The Sun
It is said that there’s a spiritual sun for those who exist in the spiritual world and a natural sun for those who live in the mortal world. I know for a fact this is true because I’ve seen them both.
I can travel to the spiritual world in my sleep. Don’t ask me why: I don’t have the slightest clue. Usually, the only way to get to the spiritual world is to die and then there’s no way back.
There’s a life after death, but it’s not what you’d think. In the spiritual world, everything is controlled by you; therefore everybody has their own spiritual world where even the other people are only figments of the owner’s imagination. Everything and everyone is influenced by your feelings, thoughts and memories.
I’ve observed the differences between the worlds, but I have a feeling I hardly know how incredible the spiritual world really is.
The spiritual world is similar to lucid dreaming. When a person is in a lucid dream, they’re aware that they’re dreaming and can control virtually everything in the dream. Only, I know that I’m not just dreaming. When I fall asleep, I’m pulled into the spiritual world by some kind of force. I don’t know where it comes from, but I can feel the pull it has on my body, sucking me upward into the sky, past the sky and into oblivion.
Dreams have meaning, but your spiritual world is a part of you. It cries for you, laughs with you. Everything is you.
I call my spiritual world Graceland derived from the Latin word gracilitas meaning simplicity. Grace is also my name, but that’s not why I called it that. Graceland is simple. It’s so much simpler than the natural world. In the spiritual world, your surroundings speak for you. Your imagination projects your thoughts and feelings into everything around you. And there’s nothing simpler than a world that isn’t constantly trying to screw you over, am I right?
***
Today in Graceland it’s raining. The trees sway sorrowfully in the moaning wind and I sit on a rock looking out on the lake. The waves crash on the dark sand at my feet and the storm coming in over the water forms a foggy curtain of rain.
I used to come here in the natural world with my family. We used to play badminton on the beach and my little brother used to hit the birdie through the net instead of over, claiming that it counted as a point. Yeah, I used to come here to have fun, until the cottage burned down in a forest fire. Now it only exists in Graceland, and I come here to think and remember.
Last week was my sweet sixteenth birthday party. I invited all my close friends for a pool party and sleepover at my house, except Paige. She didn’t like the pool and the next day we were going to have a get together, but the night of my birthday party something happened. I can only imagine the horror of that night and I can’t stop the images as they play out in front of me like a movie projected onto the lake. I see a two story house on a calm dark street. Paige’s house is one I know well.
That night, the street was quiet until a car came squealing around the corner, and peeled into their two car driveway. As the door slammed and a figure stumbled out, the porch light turned on to reveal Paige’s father. He held a bottle of rum in one hand as he stumbled up the front steps. In a fit of rage brought on by some mysterious conflict, he stormed into the house, through the kitchen and into the room where his wife was sleeping. He went to the dressing table beside the bed, threw open the top drawer and withdrew a shiny black pistol. He killed his sleeping wife first, and when the kids woke up, I can guess that they screamed. As the images played before me on the lake I saw Paige holding her sister on the floor of the room they shared as their father yelled at them, pointed the gun and fired until they were both dead. By the time the ambulances arrived it was too late for any of them.
And to think that just a short drive away, I was celebrating my sweet sixteenth birthday. Paige, her mom, and her eight year old sister were gone. My best friend could have lived a full life, if only I’d invited her to my birthday party.
“I’m sorry” I whisper to the ground as a tear dropped from my eye to join the ripples of the rain in the water.
Still looking across the lake, I can barely see the spiritual sun now behind the stormy clouds, but I know it is about to set. I hear my name and when I look to my left, Paige appears beside me on the rock, smiling. The clouds begin to clear as I wipe my tears away. Of course this isn’t the real Paige, only my memory of her with her freckles, dark hair and green eyes. Together we watch the sun set over the still water and then the world goes black.
***
I open my eyes to a new day in the natural world. Paige’s funeral is today at Eleven O’clock. I glance over at my alarm clock. It reads 9:32
As I roll out of bed a pang of sadness hits me as I realize this is the 6th day out of the rest of my life that I’ll have to spend without my best friend by my side.
No. Today you will not pity yourself, suck it up, get dressed and go honour Paige.
I take a deep breath…then another. I look at myself in the mirror and paste on the most genuine smile I can manage. It’s not very convincing.
I throw on the dress I had worn on Christmas Eve last year. It’s black and it hugs my body perfectly. The straps cross in front and in back forming diamond shaped windows. Paige had helped me pick it out. She said I looked “hot” in it. I giggle at the memory. Paige could always make me laugh. She could make anybody laugh. I guess that’s how she landed her awesome boyfriend David.
Oh God! Poor David!
