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The Afterlife: Richard: Reading Charis’ Journal
Richard had heard of the Rainbow Lake, but he hadn’t visited it himself. It was somewhere he wanted to take Caitlyn, when he had a chance, because he knew she’d like it. After Charis had moved on he found himself focusing entirely on his job, so he didn’t have to get close to anyone, and he was hoping that by being friendless Death he would be able to put everyone off – then Samael had knocked on his door, the angel who had walked away, which had changed things more than he’d ever expected them to. Sighing, Richard ran a hand through his hair. If it hadn’t been for Sam and his insistence that even Death needed friends he would never have been in the position that he was when Caitlyn found him sitting on the night beach.
Some of the other Deaths had been there. A couple had gone with Samael, before he decided that saying goodbye once more would have been too difficult, and then a couple went alone, because they wanted to learn more about it, which wasn’t a surprised. Everybody wanted to know about the Rainbow Lake, but no one actually knew why it was there or where it came from. Really the only people who might know something were the deities and Richard knew that they’d only talk about something if they thought it was a good idea to, because they knew that some information might affect the way people lived their lives… or their afterlives.
As he ran a hand through his hair he took out the first of the journals. During the lonely early days he had read all of them, from cover to cover, so he felt as though he had friends. Richard shook his head. He realised now that how he’d reacted to Charis leaving had been stupid, because he always knew it was going to happen, but that didn’t make things any easier at the time, and for the first time he could think of her without it being painful. That was entirely down to Caitlyn and Samael. The journal he was holding was one of Charis’, he’d read it more times than he could remember because it felt like having her close again, so he flicked through without really thinking about it to the time she’d visited the Rainbow Lake.
***
I only knew about the Lake because I read the journals that were left behind by my predecessors. Unfortunately it’s been the way I’ve learnt about being Death, the places of death, and the rest of the afterlife, and, even though I am grateful to the writers for being so thorough, I promise that I will guide my successor. Whoever it is will need it. That seems to be what the others never realised, but then they didn’t accept the responsibility of training the next Death after Samael walked away. Honestly, I can understand the Death who lost him to have made that choice, because of the feelings between them, but the others…
Even though a part of me doesn’t want to be I am angry with them. They made their decision based on what he had done, when they shouldn’t have, as he made it based on what he had been through. Yes, he walked away from his successor, but I think it was more than he was walking away from the pain he felt and the memories he had made within Death’s house, as he couldn’t stand it any longer. I wish things had been easier for him, because then I wouldn’t have been abandoned, and might have been visiting the Rainbow Lake with him instead of alone. However it’s been reading about it that has made me fascinated by it, so I’m going there today.
As I normally do when I’m visiting somewhere in the afterlife I haven’t been before I will be taking this with me. Even though I find I have a much better memory of events here I know that the day will come when I want to move on. It won’t be anytime soon. There’s still too much for me to do and the others all wrote in at least five journals and as this is just my second I know that I have at least three more to fill, but I have a feeling I’ll be writing much more than some of them did. Four of the Deaths, between the time Samael walked away and now, only wrote down who they’d brought back from Earth, who they’d removed from the places of Death, and some other very basic journal entries about what they were doing on the days when they weren’t busy.
Occasionally I wonder if they might have had a second, more personal, set of journals, that they chose not to leave behind, because they didn’t want anyone to read their innermost thoughts. I did actually think about that myself, but I want the Death that follows me to be able to read them and, hopefully, be able to remember me as I was during the time I was training them. When I try to imagine what that might be like I find that it’s almost impossible, because I can’t imagine what it will be like to know that I need to move on again. Although I know that I have to I don’t want to ever leave the afterlife behind. I’m happier here than I ever was during life.
That’s why I’m visiting the Lake, actually. A couple of the Deaths before saw things in it, images that they didn’t know would be a part of their lives in the future, and I can’t help hoping I might be lucky enough to do the same thing. I don’t have any friends here, as such, but I do have plenty of acquaintances I have this feeling would like to be friends. Especially Elizabeth. She keeps telling me that I need to have friends, and she’d been friends with Deaths before, so she knows what to expect when I do leave, and yet I still keep my distance. For me, personally, it’s easier, especially as I know what my life was like when it came to friends.
