her bare feet in a tiny pool formed by a spring cascading from a rock.
“Am I dead?” Marion asks. She doesn’t hide her wrists anymore. The scars are there only as a reminder.
I don’t answer. What can I say? What is death, anyway?
“Is this heaven?” she asks again. I wish Barbara would not give me beginners.
“What is heaven?” I ask in turn.
She looks at her feet making small circles in the water. She seems preoccupied with the water. Her face is a mask I cannot penetrate. Then she looks up at me. “It’s different things to different people. Isn’t it?”
I smile back. What a waste. She could have built a wonderful universe. Wherever she had been. She’s bound to do it here also.
“I shall have to be on my own, soon?” She changes the subject.
“We all do.” She is learning so quickly. “We could remain friends?”
“Thank you.”
The next day Marion moves to her own house. It’s been vacated by someone. The house isn’t much, but would be enough for Marion. To start with. Later, she would adapt it to her needs. I miss her. She seemed so innocent. Like a child. She is, really.
Barbara came to see me. I always like to see her. She doesn’t say much, but seems to know an awful lot. Maybe that’s why.
“It is time for you to go back,” she says. I never noticed it. Not really. But her eyes are like two lamps radiating love. Pure love. The type that doesn’t ask for anything in return.
“Where?” I am used to changes. We are here to learn.
“Back home.” Barbara is smiling. She looks like a mother whose child had just finished school. “That’s the fastest school of all. A lot faster then here,” she assures me.
I always suspected that. In my dreams I have seen some of my past. The contrasts are greater back there. You learn by watching the contrasts. The opposites. That’s what they are for. It’s tougher that way, but quicker. And the more you learn that more you can help, later. That’s also part of the game. You become happier. You get to help people like Marion.
“Shall I remember any of this?” I shall miss Barbara. I shall miss Marion.
“Not really.” Even Barbara’s smile is a little strained. We form habits, attachment. They hurt. “Although it’s not impossible.”
I can’t be sure, but I think I must have been here for over three hundred years. Some stay here a lot longer. First we must forget, then we must learn anew. It takes time. Thank God we’re all immortal. I suppose I should be proud for having done my duty here so quickly. Instead I can only think of not seeing Barbara again. I owe her so much.
“I shall be with you,” she says softly. Her voice is so very soft. A mother, a lover, a sister. A friend.
I lie down on my settee. Barbara sits at my feet, next to me. I hold her hand. I close my eyes. The darkness becomes darker. Warm, comfortable darkness. Then I feel cold. Very cold. God, it’s horrible. The lights are glaring. Someone slaps me. I start crying. Why do they slap me? Barbara, Barbara, where are you... Barbara...
Then I feel her arms enclose me. I feel her warmth. Her love.
I feel safe again.
***
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A Word about the Author
Stan I.S. Law (aka Stanislaw Kapuscinski), architect, sculptor, and prolific writer, was educated in Poland and England. Since 1965 he has resided in Canada. His special interests cover a broad spectrum of arts, sciences and philosophy. His fiction and non-fiction attest to his particular passion for the scope and the development of human potential. He authored more than twenty books, twelve of them novels. His short stories, ‘literary’, though tending towards Visionary-Science-Fiction, have been published extensively.
Under his real name he published six non-fiction books sharing his vis
ion of reality. He also composed two collections of poems in his original native tongue in which he satirizes his view of the world while paying homage to Bozena Happach’s sculptures.
By the same Author
Novels
Published by Inhousepress
IN SEARCH OF FREEDOM
GIFT OF GAMMAN
ONE JUST MAN
[prequel to ELOHIM—Masters & Minions]
THE AVATAR SYNDROME
[prequel to Headless World]
HEADLESS WORLD
[sequel to The Avatar Syndrome]
THE PRINCESS
[book One of Alexander Trilogy]
THE PRINCESS (Kindle)
ALEXANDER
[book Two of Alexander Trilogy]
SACHA—THE WAY BACK
[book Three of Alexander Trilogy]
YESHUA [Missing Years of Jesus]
YESHUA (Kindle)
THE GATE [Things my Mother told me]
ELOHIM [sequel to One Just Man]
NOW—Being &Becoming
Short stories
THE JEWEL
Poetry in Polish
KILKA SŁÓW I TROCHĘ GLINY
WIĘCEJ SŁÓW I WIĘCEJ GLINY
Non-fiction eBooks
Under the name Stanislaw Kapuscinski
KEY TO IMMORTALITY
[Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas]
BEYOND RELIGION Volumes I
BEYOND RELIGION Volumes II
BEYOND RELIGION Volumes III
[Three Collections of Essays on Perception of Reality]
BIBLICAL SYMBOLISM Part I Application
BIBLICAL SYMBOLISM Part II Dictionary
VISUALIZATION—Creating your own Universe
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