Purgatory

Running, running, I have to keep running, through these dark, dreary, misty trees, cutting my own path through the scattered clearings and long intervals of dense undergrowth. I am not the first to choose the Forest over the Fire. This forest collects us, those of us who fled from the awfulness of the heat, that heat that will purify and destroy you. Those of us who knew, somehow, through some prophetic instinct, that true Death would come when we stepped willingly into the flames. Heaven, ha! I saw their faces, those who came out of the Fire. I saw that calm, that emptiness. All personality, all life erased, cancelled, wiped out and replaced with nothing but vacant benevolence. So I ran. And ran. I must keep running, though I don't know why. I press my palm to the rough bark of a tree, pausing for just a moment, panting breathily into the dank air. My hand still tingles from hers and I close my eyes. Not everyone goes through the fire. Those whose souls haven't had time to stain are lifted straight up, bypassing the cleansing, the erasing. Will she still flash that same mischievous smile at the Angels? Or do they have a way of wiping her clean in a less heated fashion? Clenching my jaw, I stumble on. I held her hand the whole time, the whole time, I didn't let go once, not since Mom sent us to the restrooms before the long train ride home, not since we first heard the rumbling, felt the ground move, shift, lurch beneath us, the buildings betrayed by tectonics creaking and then crumbling, walls collapsing like we were under trebuchet siege; I didn't let go. Not through the shrieking, the pain and then darkness, such darkness, such silence. And then the light, faint, misty light, as we all blinked at each other, dazed, while they herded us onto giant ships reserved for a cataclysm like this. I held her hand as we squeezed through the crowds looking for Mom, and as we stood on the deck of the ship staring at the endless foggy ocean, the bowsprits of the huge ships piercing into the mist like swords stabbing violently at nothing. She clung to me when we finally found land, land barely distinguishable from the sea, as we joined the joyless cavalcade that seemed to extend forever in both directions, all of us moving unhappily, reluctantly away from Life. Held her hand until the Sorting, until the path split in three, suddenly, and she was gone. Gone with the Pure of Soul, the other little children and those who had lived blamelessly, perfectly. Why, I wondered, gasping and reaching out in vain with my empty hand, not even able to glimpse her in the crowd that now walked calmly, serenely up, up, to where the mist faded. Why...was it the bubblegum I stole from my cousin last summer? When I punched out the top of Billy's stupid stovepipe hat last Halloween after he ate all my Milky Ways? Because I sometimes lied about whether I brushed my teeth every night? Helpless, I was pushed along, watching the true Sinners descend down another path on the left, down and down, their scowls turning to fear as the growls of the Tigresses that guard the doors to Hell seeped up from the darkness. I shivered, wrapped in the endless gray mist, surrounded by those in the middle, pressing forward together, unsure whether we even had a destination. Stuck in the gray area, neither perfect nor terrible; petty thieves, adulterers, careless motorists, greedy children. I wondered if Mom was here too -- I'd heard her say words you're not supposed to say when she was on the phone with Grandma talking about Dad. But I didn't see her in the infinite line of bodies. We marched for another eternity. And then -- the fire. I felt the heat, felt the mist lifting before I saw it. As the mist thinned we saw the parallel path, just to the right, people who had come through the fire, their eyes now gazing steadily upwards, walking as if in a dream back the way we came, back towards that infinite rise.

I would be there now, if I hadn't seen her. If I hadn't squealed, called out, waved my hands. If she hadn't turned, just for a moment, her expression not even curious, her calm eyes not even hesitating on me for an instant. But then I knew. I knew to run. I knew the fire would kill me, erase me. I'm not the only one who's chosen the forest. I hear the others, catch glimpses of them as I stumble on. I could be up there now; I could be in Heaven. But in here, at least these dark trees are full of our memories, full of suspended lives that will haunt and echo through them forever. I know I will run forever, time a countdown from zero, stretching into more and more nothingness.

But at least I will always remember.