Days of Sunshine

I stood suddenly and stepped to the railing, gazing at a remarkable sight. A bright blue meteor raced across the dark sky. I leaned to catch its decent. The meteor appeared to land many miles away, but when it did, the ground around me trembled. There was flash of blue light so fast that I wondered if I had imagined it.

“Cepheril, what was that?” my wife asked, emerging from the house.

“I don't know,” I replied.

The Lighthouse - 12

  Sadier took my arm, Seth took my wife’s arm, and we walked outside. The waves became louder as we walked. We stepped from grass to sand. After a while, the sand became firm under my feet, informing me that we were close to water. They carefully guided us up a narrow ramp onto a wooden deck. Sadier showed us where we could sit while I heard Seth working the ropes in the background. We were moving.
  When the shoreline was out of sight, Sadier took off our hoods. We were on a vessel not unlike the one I had journeyed here on. It was cutting through the water at high speed. Now it was a waiting game. Seth, Sadier, and I talked. I asked them a lot of questions but they didn’t answer them all.
  The sun traveled toward the horizon and began to set. Seth said that the sailboat would cross the wall in an hour. It was going to be a close call. A half hour later, Seth spotted the sailboat. Light was beginning to fade. We honed in on the vessel. I swallowed hard, trying to be happy that we were going to make it. We glided up beside the sailboat so that my wife and I could board it.
  Sadier and Seth hugged us.   “Take this with you,” Seth said handing me a necklace. “Just so you don’t have to make the swim to shore. The lever on the machine slowly returns to its original position, so the lighthouse won’t call the sailboat to itself tonight, but this will make it take you right up to the pier.”   “I look forward to the day when we will meet again, Cepheril,” Sadier said to me.   “How will I find you?” I asked, not wanting the conversation to end.   “The day will come,” Sadier replied. “Be humble and be faithful.”   I sighed but flashed a smile. Then I turned toward the sailboat. I stepped from deck to deck, arriving on the boat that was about to cross the wall and return to the natural world. My wife followed reluctantly.   “Say hello to the lighthouse for me,” Seth shouted as he let their sail go limp, causing their boat to start slowing. We sped ahead in ours as they floated there watching us sail to the wall. I watched them fade away. It was dark, but I do believe I noticed them suddenly disappear. That informed me that we had crossed the wall. I didn’t feel that chilly feeling this time.   My wife and I sat against the back railing of the boat, looking out at the sea, taking in the moment. She laid her head on my shoulder. I was happy. She slept but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to miss a moment of this ride. I thought back on what I had been doing at this time last night. I had just pulled the lever and connected the machine to the apparatus.   Hours passed as the sailboat gently brought us home. It wasn’t nearly as foggy tonight and I started to see lights in the distance. The sailboat steered parallel with the shoreline about 300 yards out. After twenty minutes or so, I saw our lighthouse’s beacon now returned to it’s normal two seconds on eight seconds off. The vessel edged right up to the pier, so close that we were able to step off comfortably. We sat on the edge of the pier and watched it sail away into the night. Then we went inside the lighthouse and climbed into bed.   We decided to find a new home because using the lighthouse again was too great a temptation. As the years passed by, it became hard for us to believe that our trip to the afterlife had even happened. We asked each other if perhaps it was just a dream we had conjured up together. But of course, deep down we both knew it had really happened. My wife was different in many ways after the experience. She longed to see and feel the glory of that city again. I hadn’t seen the city like she did, but I didn’t need to. For many years, I had felt that longing and that awareness that such awe lay just beyond us. We love our lives and we have reached a place where we are not restless. We are thankful for what we have been given. But as we grow older, our hearts leap with excitement as we think on the glorious world that awaits us in the end.