Now that I have the chance to have what could be true friends I should, really, grasp it with both hands, and not doing that might be a mistake. I’m just not ready to. All the other Deaths, after Samael walked away, were alone. They never felt comfortable in the position, which is probably why they didn’t last as long as the Deaths before Samael’s choice. Every time I read about him I can’t help wishing that I could meet him, but I don’t think I’m going to be the one who does. I think that will be my successor, because I will be the one to change things. My plan to guide him, to teach him what he needs to know to do this job, will be the one that changes the future.
At least I hope it did, if you’re reading this, Death that follows me. If you’re thinking that I made a whole lot of promising that I didn’t keep I apologise – no reason is good enough for walking away from you when I know how difficult it is to be Death and to work this out alone. My only guide was the journals the Deaths before had left behind, which, sometimes, don’t feel like they’re enough. Having someone there to tell me, when I’m doing something, that I’m doing it right, or wrong, would be the best thing I could have. Yet my predecessor, who went through the same thing that I did, chose me and then walked away, and I don’t know why he made that decision.
Knowing why probably wouldn’t make things any easier, but sometimes I wonder if maybe it might. If I understood why he chose to walk away, to leave me to do this alone when he must have known how hard it would be for me, I might be able to forgive him. I’ll never be able to forget what he chose to put me through, though, and I feel like that’s my failure. Being Death makes me different to the other spirits, or I feel it does, and if I was truly on another level to them I’d be able to forgive and forget. Or at least that’s what I think I should be able to do. To hold on to this anger at a spirit I met once, when he chose me, is something I really do think of as a failing.
Elizabeth told me that none of us are perfect. We’re nowhere near that stage. Not even the angels are, but then they’re not like us. She talked to me about it once, when I asked her why Samael would have walked away from the Deaths, because I thought it would help to hear someone else’s opinion. It helps that she knows Uriel well, as it means she’d have an understanding of the angels that I wouldn’t, as I’ve never met them, even though I have read about them. However it seems to me like Samael, at the time, knew who he was, and then something changed that. It’s not something the Death ever found out, so he never gave a reason for why the angel of death walked away from the spirits who once only helped him with his job.
Uriel, and the other angels, have never really known why they exist. This isn’t something Uriel’s talked to Elizabeth about, but she can sometimes feel his confusion, as though he’s not sure that he’s making the right decisions all the time, although she says it’s something he only ever seems to feel around her. She believes it’s because he knows her well enough to be able to lower his shields slightly and he won’t do that around any of the other spirit guides – some he’s actually known longer that her. The more she talked about him the easier it was to almost understand, and accept, why Samael made the decision he did, no matter how angry I am at him for making it. Up until that Death he was entirely certain that he had made the right choice to work with the spirits.
What happened to change things I can only guess, but one thing Elizabeth said to me stood out. The angels are learning how to deal with their emotions, the same way that we do, and I can’t help wondering if Samael started feeling something he’d never expected to feel for one of his Deaths. Before that we had been work colleagues and friends, which made saying goodbye hard enough, so what if he’d started to fall in love with one of us? Could that have been what made him chose to walk away? Even though I don’t think I’ll ever be the one lucky enough to know the truth it’s enough that I know he, like the other angels, aren’t perfect either, so sometimes the choices they make are really stupid.
And once again I have gone off on a tangent. Journals are wonderful for that. Much better than conversations, because I don’t have someone looking at me funny as I’m talking too much, or I’m saying the wrong thing, or I’m connecting something to something else that shouldn’t, as far as they’re concerned, be connected. That was always one of my problems when I was alive. Either that, or being too quiet. I couldn’t win and being here, being Death, makes things so much simpler. I can sit here with my journal and write as much as I want. No one is going to tell me to stop. I don’t have a sentient journal that will reply to me.
That would make for an interesting work of fiction though.
Sometimes I think it might be nice to be able to have these sorts of conversations with someone though. It might be something I could talk to the next Death about, because whoever it is will need to be taught about Samael and the decision he made to walk away from the Deaths. Will I tell them what I’ve been thinking about now or will I wait for them to read it in my journal? Until I met them I don’t think I’ll know what will be appropriate, but we might even have already talked about this already. Should I apologise if we’ve already had this conversation? Again, I don’t know. I know so little about the Deaths that came before that I have no idea what the Death who comes after me might be like.
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.