The Other Side

• Artist: Absque Iter
• Description: Have you ever wondered what it must be like to die? If you die a peaceful death, do you go to Heaven, or to Purgatory or Hell? If you die an untimely death, are you left with a choice to go back? In this short story I did for a creative writing class, I entail what it must be like if you are left with a choice. If all you had was one reason to live, would you go back?
• Date: 04/14/2009
• Tags: other side short story death

Light shines and a hand reaches. You take it, and it takes you. Not your hand, not your body. You. What is, has been, and ever shall be.

You look down to your feet, and see you. Your blood sliding across the ground. Your broken body limp and frail. Your eyes staring into nothingness. A lone tear lamenting its last fall to earth. Your hand clutching a ring. This was for her.

You want to cry, but you can't. You feel everything, and nothing. This is everything you are. Everything you were. Everything you will be.

You fall to your knees without a sound. Without impact. You feel your dead face. It is cold. A cruel contrast to the essential red liquid pouring from your being. You feel your dead hand. Reaching, hoping to feel one last time the love embodied in the band within.

You look up to your escort. Their is no face. It is silhouetted by a beautiful light, unlike any you've seen before. The light eclipses the head, almost forming a halo in the glisten of the light.

You ask why. Why me? Why now? You recieve no reply, yet you know why. You feel it. Think it. Know it. You know why this was, and had to be. A hand reaches out to you. It is time. The world turns to a tunnel. Long. Dark. Beautiful. You see nothing but your escort, you, and that broken body before you. It is time.

You now know. This is the time for your choice. There are two doors before you. The door to everything good, and all you have lost to time, and the door to everything you have to lose.

What do I do? To leave is to hold my mother, my brother, my father, and my beloved family. I can hold them again forever. To stay is to hold my love, my reason in a world of chaos, greed, anger, suffering, ignorance, war. Everlasting paradise and my family, or my love. What do I do?

You stroke your physical hand, feeling its coldness, its possibilities. You see her face. You see your funeral. You see her crying. You see your descent into the earth. Dust to dust. She is mourning, she is crying.

You look into the face of your escort. You have made your decision.

Comments

[Kianaries]

This is really good. ^^ I like the ethereal speculation that you (your narrator) goes through. I also like how the decision he's made is left up to the reader's discretion. It's a nice change from the usual wrapped up ending that's normally viewed in writing.