Previously,
Overwhelmed by the crushing darkness, Bartholomew tries comprehending the reason for existence and God's motive as judgment arrives, lurking in the shadows.
Episode III, IV
The rest of the comfort, or relief, or solace or whatever you call it, came when he noticed the bright white speck of light straight ahead. It seemed to hover and yet, was stationary.
There was nothing to ‘accidentally’ notice about it, for it was the brightest thing he’d ever seen since his death. Without further hesitation, he got up and made for it.
He walked, sometimes ran. The bright white speck grew at a very slow pace. He knew he was approaching it, just not quick enough. It was frustrating, so frustrating that it drove him mad and urged him to push on.
After what seemed like forever, the white speck was now finally a giant nimbus. He was really close. He staggered towards the ball of light, with a hand shielding his eyes, which seemed like a perfectly circular drop of white paint on a black canvas. The colors had such a great contrast that for a moment it felt like a squabble between the two. So very distinct. His stagger soon become a trot, his trot became a run and finally, he dashed into the bright luminosity and was engulfed by it.
-----
At first he did not understand it. Then, he couldn't believe it. And then anger coursed through his body like an orgasmic shiver and he let a bellowing cry of rage.
It was exactly similar to what he had experienced when he was in the darkness. He was not able to see a single thing, not even himself. Not his hands, not his legs, nothing. Just pure white light.
Those confessions never worked, you lousy priest!
With nothing left to do, he tried moving around and feeling everything.
Things were getting weirder and weirder. Not a lot of things had happened after his death, yet, he felt that he had experienced immensely. Strange thoughts began to creep into his brain. They flowed and flooded every corner of his mind. Bartholomew sat down on the opaque surface and sucked in a large breath.
Breathing was such a strange thing once you were dead.
How could one breathe after his death?
Was it that a part of your human nature always sticks on to you even after death?
I am dead now, I don’t need to breathe.
Bartholomew stopped breathing and waited to see how long it would take for him to feel asphyxiated. He never felt it. Breathing or no breathing, death was death. Whether you felt emotions or not, death was death. If you could bleed or not, it did not matter. Death was still death. Once the life force was sucked out of you, you could be the person you want. A ghost, a protector, a demon. Anything.
Only, you would be dead to others. And no one would notice what you’d become. You’d get just one thing, the constant hatred and fear from the people you went after. The interminable mourning.
Maybe that is the reason why death is the biggest mystery. No one knows what happens after we die. One can speculate to extraordinary lengths, but without an impressive end.
Was Bartholomew a ghost now?
Am I demon? Can I possess things?
Or people?
He closed his eyes and thought again. When he opened them, the light no longer pestered him. He was transported.
Bartholomew wasn't surprised. He chose not to be. He was his own man now.
Things are much simpler with imagination.
The place was empty and dark. All color seemed to have faded and what was left was this dull grey. He was sitting on a wooden bench, a newspaper by his side. The only thing that had color. A dirty yellow, coffee stained. There was a solemn glow that illuminated the vicinity. He closed his eyes and hoped for whatever that was going to come, to be quick and remorseless.
His ears then picked up a crisp sound. Like that of a plastic wrapper being crumpled. They stiffened and his hair stood on its edge. His skin was riddled with goose flesh. He opened his eyes and looked at the source of the sound. It was coming from the trashcan that stood beside the wooden bench. A little further away. Bartholomew couldn't contain his surprise.
Old habits die hard, eh?
The scene he saw was the strangest thing.
-----
Or was this, the afterlife? He wondered.
There, by the trashcan, was a man with his back facing towards Bartholomew. His hands were busy fiddling with something inside it. He ruffled through the garbage, occasionally throwing some outside onto the ground. Bartholomew noticed that the trashcan was colored as well. Just two ordinary things strongly noticeable in the grey.