The Lighthouse - 11

After ten minutes the jeep came to a stop. I heard Saider hop out and run around to the passenger side. He helped me to the ground and began to guide me. He opened a door and ushered me through. After closing it, he took off the hood. I blinked a few times and perceived a dimly lit room. Sitting on a couch against the wall was my wife... I ran to her and embraced her tightly.
She squeezed back crying, “Cepheril, you came! They were right. How did you know how to do it? All this time you were studying the lighthouse to prepare for this? You knew it was coming. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How could I tell you that you were going to die?” I said. “And you are not going to die. I’m going to take you back.”
“I don’t want to go back,” my wife said. “This world is amazing. You need to see it.”
  "Cepheril," someone interrupted. A figure walked toward us, carrying a chair in one hand. He set the chair in front of us and sat down. After Sadier took off my hood, I had briefly spotted this man sitting in the corner before I ran to my wife.
"Do you recognize me?" the man asked.
I did faintly recognize his face and paused trying to figure out why. "I've seen you somewhere," I said.
"Perhaps around the holidays?" he suggested. It was the only hint I needed.
"You're my uncle Seth!" I declared. "You look not a day over twenty-five." I said.
"I see you found my machine," Seth said.
"Why did you build it?" I said. "Why did you leave home?"
"There's enough time for conversation, but we need to get you both back on that sailboat as soon as possible," Seth said. "We’ll chase down the sailboat before it crosses the wall. If you miss it today, you will never be allowed to return."
"I don't see why we have to leave," my wife spoke up. "If it's my time to die then let me. And now my husband has joined me. I can't imagine anything better. And don't tell him that he's taking heaven unnaturally because you did the very same thing."
"I did. But I'm telling you it’s not worth it. At first it was great. But it didn't take me long to start feeling extremely sick about it," Seth replied. "I left my family and friends without saying goodbye. How could I enjoy the wonder of this place, knowing I had taken it before it was time? But then I met a girl named Saymi here, who happens to be his sister,” he said, pointing at Sadier. “She had recently come to the afterlife. She told me her brother had been given the chance to join her in the afterlife and had selflessly chosen to go back and keep fighting with his friends. The exact opposite of what I did. I realized that perhaps I was being given the chance to right my wrong by taking Sadier's place in the afterlife until he arrived."
"What do you mean taking his place?" I asked.
"It's not for you to know," Sadier replied. "But what my friend Seth is trying to say is that he has sacrificed the pleasures of this world the last five years to spend his time learning how to rescue my sister, Saymi."
"What does she need to be rescued from?" my wife asked. "It's not for you to know," Sadier said again. "But when you get back here, find me, and I'll tell you everything you want to know." "What if I keep using the lighthouse to bring back people who die before their time?" I asked.
"No, Cepheril," Sadier said stepping close, his eyes growing wide in anger. "You must never come here again on the deck of that ship. Let it go. Do you hear me? It’s far too easy to find yourself in witchcraft. I've had too many friends go mad meddling in things they should have left alone."
There was silence for a while.
"That sailboat moves at twenty-five knots," Sadier said. "It's got a head start of almost thirty minutes now, which means it's at least ten miles away. We have five hours till it crosses the wall. We can only hope to gain a couple miles on it every hour. So if you are going back we need to leave right now."
  My wife and I looked at each other.
  “They’re right,” I said.
  “But you haven’t even seen it,” she protested.
  “I will,” I said taking her hand. “We’ll be back someday.”
  There was another brief moment of silence and then Sadier tossed us our hoods. We looked at each other one last time. I put mine on to encourage her, and she did the same a moment later.

The Lighthouse - 10

Something about the color of the beach, the curve of the crashing waves, stirred a deep part of me, something I had either long forgotten or never known at all. The place was very like the world I knew, yet dramatically different.*

A few moments later, I heard a smooth engine approaching from my right. I raised my head weakly and saw a jeep racing toward me.

“Cepheril!” I heard my name above the engine. “Cepheril! Close your eyes!” I staggered to my feet. The jeep parked near me in a storm of sand, and someone jumped out. He tackled me and forced a dark sack-like hood over my head, like what you would use if you were going to kidnap someone.

“Cepheril, it’s Sadier,” he said. “We messaged each other about your lighthouse. You did well making it here. But the more you see, the less you’ll want to go back to your world.”

I was heartbroken.

“I know everything. I know your wife died. And I know you’re here to bring her back. I know where she is.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond as Sadier guided me into his jeep. I felt his urgency. Within seconds, I felt the jeep lurch around and begin speeding back across the sand from the way it came. After a moment, I felt the surface under the tires change to solid ground, and I figured we were now on the grass.

