Peace
of the Dead - Kelsey Smith
The Bonefish
swept through the sea with crimson souls at the flank. The chilling water did
nothing to numb their drive to the celestial river. The ferryman had to ferry.
Those were the way things were. Even though the Bonefish wished differently.
He longed to go
upon the shore.
He longed to
meet the living creations his mother crafted with crafted with all her heart
and soul.
He longed to
see. Everything.
But his siblings
were watching. The ones that were left anyways. In their eyes, humans were
shackles of duty, nothing to love or serve. They were murderers.
Which was true.
He had met plenty of them as he gave them one last chance to return to the
shore, not husks of themselves, but as flesh and blood. Many lost. Less than a
handful won. The most recent to win her life back was a woman with jet black
hair and a witty tongue that surprised even him.
The Bonefish
hovered to a stop as he approached a wide oily abyss chiseled through in the
ocean floor, the sand glazing through the water so thick, they could barely see
to the bottom. Yet they knew the way from the trillions of swims to the gate of
the celestial river. Diving past the jagged gray cliffs, the souls moaned in
excitement as the blinding blue light of the gate approached.
Crystal carved
itself squarely into the stone, with shimmering refractions of light stringing
through the water like pearls. In its center, a portal whisked the seawater
into an ebony space beyond all time and meaning.
The Bonefish
grinned when the souls fled from his flank and swam through the gate. The very
essences of their being unraveling like threads to be sewn anew again. The
river, blades of blue laced light streaming in the void, wringed all the pain,
anger, and sadness away until all the Bonefish could feel was the souls’
collective peace ringing in every fiber of him.
Maybe one day he
could feel that very peace too.