tales for dreamers: a line that must never be crossed
It’s not what you think. It’s not the threshold between life and death. That veil is a thin, diaphanous one. And members from both sides are free to cross over but only at predestined times (mostly).
The consequences for doing so are rather minimal.
When folks from the side of the living step into the space of death, they are missed and grieved by the loved ones they leave behind. If they are lucky, that is.
But time heals all wounds, and everyone knows that death is an inevitable and unavoidable part of life.
When folks from the space of death step into the area of the living, they do so as ghosts or as newborns. Both are usually harmless.
One, you can pretend to not see. The other one demands to remain in your sight at all times. But only for a few brief years, and after that consider yourself lucky if you can even catch a glimpse.
This line that the sign is warning you about is an international boundary line. It divides everything you see between two nations. Like a fence between your home and your neighbour’s.
It divides the land, this bridge that the sign is affixed to. But it also claims to divide the waters, the air, and the skies.
How, exactly? No one can tell. Not even the ones who came up with the idea of creating such an invisible line in the first place.
Unlike the veil between life and death, members on either side of this line do not enjoy free, easy access to the other side.
To cross from one nation to another requires permissions and approvals granted by the powers-that-be, documents and stamps asserting that you are human and sane and mean no harm.
How they decipher that, no one really knows.
Perhaps one glimpse of your face might remind an official of an ex they broke up badly with, and that’d be enough cause for them to deny you entry into their land.
Perhaps it’s the colour of your skin, or the way you tie your hair, or the clothes you wear … anything and everything about you could work in your favour or against you.
There’s really no way to tell.
If you fail to secure the necessary approvals and still decide to cross the line, the consequences will be dire. Incarceration at the very least. Exile to unknown lands is not too remote a possibility. Whatever punishment is meted out to you for transgressing this boundary will be worse than death.
But death comes to us all, eventually, no matter what twists and turns our lives take.
And when you cross that veil, pray to every God you’ve ever heard of, or make up one or two or more to pray to.
Ask them to bless you, so that the next time you slip from the land of the dead to the land of the living, you’re born not as a creature of the land but as a being of the skies or the seas.
No manmade boundaries could possibly confine you then.
Image info for previous tale: The 'pretty cauliflowers for sale' were idling on a shelf in the Fortinos store at the intersection of Appleby Ln and New St.