The man stopped probing the can and held something to his mouth. He turned his head backwards, slowly, towards Bartholomew. Their eyes met. The two stayed in that position for quite some time. The man was badly hunched, with a bald head and deeply set eyes. They sank so deep into his sockets that at first Bartholomew thought the man had no eyes at all. A tiny bit frightening, to be honest. His body was similar to Bartholomew’s. But he was clothed and very, very old.
And in his mouth, there was an apple.
The man stared at Bartholomew with a certain panache. When the duo blinked at the same time, the old man walked over towards him. He could now see that the man’s skin was bad and wrinkled, like an overused piece of tissue. The old man shuffled over to the wooden bench, his feet scraping the floor like sandpaper. Bartholomew felt a cringe pass by and ignored it. He could now ignore whatever he chose to. No matter how pressing it was.
Because he was a man of his own making. He was the scribe.
The old man finally reached the bench and sat down on the newspaper. Bartholomew noticed that the apple was colored too. The old man lifted himself up a little, removed the newspaper from under his bottom and placed it by his side. On it, he placed the fruit.
Bartholomew wrestled with his conscience for a while.
Should I be the first to talk?
He cleared his throat before asking, “That, from the trashcan?”
The old man had placed his elbows on his thighs and appeared lost in thought, staring into the vast expanse of the grey.
“What, do you see?” He asked. A pause, and then, “I see the work of a virtuoso. What you are witnessing, my friend, is a masterstroke of his brush.” His voice, sounded feeble. The way you spoke when you had no teeth. His withered lower jaw clung helplessly to his upper one and there was this constant quivering of his lips that began to annoy Bartholomew.
All Bartholomew could see was grey. And the only three other objects that belched color.
“It’s really wonderful. The scenery compels you to think more. And the more you think, the more you begin to see.” The old man looked at Bartholomew and gave him a smile. The smile was so disgusting, he couldn't think of anything else sorrier. His upper and lower lips engaged themselves in a competition to see which lip could reach the sides of his skull the fastest. Bartholomew was right about one thing though, he had no teeth. Just a two walls of ugly blackened gums above and below.
He gave a forced wheeze, “See?”
So, Bartholomew focused ahead and tried contemplating.
-----
“Are you up for taking a stroll?” He questioned, politely. Bartholomew nodded and they stood up in unison. He felt weak kneed as he took his first few steps. He was still naked, with the two craters in his buttocks. All of this reminded him of some great cleansing. If this was the way through which he would be cleansed, then so be it. It was much better than rotting away in hell’s cauldron.
The old man stopped after a while.
“Look around you Bartholomew, what do you see?” He asked.
Bartholomew turned around slowly and took the surroundings in. The color was all still a dull grey. White streaks and patches were splattered at random against its expanse.
“I see, perforations? Are those, holes? Cracks against the sky.” He edged closer and looked deeply, “Clouds. Those are clouds. Right?” He asked the old man, who was smiling.
“Go on,”
Bartholomew looked down at his feet. Something indiscernible to his eyes was spread across the floor.
“What’s this?” He stopped and realized it when a crab waddled across his feet. He looked sideways, back hunched. A wave of darker grey came rushing up to the shore.
“A beach.”
“Not just any beach.” The man pointed.
“Well? What kind of a beach is it then?” Bartholomew asked. The old man smiled and replied.
“You’ll know.”
“Is this God’s beach?” Bartholomew inquired. To this, the old man stopped and lingered for a moment with his right leg suspended in midair, like a puppet being controlled by his puppeteer.
“God? Who’s God?” The old man looked bemused.
Bartholomew raised an eyebrow.
“Why don’t we take a walk, and you can pass me some knowledge about this God.”
“Alright. Let’s go.” Bartholomew replied. He couldn't help but notice something.
The old man was beginning to get stranger and stranger by the passing time. Bartholomew noticed that his hair was turning darker and the wrinkles on his facial skin were fading. The veins that threatened to break out of his hands and fingers, now lay deeper inside. The skin seemed smoother and his vigor, stronger. They walked across the sand, Bartholomew barely felt the sand beneath.