David and Paige had started going out after he surprised her with a romantic picnic last Easter. The three of us met on the first day of school; Elementary school. It was so easy back then. When you’re five years old and thrown into a classroom with a whole bunch of kids your age, all that’s left to do is make friends.
I finish getting ready to go; applying makeup half heartedly and memorizing the speech I had to give in less than two hours. As I open the door to leave, my mom trudges out of her bedroom in her pyjamas
“Grace? Why are you up so early and where are you going?” she asks with squinty eyes and a sleepy voice.
I turn around to see her standing in her bedroom doorway squinting at me through beams of sunlight that shine through the living room windows.
“I’m going to a funeral, don’t worry I’ll talk to you later mom. Go back to sleep, you don’t have to wake up for another hour.”
“A funeral? Wait…”
“Its okay mom” I cut her off “I’ll explain later, don’t worry about me” I call a quick goodbye then shut the door behind me and start walking to the bus stop.
***
The funeral was not easy. I bolted out of the sanctuary before finishing my speech, running down the isle and through the big heavy church doors, eyes burning. I ran along the outer wall of the church and after turning a corner, I found a crevice just narrow enough to squeeze inside and slide to the ground. I curled up in a ball, put my head on my knees and finally let myself cry for the first time since Paige’s death. Even with the walls of the church holding me together, I still felt like I was falling apart, like if I were to leave my little hole in the wall, I would crumble, leaving behind only a pile of dust.
I wished I could escape to my simple Graceland, but I can’t go there until the sun rises. The only thing in the spiritual world I can’t control is the sun, and the sun only rises when the natural one sets. So I huddled in my ball until the funeral was over and everyone left. No one found me, so when I finally stood up to leave hours later I was surprised to find David sitting on the stairs under the willow tree.
“David? You’re still here?”
I seemed to have interrupted some deep thought because it took him a minute to look up and acknowledge that I had spoken to him “Oh uh yeah, when you ran out, I knew you’d hole up somewhere until you were ready to come out, so I waited.” It wasn’t long before we both started towards our favourite restaurant without a word.
When we got there, David went to order while I slipped away to the washroom. When I came back, I found everyone in the building crowded around the bar counter watching the one small TV, volume turned all the way up.
“…As a continent that we would describe as ‘typically rainy’, it’s hard to believe that countries in Europe such as Denmark, Spain, Germany, Russia, Scotland and Norway are suffering serious water shortages. All of these countries are on warning for high risk of fires. The dry, hot conditions make for a dangerous situation. We’d better hope for some rainclouds soon or this could turn into the worst recorded European drought in history”
I live in Canada, so this must be a world wide news channel. I climbed up onto a bar stool to get a better look at the screen. In the bottom right corner of the screen, a list of countries scrolled. A high warning for fires meant you weren’t allowed bon fires, barbecues; even smoking could start a fire in such dry conditions. The list went on and on, until I was sure they’d named every European country.
***
That night, I found myself sitting in a silent dark room. After spending hours staring at beautiful pictures of Paige, and wishing I could be that beautiful, I’d cried myself dry. With the light of the moon streaming in through my window, I lay down, closed my eyes and imagined myself flying upwards, towards the sky and before I knew it, I opened my eyes in Graceland.
I stood before a bon fire, and on the other side with his back to me stood my long lost father. I don’t blame him for leaving me anymore. Everyone leaves me eventually, even Paige. Suddenly Paige was the one standing there, but it wasn’t her. She had my face, shy and afraid.
I floated up into space until I could see the huge planet Earth in front of me.
If I don’t get to be loved, then why should any of those other selfish people down there get to have everything? Why should the world get to take everything from me, and still go on living?
“It’s Not Fair!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I could feel my teeth clench, my throat close and my eyes start to burn. My tears started to blur my view of the beautiful, horribly selfish planet, and I hated it. I hated everybody on it for having what I couldn’t and at the last moment, before I couldn’t see anything through my furious tears I let out a scream that scared even myself, and I saw the entire Earth burst into flames.
Then I tumbled towards the earth and blacked out just as the flames licked my skin. I was back in my bed in the natural world, gasping for air.
Moments passed before I started to hear screams, and my door swung open to hit the wall hard. My mom sprinted in and grabbed me by the arm yelling “Fire!”
As she dragged me out of my room I looked back, out the window to see flames. The same scene I witnessed and caused just minutes ago in Graceland.
Everyone is going to die aren’t they? If this is like what happened in Graceland, then it won’t be long before the entire planet is a great ball of fire. There’s no way anyone could survive that.
I knew what was in store for my neighbours. I’d condemned them to an afterlife of solitude.