“She’s seen a lot, Cepheril,” Sadier said. “To give your endeavor a chance, I tracked her down and kidnapped her to keep her from seeing more of this world. When I knew that you were close, I left her with a trusted friend so I could come find you. We told her you’re coming but she doesn’t want to leave this world. We need you to help us convince her that she needs to return.”

*paragraph written by Luke Rawlings https://thelordsgarden.wordpress.com/

The Lighthouse - 9

The lighthouse’s beam had long faded away. I had been on the sailboat for several hours and judging by the sailboat’s speed, I was over a hundred miles out from shore.

Suddenly I felt a shivering, a chill in my spine, similar to how I felt in the lighthouse when I was being lead by the angels. You know the feeling. You get it when you encounter something eerie that you can’t explain. Sometimes your soul senses something that your natural senses don’t perceive. For me, this shivering usually passes in a second or two, but it kept growing stronger and stronger until tears were streaming down my cheeks. I wiped my face with the back of my hand swiftly, trying to keep my eyes ahead, my other hand clenching the mast.

The sea hadn’t changed in any noticeable way, but I knew that I had crossed into the afterlife. I trembled and tried to breathe deeply. I wish I could explain to you how the atmosphere shifted. It was almost like I woke from a dream. It was more vivid, more real here, like everything had always been rushing by me until now.

If I had, instead, taken a boat out to sea in the same direction, I would have sailed for hours and hours and never found myself in the afterlife. The sailboat must have slipped through a doorway that my eyes hadn’t seen.

A light began to rise over the bow in the horizon. A sunrise with a color unlike I had ever seen was blossoming in the sky. Though my eyes were wide and my heart beat strongly, the next several hours weren’t particularly eventful. The light in the sky rose higher and moved overhead.

It was hazy, and I thought I was imagining it at first, but land became recognizable far in the distance. My heart raced. It approached slowly over the course of a half hour. I began to make out a vast beach, and beyond that a thin forest.

The sailboat suddenly began to turn, the enchanted ropes and sails moving by themselves. It began so abruptly, I almost lost my balance. The sailboat turned until it was sailing parallel with the shoreline. It continued like that, three or four hundred yards from the shore, which I realized was about the distance it sailed from the shore back home. But then I realized that if I was going to reach that beach I would have to jump out and swim.

A thought raced through my head. Even if I found my wife, we were going to have to somehow catch up with this sailboat and board it to return to our world. But I had to put that out of my mind for now and focus on this swim. I breathed slowly and deeply for a few minutes, then plunged into the waves.

The waves pushed me toward the shore, but they also smacked into my head causing me to choke and cough constantly. Sometimes I would barely get a breath before a wave would consume me. It was a grueling swim. I was very curious what would happen if I drowned but I put that out of my head too. It was tiring. The sailboat was already far away. I didn’t feel like my muscles had anything left to give, but I was a mere hundred yards from shore. I dug deep, fighting and coughing. What I would have given for a few good breaths.

But suddenly I knew I could make it. The shore was right there. Depending on the slope of the beach, I figured my feet would touch down soon. About fifty feet out, my feet found sand. I gave it just a few more good strokes and then put my legs down again, this time my head rising confidently out of the water. I breathed heavily. I trudged through the water, half swimming half walking the remaining distance, my body faint. The waves were violent close to shore, but they couldn't stop me now. I collapsed on the beach where the waves could only lap at my legs.

The Lighthouse - 8

Though it seemed to move slowly at first, the craft now raced through the water, tossing up spray from either side of the bow. For a moment, I was afraid it might smash itself on the huge boulders where I stood, but I put that thought away, trusting it would turn. When it reached a mere three boat-lengths from the shore, I retreated down the slope of a huge rock, preparing for a running leap.

My heart thumped. I could no longer see the vessel’s deck, but the mast was straight ahead. I ran. My rubber soles gripped cracks in the rock, I timed my steps such that my last one was on the edge of the giant rock and then I leapt into the air with all my might.

