There are those doors which offer no egress, those doors which open only to an insulating wall. Sean’s mother owned a house possessing such a non-aperture and Absinthe had always wondered what lay behind that brick facade. At night while everyone in the house slept she would slink into the gutted, unused-but-for storage-basement and with only the reassurance of her flashlight she would crouch in the shadows watching silhouettes sink into the wood portal. She was not frightened by these apparitions for they were not the darker shadows of an insidious evil but the listless vestments of former humans shuffling in and out as if through a train terminal. That summer Absinthe came many times, thief-like, in the dead of night to observe, like a child stooping in her brightly-colored pajamas. Some nights the family cat sat beside her tail flitting back and forth, green eyes viperous as if it were engaged in cerebral acts of predation. Sometimes, that same cat, lost interest and insisted upon her lap and her good nature for affection.
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One night when the traffic was unusually low, the cat, Lilith who was Abyssinian by breed but inscrutable by nature rose up and with a flirtatious turn of the head, to ascertain that she had Absinthe’s undivided attention, sauntered up to the door. In an instant the feline vanished and no amount of eye-blinking restored her presence or explained her departure. When the aging princess did not return after a few minutes Absinthe rose and lay her fingers gingerly upon the casing which she found to be solid. Turning the brass knob she jerked open the door and behind it there was nothing but not the nothing of consoling and militantly ordered blocks but the nothing of abyss. Forgoing logical consideration or even the hesitancy of a reasonable trepidation she too passed through, as if herself boneless, into the chill of an unrequited darkness.
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Rubbing her naked arms Absinthe saw before her a city lit only by the unnatural glow of a sun pulverized into a fine powder haze. From where she stood atop a hill the city appeared almost sunken, like a ship-wreck discovered only after the dredging of a massive sea. The buildings looked as models haphazardly placed, the girders twisted as if they had been bowed by a tremendous pressure. Beneath her rainbow-colored socks the earth was loose and dry like sand, as she walked she felt the indentures her steps were making but when she looked over her shoulder there was no sign of passage. For a long time her journey yielded no scenic deviations, the city remained mirage-like, out of reach. This place, in whatever realm it existed, possessed no nature, it was if someone had stripped New York down to its endoskeleton and than placed a dome over the whole city. A dome of tinted red glass, that created the ambiance of fire where there wasn’t even heat. There was no sign of electricity, no movement of traffic, nothing to indicate that the city lived or catered to occupants.
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At length, for which no time or distance could be measured, she came to a bridge which connected the barren outlands to the city’s periphery. There was no sound save the violent rush of the waters churning beneath her. The river, unlike the surroundings, was not red but slate grey as if comprised not of water but of ashes. It extended so far in either direction that she could not follow its course despite the height afforded her by the bridge and the lack of visual impediment. “That’s where all life is born…” Absinthe jerked her head up in acknowledgment and there sitting on the railing was Lilith. “Take care not to fall in…the living can’t pass through the portal and you’d never escape the currents…” The cat warned to which she could only nod obediently despite a full lack of comprehension. She did not think it particularly strange that the cat was talking, much less that it understood the situation, for in light of her current circumstances she was not even certain that she was awake.
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Crossing the bridge she saw her first intimations of life, ghosts that appeared, not as an indistinct darkness but as men, albeit men, of a more diaphanous composition than herself. These “vapor” men were passing in and out of detached cubicles that hovered several inches from the earth’s surface. They neither interacted with one another nor acknowledged her presence. “What’s in those rooms?” Absinthe asked startling the cat, who was not accustomed to having intelligent questions directed at her. “Think of it like a private theater…only far more significant than any movie you’ve ever seen…they are scanning for a perspective reincarnation…we’re not arbitrarily reborn you know…its a conscientious decision…one not based on pleasure or pain but rather on experience…the meaning of life if you want to call it that is evolutionary in nature…” The cat answered smirking in a not-so-discreet recognition of her own superiority. “What about the city?” The girl asked and the cat made a gesture that might have been a shrug. “That’s where these guys stay until they figure out what they want to do next..its like a resort town…well not like a resort back home…there all sorts of entities living there not just humans…she keeps them in check…keeps the demons from devouring all the souls but it gets pretty tense sometimes…there is a huge University where you can discuss what you’ve learned about the universe during your last incarnation…how to retain your memories in the next life…how to choose a propitious rebirth…and lots of purification classes to avoid too much human to demon conversion…pollution builds up you know…” The cat answered watching the girl’s face, which was so immaculate in its expression of wonderment, that no other emotion could be extracted.
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“Who is she?” Absinthe asked knowing that her words were unwelcome as the cat jumped backwards suddenly and arched its back as if threatened. “We don’t talk about her and if you have any sense you won’t either…I will tell you one thing though she’s not a God and if you ever get it into that addled brain of yours to worship her she’ll maze your ass right quick…you’d die before you ever worked out how to escape but your soul would be stuck there for eternity…something like purgatory, only less crowded…” The Abyssinian answered narrowing her eyes before turning around sharply to discourage all further entreaty on the subject. “Well come on you want to see the city don’t ya?”
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It got too long to go on 😛 This is influenced by a dream I had, I did go into the city.
Submission for
We Write Poems
Theme Thursday
mindlovemisery 