Writing Lives

The Life After

6 A few hours after I crossed over, I still remembered a few things from my former life. I’d not yet drunk the waters of the Lethe. I remembered my father and mama weeping, my friends, family, and everyone I knew and loved, gathered around me. Their wave of emotion, mostly grief, longing, and a sense of loss washed over me. In this state, I could already tell which souls were making the crossing with me and who was staying behind. I was still in the zone between my former life and the life thereafter. If only I could have held them all a little closer and told them that I loved them a little louder. I should have said that I would come back from time to time, to look in on them, and see how they were doing. This was not the end. But I didn’t, Charon was waiting, and I disentangled myself from their embrace, steeled myself against their tears, gave Charon my stub, and was swept away on his vessel, where they could not join me. I knew that although I was leaving, and the desire to stay was strong, those I loved knew that life had become too painful for me there. It was time for us to let go of what we knew, of the physical, terrestrial bonds The Life After Tendai Huchu 7 The Life After by Tendai Huchu that tied us. It was time for me to move on. I was not certain of what lay beyond. Is anyone ever? All I had to count on was hearsay, overheard conversations, glimpses on TV and in art. I was not alone on my journey. Other souls travelled with me as we were carried up high into the heavens. The piece of earth, which was all I’d known, shrunk and receded from sight. We were pulled ever upwards , watching our homes turn into dolls’ houses, the play parks we’d spent our childhoods in vanish, the hills and the valleys we had known disappear, until all that was left was the sky above. When I was a child, I always dreamed of flying. In my dreams I would soar high above the world, powered by nothing but the strength of my will. Maybe I watched too much Superman and read too many comics, and yet here I was, now, defying gravity and soaring through the sky. My dreams turned into reality at last. Until then, my life was pretty much unremarkable. I was born into an ordinary family. Father worked for the post office for his whole life, and had risen to the rank of postmaster. Mama was a housewife, and apart from a brief stint as a cleaner, before father plucked her from whatever hotel she worked in, she’d never really done anything else. I was the eldest, and had three sisters who doted on me. We didn’t have much, but we were happy. In telling my story, I wish I could say there had been something more to this life, or that my parents had screwed me up in some meaningful , existential way, but they hadn’t. On Fridays, father liked to read to us, after he came home from work. Mama, who couldn’t read, would lay her head on his shoulder, her eyes following as he went through the text, almost as though she was reading through him. On Saturdays, he and I went to watch football. Sometimes Tanya, the littlest one, came with us, but more often than not we went alone. I had this feeling of pride, walking with him through the crowds. As he stopped now and again to greet someone, he always told them Pele (that’s what he called me) was going to make the local team one day. I did too, and played goalie for four years. He never missed a game, for as long as I played for the team. He’d be drinking a beer with his mates, and you could bet that his face always lit up from the stands when the crowds roared, 8 Writing Lives ‘Pele’, after I’d made a save. Then, he’d grab the nearest stranger and let them know in no uncertain terms that I was the issue of his loins. On Sundays we always went to church, and sat in the same pew, as a family...