When airborne, the first thing I noticed was that the vessel had started to turn. At first that made me think that I may not make the jump and fall into the raging waves. Or worse, smash my jaw against the vessel and then fall into the waves. My feet were at least ten feet above the deck of the vessel and the edge of the vessel was at least fifteen feet away. I swung my limbs involuntarily as I soared through the air.

As I began to descend two things came to mind. First, I could now judge that I was going to make it, but barely. And second, I had better start thinking about rolling upon landing, or I was definitely going to break a leg. While flying through the air, I slightly rotated to the left which turned out to be a good thing. I touched my feet to the deck just momentarily, but the brief moment of contact gave me the ability to rotate my body further counterclockwise, instinctively choosing to take most of the force on my back instead of my shoulder.

My body collapsed and I rolled on my back, yelling involuntarily at the violence of it. Then I tumbled several more times, narrowly missing the mast, and finally stopped clear on the other side of the boat. I laid on my stomach, shaking and moaning. I felt the vessel complete its 180 degree turn. I moved my arms into the push-up position and pressed against the wet boards arching my back with a loud groan.

I was hurting. My jump had gone well. I hadn’t broken any bones or hit my head but I was certainly bruised from tumbling against the deck. My right elbow was throbbing and something in my spine hurt, but I lifted a knee and put a foot on the deck. I rose, triumphant and frightened, looking immediately back at the lighthouse, its beam still pulsating the message. The shoreline was a good ways away already and soon it faded into the fog. Only the lighthouse’s beam remained. The vessel cut through the waves as if it knew exactly where it was going and was rushing to get there. Cold saltwater splashed my face. I stood with a hand on the mast squinting against the spray, peering into the distance, tense at what I might see ahead.

But if anything I believed was right, and if anything my uncle had believed was right, I knew where the vessel was taking me.

All this began as just a seed when I was young. I spent countless hours thinking about it. We talk about our plans for the future—what vacation we are going to take, what movies we want to see, when we want to retire. But for some reason, when it comes to talking about our future beyond this life, the conversation ends. There are only short jokes and comments as if it’s cliché to bring it up. It’s just too controversial, too unpredictable to talk about. It’s an awkward subject, not suited for everyday conversation. Yet, who can deny that this trip is coming for each of us? For all of time we’ve watched people one at a time disappear, and we cry for them and say they are gone.

But where have they gone? Are they asleep or are they awake? If they’re asleep, will they awake again? If they’re awake, what are they seeing? What are they feeling? These people that we used to see and talk to, what are they doing? It is something that I beg everyone to ponder deep and long. It’s given me overwhelming excitement at times, and at other times deep, crippling fear that makes me wake up in the night and cry out in terror. These are things I beg everyone to ponder.

It was a lifetime of pondering that lead me to find what I found in the lighthouse. I knew my wife would die, but I also knew that I would be given the chance to save her, albeit in a very mysterious way. The passion I poured into the lighthouse was for her. For I love her more than anything in the world, and I was not about to just let her die and leave me. Her life had not been taken fairly. It had been forced from her by a supernatural enemy in her sleep. Unknown to most, this is how many die in my land. They appear to die from something natural, when in reality, their destiny had been sealed in the supernatural battles that rage in dreams. I had been called by the angels to rescue her in a way not even they could. The time had now come. In mere hours, this sailboat would take me into the afterlife, where I planned to find my wife and bring her back to our world.

For years, I pondered anxiously whether or not what I was doing was witchcraft. Necromancy is a very serious subject, but what I was doing was not necromancy because I was not talking with the dead. I was dying myself in a controlled way. Everyone has heard accounts of people who died in a hospital for fifteen minutes and then came back with stories of an awesome world. This is the stunt I was trying to pull off. Die for a night to bring my wife back.

But to do this, one has to have a portal to the other side. Suicide was simply not an option. But In our world there are many portals to the afterlife, but you’d better not get too curious about them unless the angels guide you, or you will find yourself messing with things that you should be leaving alone. The demons are ever ready to pounce on any naive soul, dangling the carrot in front of their nose, making them think they are finding something. When too deep into the witchcraft, they snatch them in a trap of death.

I don’t understand these things very well. All I was clinging to was the faith that I was being guided by the light. Given any other person in any other world, and I can’t guarantee the same. But as for me, I felt certain that what I was doing was right.