“God. Is a terrifying concept.” Bartholomew stated.
“A concept? Is it not real?” The man asked.
“Oh no, I did not mean that. I simply meant that, to understand the notion, the idea, of God, would be terrifying.”
“Is it something frightening?”
“No, and it’s not an ‘it’. It’s a ‘he’ or a ‘she’, based on what religion you follow.”
“Ah, a person then!”
“Yes, you can assume that.”
“Why do I have to assume? Haven’t you seen this God?” Bartholomew remained silent for a while. His lips, pressed into a thin line.
“Are you just making stuff up?” the old man asked.
“No, I mean, yes I haven’t seen God. Nobody has. He’s very powerful and one cannot see God with just human eyes.” Bartholomew corrected himself.
“Oh, alright then. Where does one find this God’s residence? Where does he live?”
“No one knows that!”
“So, what do you know?” The man asked. In what seemed to be an amalgam and honesty and frustration.
“I know that God is a being. I know that he is omnipotent. I know that he can do things no living human can. He is the definition of a miracle. He is the reason for our existence, the reason for our well-being. He protects us, he cares for us, and he feeds us. He helps us in times of danger. He is our savior, our hero. He is the air we breathe, the water we drink. He is whom we all go to when we’re in trouble. He eases our worries. He makes sure that, from the start of your day to the end, you stay protected. He is God.”
By this time, the walking had stopped and both of them faced each other. The man had grown younger still, with full hair and beard sprouting from his cheeks and chin. The hunch was gone, he was upright. The eyes were still the same. He nodded in satisfaction and resumed walking with his hands dug deep into his pockets. Bartholomew followed.
“Now do you understand?” He asked, searching the man’s eyes for a glimmer of hope, for the impression suffusing across his face. But in this dark grey, all was desolate. The man nodded before answering.
“A magical, mystical being.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Who is able to perform miracles?”
“You got that right.”
“Whom you all believe.”
“Most of us, yes. The more bold ones try testifying against God. They usually fail.”
“Of whom, you literally have no idea of where he is, or what he looks like. You have no idea if he’s a person or not, or if he’s tall or short.”
Bartholomew fell silent.
“Or if he’s fat or thin or ugly or handsome or bald or sporting hair. You have zero ideas.”
After hearing no answers from Bartholomew, the man continued.
“You have fabricated someone into existence. Someone you created in your head because you wanted someone to guide you along your path to glory, because you still see yourself as a small child. You want to be nurtured, fed and sung to sleep. Someone who could wash all your pains away. Someone, you named, God”
Bartholomew threw his head back and covered his face with two palms in a show of strained resolve.
“Before you start judging, let me point out that God, is not a novel notion. The belief was present from the beginning of time itself. There are evidences, theories, people sacrificing their lives for the sake of-”
“An imaginary being.” The man cut him off.
“He’s not an imaginary being.”
“Then prove that he’s real.”
“I can’t.”
“Then he’s not real. He’s a figment of your imagination.” Bartholomew opened his mouth to reply when the man cut him off yet again.
“Save your theories for later, I have something to show you.” Saying so, he began walking again. Bartholomew followed, his anger burning hot. No matter what he chose now, he could not become that, he observed.
They walked all over the sand and came to a stop. This was where the sand melted into a Brobdingnagian body of water. Still a dull grey, the frothing waves came up and gently lapped at the shore. The man took hold of Bartholomew’s hand and started walking towards it. Bartholomew hesitated slightly at first and then continued without bucking. The duo walked into the monumental belly of the ocean, looking like a pair of rice grains.
He did not feel the cold, nor did he see the blue. He saw darkness again, but this time he wasn't afraid. The man’s hand was still clasping his firmly. He felt no ground, his body kept rotating in a slow circle. It was oddly comforting.
It was then, silently and in solemn reproach, that Bartholomew heard the squeal.
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(To be continued)