UTERO: Part III

Accompanied by two ancient companions, Yahya soared over vast stretches of sleeper gardens towards the silver-dusted shadowlands. Therein, there were trees, mountains, rivers, valleys, groves, caves, all the landscapes of Earth in shadow form, contoured by a silvery dust, which was actually the souls of Earth’s flora, small and mute—though ancients still claimed an ability to converse with them.

In the distance, unborn souls were aglow, brighter than ever, twinkling within the dusky purple, pink, and yellow atmosphere of the realm.

Yahya listened as the souls of his ancient companions murmured softly about rivers and fields of golden grain. About dark, rich soil. Soft and yielding.

Souls were never silent. They whispered. Histories. Verses. Names. Songs.

Much was uninterpretable to the unborn, but the words settled upon perception like snow settles upon land.

Before long, the two ancients began to converse openly about the tellers. Yahya listened intently, hoping his own soul would not interrupt them with its involuntary murmurings.

“If Earth is a mother, she regrets giving birth to those demons,” said the first. His midnight-blue spirit burned with flames of green. Yahya had gleaned its name by its murmuring. It was called Aad. The other was Ramz, whose soul sung of a different time and age than that of Aad. Flames of gold flickered within Ramz’s midnight form as he spoke.

“Their existence is a blemish upon souls, but demons they are not. We must remember not to give them any more sense of importance than they already carry.”

“We can no longer ignore their influence in the realm. Violating the unborn with their arrogant fancies. Manipulating the dreams of the sleepers. Distracting the dead with promises of other realms beyond the reach of the soul’s perception. They act as Pharaohs on Earth, as tyrants.” The green flames in Aad’s soul grew longer as he spoke.

“And tyrants are what they shall raise,” Ramz replied. “Perverted souls that feast off others so they may live forever on Earth.”

“On Earth such tyrants typically remained, their souls too weighted with greed to return after death. Perhaps they have managed a return after so many centuries.”

“Indeed, the Gate of Return coughs out unusual things ever since the beasts without souls were set loose upon Earth.”

Machines. Yahya’s soul murmured. At once, the ancients dropped their conversation and began to descend into the shadowlands.

“We leave you here,” Aad announced upon landing. His form now shimmered with minute reflections of unborn souls that were darting every which way in anticipation. “If mercy still exists, you will be sent to Earth before its catastrophes cycle any further into this realm.”

“It rather seems a mercy to stay here, if it’s true what souls say that solace no longer exists on Earth, and even in the height of wealth, a soul can find nought but misery,” Yahya responded.

“Misery is better endured on Earth, where a soul can eventually escape, than here, where we remain bound to the spirit of time and its destiny. We ancient souls stem from those who walked on Earth when time was still in its infancy and toddling under the gaze of its star in the vastness of the universe. It has since gone through many ages and stages. When time meets its ends, every soul attached to its lineage shall also pass. Until then, we labour to keep the realm a pleasing place for souls to dwell, though the work has certainly become harder of late.”

“Perhaps this only shows the spirit of time is fading,” Yahya ventured. “If such be the case, unborn souls have even less reason to venture to Earth. What purpose could it serve to live when time itself may soon collapse, scattering souls into oblivion?”

The flickering flames that characterized the two ancients flashed wider and longer as though fueled by something in Yahya’s words.

“All that human souls need know is that they cannot speed up, delay, nor escape the unfolding of time. Neither can we shape it into something that serves us alone, as all things are bound to it. Awareness of this was once common knowledge.”

Yahya’s soul fell into grievance as the ancients took their leave of him. It simply seemed sensible not to journey to a place that would corrupt his innocence and vomit him back out, deranged and beleaguered, reeking of excrement. Perhaps the ancients didn’t understand, having undertaken their journeys to Earth long ago when waters were pure and vegetation stretched endlessly in abundance.

Forlorn, Yahya wandered about the shadowlands, hardly observing the passing of other souls and their murmurings until a voice intruded upon him with deep and mournful wailing.

It had to belong to one of the newly dead. Yahya could think of no other cause for a soul to groan so wearily, except that it had gone to Earth and returned in agony.

“Peace be with you and a joyous return,” Yahya greeted the distraught soul, whose face had all the usual characteristics given in life, except the absence of an eye. The other eye still blinked in accordance with its earthen habits. It would take some dwelling in the realm of the souls for it to settle into stillness.

“What version of hellish torture have they invented now?” the soul muttered, staring past Yahya. “They wish me to believe I am dead, when I am truly alive. They forget they have played this trick on me before, convincing me of my death by the power of what they put in my veins and the images they conjured. I have not died. I still have this one eye with which to see and my form that they have made to feel soft and fluid like water. I am submerged in something. That is all. This is one of their games, in which my form is mutilated into that of a fish or another being, and they make me adapt to their mockery to prove their limitless power upon Earth. Pity upon souls born into captivity, who have no memory of sun and soil. Beyond this nightmare, the sun still rises and sets.”

As the soul returned to its mournful sobbing, Yahya intensified the glow of his spirit to make himself known to the sufferer in front of him, but the warm coppery light only seemed to agitate the sufferer.

“An artificial light they place before me, as they have sensed my thoughts and want to destroy my memories. The sun rises and sets though they have buried me alive in their chambers.”

In fear of the wretched soul, Yahya backed away while a group from among the dead gathered and began to talk amongst themselves about the tortured newcomer, who seemed to believe he was still alive when in fact he had already gone through the transition of life to death.

“Let an ancient have a look at him,” one of them said.

“No use. Bring the tellers,” others in the crowd said in near unison.

Their crowding and crowing seemed to increase the soul’s terror. His sobs turned to screams, like those that occasionally rang out from sleeper gardens on account of some nightmares.

Yahya shot away as dead souls crowded in. The wretched screams travelled a distance with Yahya before falling silent. Either the anguish of the soul had reached its limit within the realm, or the dead had managed to overwhelm some knots of earthly terror that, for whatever reason, had not loosened upon return. Yet even after falling silent, the screams carried with Yahya, as though planted somewhere deep within his being. He could not shake the feeling.

If, at this very moment, he was to receive his seed, his life would no doubt begin in a state of fragility. Strange that not even one seed had fallen upon the masses of unborn set for departure.

No word had amassed among souls as to why this might be the case.