It Turns Off Pain

von Marcus Krug

(Please note that this is a continuation of Rite of Passage.)

 

“Am I dead now? Is this what it feels like after one has died?” I say, but no answer comes.

“Val, are you there? Somewhere? Anyone?” I say. Again, there is no reply. Only darkness that seems to swallow every sound.

“What is going on here? Is there anybody out there? Where am I?” I try, getting the same result. Isn’t trying the same thing all over again, yet expecting different results kind of insane?!

At some stage the darkness moves on and gives way to the light again. The mountainous jaws, as they were closed, have start gradually to open up again. The sun is rising at a familiar pace. That bit at least is reassuring.

With my eyes gradually adjusting to the light, I am able to make out Val’s slender figure, sitting comfortably on top of one of the pillars of piled up stones. But it isn’t until I can see Val just across from me when I realise that I am residing on top of one of those pillars myself, too.

Its knapsack is stirring again and out of it Val produces a roundish fluffy creature. The little bugger is twisting and turning in its slender hands. Then Val just lifts the rodent up to its mouth and sinks its teeth into the guinea pig’s flank and sucks until the motivation for resistance has completely vanished from the animal’s deflated body.

“Why are you doing this?” I say.

“Why am I doing what?” Val says.

“Killing these animals. First the birds and now this poor thing here. Why do you keep doing this?” Val looks straight at me, holding my gaze, yet smiling. In the corner of my eye I see how it drops the lifeless animal body nonchalantly to the ground.

“You have to understand that I live off the lives of the dying.” Val simply says, “I am merely making sure nothing goes to waste.”

“Just like this?”

“Just like this!”

“So, you are Death? You kill animals for a living?! Is that it?”

“No, not exactly. Me as a concept is probably a bit too complex for you to comprehend, given your human limitations. Technically speaking, I am Life. You may even want to call me by my other name, Love. Only Life can give, but also take life. There is no such thing as death. That is one of your kind’s quite popular misconceptions, because you people fail to see the big picture.”

“You call yourself Life, and yet you kill these animals! But wait, humans, as well? Am I here because you slaughtered me, too?“

“Your remarks are getting rather offensive now, I find. I wouldn’t want our conversation to continue if you kept going on like this. Ungratefulness seems to be strong in you. I don’t kill beings. They are already on their way out, dying. That’s what living beings do, they die. Because at some stage, if you like to put it that way, their host bodies are old and worn out. I only take what life is left in them. And redistribute it.”

A blank stare from my side gives Val all it needs to know about me and the current state of our conversation.

“Let’s just take you as an example, shall we?!” and Val goes on, “You were dying on that road, when I picked you up. On the way up to the top of your mountain, you died a little more.”

“But you didn’t suck the life out of my body, did you?”

“It looks different from the inside, right?! To be quite frank with you, I did and I am still doing it, as we speak.”

“How do you mean – as we speak?”

“Some creatures don’t put up fights, like birds and guinea pigs for instance. But for others, like your kind, it takes longer to understand the fundamentals.”

“What are those fundamentals? And what has this to do with you drawing off the remainder of my energy?”

“Well then, I am taking the energy from your dying body and directing it back into the circulation. Or better, I am re-channelling it to be creative again.”

“I am sorry, but you lost me here again.” I say.

“What I would like you to understand regarding your energy is that it is known in other circles as spirit or even soul, if this makes more sense to you?!”

 

After a while I look down to see where Val dumps all the empty corpses whose energy it is continuously re-channelling. When my eyes are on the way up again, I see that for some reason my feet and legs have become slightly transparent. A look at my hands tells me that even they are fading away.

Val notices my confusion, realises that the time has come, leans over and hands me the wineskin again. It is rather difficult to drink from the skin with gradually fading hands and fingers.

“Is this preventing me from disappearing altogether? I say.

“No, it is not. It turns off pain. And it smooths the transition.” Val says, which doesn’t help at all. “In the end, not only your body will have faded away but also your consciousness and memories of all this and the things passed, and you and your energy will eventually re-join the circulation and pass over to the yet unknown.”

“For some reason, I am failing to comprehend the painful part in this.” I say.

“Oh, it will be painful for you, believe me, I have seen it many times. The way you cling to the past makes parting so painful for the likes of you.” Val says, and adds, “But we don’t talk about physical pain here.”

My face is a blank stare again, yet riddled with question marks. And so, Val goes on, “I usually tend to have less or close to none of this kind of conversations with animals. Because they seem to have a natural understanding of the circle of life. They don’t fail to see that the finale is actually not an end but a beginning and that the goal is simply to be open to whatever change lies ahead.”

 

A look around makes me realise that the sun has disappeared and the valley is now covered by a misty yellow dome. A closer look reveals that the foggy dome only reflects the flickering yellow light coming from numerous fires. The valley itself is now a bottomless pitch-black pit. Out of the pit’s endless darkness, countless huge rock pillars stand out. On top of each of the broad pillars fires are burning. I am now on top of one of those big pillars, as well. Between Val and myself a fire is happily eating its way through the heap of bone dry wood.

Once in a while you can see how some of the fires die out. Val looks at me and points in the direction of one of the fireless pillars.

“Do you see? This was one of your kind. The fire died because she was fading away until she understood. I don’t understand why you people always have trouble with letting go. The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next. One of your famous writers once wrote this in one of her early books. And she is right.”

“How do you know that it was a she over there?”

“The fact may challenge your mind, but I am sitting at every fire you can see here, having almost the same conversation everywhere. This is you on your so-called deathbeds regretting things you did or things you’ve never risked to do or asking questions you never dared to ask before. I am your life; I am everybody’s life and I am also everybody’s realisation of that very fact. That’s how I know.”

I nod, since I am beginning to understand. Another sip from the wineskin makes me even more drowsy than I already am.

Val, of course, notices that, and with a smile on its face it gets up and motions me to do the same. Then it comes over to me. We stand face to face now. One last look at Val’s cruel and yet beautiful appearance.

“Time to let go!” Val says, comes even closer now and puts its elegant hand in the nape of my neck, then draws me gently towards it, and kisses me on my barely visible lips.

 

A pause. After which everything has vanished. There is nothing, only silence and darkness. There is neither valley nor pit, neither Val nor fire, and there is no human being, either. Then a long-stretched, booming sound – although inaudible, yet very palpable – is swelling up, causing ripples while expanding throughout the universe. Vital energy in space, re-joining the circulation.

 

The End