Exploring Cassy

  ***

   

   

  David the Torch looked tired and depressed, his ovoid aura thin and dark. “It took a while before I found them,” he said as he joined the group. We all waited for him to explain.

  “Well?” Ruth asked. “Who were you looking for and why?” She reminded me of a stern schoolteacher. I was a bit surprised that Counselor stayed so motionless and calm. But then, she was a model for proper behavior, I suppose, under the circumstances.

  “Those girls I killed,” he retorted, as if it were a nothing event. “I wanted to see if that had taught them to be sorry. But they wouldn’t even look at me. Just turned away and moved into the clutches of passed-on grandparents and church members, or whoever.” He flung up his dark purple aura hands in a big arc of disgust. We all moved away, even Counselor.

  “Oh, poor little me, you’ve dissed me, so I’ll make you pay?” Counselor gently touched that dark aura and it virtually melted into a deep blue that was much easier to look at. “I think you’ll find that attitude that so many young people on Earth have fallen into, not very satisfying. It does not bring peace, does it?”

  “No,” Torch admitted. “But why couldn’t they have looked at me? This is...” He didn’t finish.

  “A better place?” Gail asked. “You’re going to find out that it’s only better if  you work at bettering yourself. Same thing as needed to happen on Earth. Killing doesn’t change a thing. Just postpones what you’re got to face.”

  Counselor did an interesting thing then. Just as she once had us drink from the chalice which was so refreshing, she now called over a group of those like her and asked them to sing. It was like nothing I’d ever heard. Even the most moving chorus on Earth did not have the range and passion of these beings. They did not use words, just hummed. It set up a vibration that pulsed through me and I’m sure the others, too, with such soothing intensity that I was full of what could only be described as Love. I could see the auras of the others change and move in waves that neatly intertwined, as if we were dancing together, our vibrating lights like the undulating motions and colors produced on TV and computer screens that were so mesmerizing.

  After a while the beings started moving away and their humming followed them, getting softer and softer. But we were left noticeably more mellow and receptive to each other.

  Then the David being, hardly any Torch to him, told us of something else he had come across in his wanderings around this place. “I found Jesus,” he said. He paused, and we gave him the attention he was wanting. He motioned to some vague place in the distance. “He was over there with all twelve disciples.” He scanned our faces. “Twelve,” he repeated. “The thing is, why was Judas with them?” This time he gave Counselor a long, respectful, inquiring look, and she smiled at him.

  “Judas has been working for centuries, lifetime after lifetime, to redeem his betrayal of Jesus. Now he can sit with the divine beings as one of them. So, you see, never give up trying. You were privileged, David, to see what  you saw. Not everyone has the eyes to see. Yet.” Counselor looked pleased. Then she asked me if I were ready to tell us more about my own demise.

  I wasn’t sure that I was. This had all been such an eventful occurrence, that my story seemed trivial. On the other hand, perhaps I was ready to take a look at that last life I had left behind, so I could go on and plan the next one. I guess I was ready to let Salvador, David, Gail and Ruth in on my last hours on that Earth that we once called home.