Behind the Door: Tell A Story to Me #10
This very brief piece was written in response to @calluna's Tell a Story to Me Contest. The prompt directed us to write a story about someone who died and did not go into an afterlife but realized that the life lived had not been "real". @calluna suggested we go for science fiction/horror/fantasy. I'm not sure this is any of those, but this is where the prompt took me.
Awareness returned, but not sensation. It was familiar, like the sunrise, the murmur of the night. Her awareness extended to the microscopic organisms and insect life that absorbed bits of her physical form.
Much of what she had grown accustomed to remained, but slowly erosion was beginning the process of disintegration. She did not regret the gradual loss of that accustomed form. The resistance to her death surprised her now. She recalled the last moments, when mother and father gathered by her bed. Sister and brother wept.
It was a great barrier she had to cross--death--before she reached awareness.
She had crossed that barrier before. This became evident when the door closed behind her.
They were working at what used to be her eyes. The soft tissue was going quickly, into the creatures, into the earth, consolidating with life. As the pieces moved away and her physical decay progressed, awareness spread and extended to nourished roots, larvae feeding off her protein.
She had been here before. And it was good. Her molecules, her atoms, combining and recombining, becoming fuel and foundation for life across the planet, and into the universe.
As the vole ate the insect that ate the worm that fed upon her eyes, her awareness scurried across the forest floor. As the the owl ate the vole that swallowed the insect, her awareness soared into the sky and settled into the nest, where her molecules became food for the young, that grew and soared and fell to the earth and were eaten by a copperhead that slithered into a river where it lived a long life, then died and its remains were swept along the current out to sea, where she became part of the ocean floor and the multitudinous life that thrived in the deepest part of the sea. And she nourished the sea horses and plankton and was eaten by a fish that carried her to the ocean surface where a gull swooped down and she became part of the gull and its journey across the land as it deposited guano in the parks and gardens that lined the shore. And the guano fed the soil that gave rise to vegetables that nourished a woman who conceived a child and the child grew and was not aware, but was part of awareness.
And it was familiar, because she had known all of it before and would know it again as atoms combined and recombined to form elements that became the essentials of life, which was the repository of all awareness.
I like your story very much! The words, the order in your writing and composing and of course the story itself. The circle of life from an inside "view"... amazing! Regards Kadna
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Thank you, friend! So nice to see my Steemit friends popping up here. This came out of me almost without editing--I'm glad to see it has resonance with others. I will pop over to your blog now and exercise my German skills. I am so envious of your bilingualism :) I will vote your comment in a couple of hours. VP slowly regenerating.
You took me on a deep journey. How beautifully you described the cycle of becoming and passing away. So that I myself felt the memory of my knowledge. The meaning of life is life itself and dying is inevitably connected with it, because immortality is not manifested in the body but merely symbolizes a form of omniscience. A certain fearlessness lies in understanding the worms and the being eaten not as a violent act, but as the most natural thing in this world. To call a spade a spade is courageous and beautiful.
Thank you very much for that.
I will give you a vote when I have more power again.
edit: I like how you made also the full circle and the kind of biblical style in your expression.
How nice to see you again! We've been in the steemit dessert. I couldn't resist posting, even if no one was out there. Thank you for understanding exactly what I felt and wanted to say. I will wait to vote also...but I will go over to your blog now and hope to find something.
Yes, it was unusual to see steemit that inactive. Actually, it was not so bad to be in the desert. ... Made me thinking...
Oh, I was already waiting for something from you, on the other hand. lol.
So nice to get in touch with you.
Wow, this is short, but you incredible. You have told the story of what I really hope happens <3 the opening is such strong elegant description, the shifting awareness is so beautifully phrased. I get what you mean about genre, kinda hope it isn't fantasy, but enough people would consider it a fantastical idea that it counts.
I really love how you have looked at 'real' instead of going for a new fantasy world, you have created a wider sense of real, what seemed so important in a single lifespan, pales when the imagination explores the roots you have laid out. Sincerely, thank you very much for this one <3
Results and the next round are out! I really hope you get chance to write for the next one as well :)
That feedback is much appreciated, because you are a poet and a wordsmith. This short piece came to me quickly. It had to be edited for style and I had to think through the stages of life, but the idea was immediate. Some people might have found the description grotesque. I'm glad you did not. It was meant to be beautiful.