Episode II
Previously......
After passing, Bartholomew's body undergoes a series of changes as his soul finally begins to contemplate what lies beyond death's horizon.
After what seemed to be an eternity of walking, he realized that he was trapped in this forlorn purgatory. He knew it. This was his fate, maybe this was hell itself. An infinite stroll in the desolation of darkness.
His flame, which had been raging throughout, had been extinguished. Now, he was all alone. Walking amongst fathomless shadows.
His mind drifted to a certain thing his mother had quoted to him long ago.
In every shadow, there is light.
In every tear, a smile.
In death, I know there still is a life that lingers for a while.
It was really funny and spine-chilling how his dead brain functioned so perfectly even after death. Connecting the dots, making this seem like a real thing.
Of course, this was imagination.
The abyss was so silent.
Could he hear himself breathing?
Was anything, that ever happened, real?
Bartholomew wondered as the voice struck, without warning. It was like a thunder, splitting everything that came in its way and leaving pure destruction in its wake. Bartholomew felt his knees tremble. His feelings hopped from surprise to intense fear and to the idea that if you could stay still, then chances of it spotting you would be minimal.
A giant, monstrous carnivore of Death.
“Bartholomew.”
The voice.
Oh god, the voice!
In that petrifying blackness, the voice seemed to materialize everywhere. If there was anything darker than this void, it was the voice. It did not echo. It exploded from all places.
Bartholomew.
It was of a deep baritone. The deepest, most gruesome voice, he’d ever heard. It started out as a low rumble, like an earthquake and escalated slowly to leave him craving for help.
Bartholomew.
Although it was spoken only once, it resonated inside him for a long time. He realized now that he wasn't walking. He looked up.
It was fair enough to assume that whoever spoke, must have been looking down from above.
Like the dome of an eye, hovering millimeters above the eye piece of a microscope.
If praying had brought him here, he didn't know what to believe in anymore. Not that he had any life left to dedicate to things like believing and praying and hoping.
Praying was such a strange thing. He always thought it made god more than the being he actually was. More powerful and glorious than reality. The notion of praying was ingrained into him as a child. Bartholomew’s family believed in the existence of a single godly being and not a million fragments that people worship to these days. They had created a religion of their own. Incorporated things from various other religions and amalgamated them into one seemingly simple constitution.
The thought of praying came back to him.
But wait,
Didn't God create us in his image?
If that was so, was he this imperfect?
Or was humanity a doodle in his canvass that was the universe?
We’re his children, aren't we? Why do we need to pray then?
Bartholomew, did not forget to pray before he slept. After his day of productivity ended, he prayed.
The gator had had him in shackles throughout his life. Its red, fiery eyes bore deep into his soul and gathered his strength. Then, like a million hooks latched on to a body, it caught hold of his last remaining vigor and ripped away at it.
A roaring, malevolent angel of death.
A reaper.
He did not want that to happen. So, he prayed.
I won’t forget to pray, ma. I won’t.
I won’t.
Was it the reaper that brought him here? Or was it god?
Was this the inside of the gator’s tummy? Had he been consumed?
Or had god erased him?
He created us in his image. And left us here to die.
His mother had told him that if there was one being that could cure him, it was god. So, he had prayed. After 35 years, he had died. Covered in his own piss and shit. Helpless, like a man stuck on the tip of a spear.
Impaled.
God had not answered his prayers.
----
He was stuck for eternity in this awful black empty space. He knew it.
Was this what death was like?
No magical transcendence into the heavenly abode of the gods?
There was no such thing as heaven or hell here.
Just blackness, wrapped around more blackness. Drowned in blackness.
Bartholomew stooped down and touched the surface he was standing on. It was pleasantly smooth and invisible. A floor of solid darkness. He lowered his haunches slowly and sat down on the vast expense that he was just beginning to comprehend. On either sides, he felt no obstruction.
What was this world?
Where was all this taking place?
Was this an imagination or was this real?
Bartholomew considered all the facts.
This place had to exist somewhere, didn't it?
Was this even matter?
A space time continuum?
A lucid dream?
His mind kept going back to the voice. He hadn't heard anything else after that. Nor would he, his gut told him. Sitting on the icy blackness, he let his mind race ahead.
Maybe, there was no god.
God was probably a name our ancestors gave to an alien being with an ability to create worlds.
And somewhere, he made an anomaly.
Humanity was the result of that anomaly.
And then later, probably, he went on to create more planets. Bearing in mind, never to repeat this mistake again.
And left us here to die.
Was this the whole reason for our survival? Were we born as an anomaly?
And just like all other anomalies, do we perish?
Probably our ancestors knew. They knew the reason for our existence and hid it from us so that we couldn't face the horrible truth that was life.
Yes, maybe that was it.
Bartholomew assumed fetal position and fell over sideways. No matter what the angle of his sight, everything looked the same.
Everything was the same.
The same.
Same life, same death.
Did others even exist? Did he make everything up because he was lonely? Was this the inside of a mother’s womb?
A new life? A new beginning to erase my past sins?
Am I being thrown back into the Karmic cycle?
Fear. He felt fear. For the first time in a long while, he felt fear crawling up on him. Slowly, encroaching his body whole and compressing him from the inside. He got up and ran, unable to face the horrid truth. Barefoot on darkness, he ran like a mad man. But no matter how much he ran, it was the same. The same black environment, the same desolation. He ran in every direction possible, raising his hands to feel something, anything. He jumped up and down and swiveled on his feet and stretched his arms out to their extent to find anything to hold on to. To feel the touch of an object, to feel that he wasn't alone here. Anything would do.
Anything.
Nothing bore fruit. Bartholomew collapsed in one corner and lay there whimpering. He started crying. His voice, as audible as a pin dropping in dead silence. A coin, crashing on to a metal floor. It was sharp and crisp.
A lonely death. That’s what he’d had.
With the knowledge that no one was looking, he slowly lifted his left hand and put the thumb in his mouth. That gave him some comfort.
Behind, time probably ticked away, as it would for the rest of the infinity it had started.
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(To be continued)