This is a more conventional story for those who have been hinting I've been a little avant-garde lately with my creations...
Number 5 in the black void; featuring the ghost. Part one, act one: roll…
“Cut! Where is everybody?” said the voice in the black void, no light at all, can’t see a thing.
“I don’t know,” said another voice that came from a very deep place.
“And who are you?” said the first voice.
“I’m the penitence you must pay,” said the second voice.
“Pay? Pay? But I’m broke,” said the first voice.
“Then I will collect it from all the abundance you have built up and not cashed in yet,” said the second voice.
“Be my guest,” said the first voice.
“Done,” said the second voice. “You are now bankrupt.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” said the first voice walking back and fore feeling for a way out.
“There’s no way out of here,” said the second voice with a little giggle.
“How did I get here?” asked the first voice a trifle worried now that the second voice was making merry.
“You got here by the fruits of your actions and thoughts, and normally people who get to here have built up enough credit so they can buy their way out. But you are flat broke and may be stuck here forever,” said the second voice.
“I could have told you that before I came here. So what do we do now?” said the first voice.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
Your wings.”
“Oh.”
“You did use them didn’t you?” said the second voice.
“Never knew I had any to use,” said the first voice.
“Then I do believe we have a problem. You’re stuck here.”
“For how long?” asked the first voice.
“Forever.”
“That’s a very long time.”
“Indeed.”
Isn’t there anything I can do to get out of here?” asked the first voice pleadingly.
“I’m afraid that without any credit there is no way out of here,” said the second voice.
“Forever?” said the first voice despairingly in the black void.
“Exactly.”
“With you?”
“Oh no, I’m only here as the ferry man, and if you can’t pay to cross over then I must be away; there’s a very lot of others you know,” said the second voice.
“But you can’t leave me here all alone forever,” said the first voice.
“I’m sorry but this is our only meeting. I have to go now, bye,” said the second voice that was suddenly gone.
“Wait! Don’t leave me here forever.”
There was no reply in the black void; the second voice had gone.
After no time at all because there’s no time at all in the black void, and the first voice began to sing all the songs she knew, but when she’d exhausted them all, she found her heart a very troubled place that gave
no comfort.
So she listened to see if she could hear an echo of her life in this very lonely place she was in.
“Can I interest you in a bubblegum?” asked the ghost in her left ear which rather frightened her almost completely out of her skin.
“What?” she gasped.
“Oh come now, surely you’d like a bubblegum?” Said the ghost; in her right ear this time.
“Get away from me,” said Number 5 in her biggest voice in the black void, that came out so small it couldn’t be registered on the Richter scale.
“Well if you really don’t want any bubblegum perhaps I could interest you in something else?” said the ghost in a voice that came from all over the place.
“What have you got?” asked Number 5 feeling quite contrary now.
“I’ve got bubblegum which you don’t want, and I can do tricks,” said the ghost.
“What kind of tricks?” asked Number 5?
“I can do a summersault backwards and land on my feet,” said the ghost.
“So how would I see you do this trick?” asked Number 5.
“That’s a good point,” said the ghost.
“You got anything useful?” asked Number 5 who was not so contrary any more. In fact she was the least scary of all of it in the black void.
“I have a way out of here,” said the ghost, smiling a smile that Number 5 could not see.
“You can get me out of here?” asked Number 5 eagerly.
“I dare say I could,” said the ghost. “But it will cost you.”
“But I’m broke,” said Number 5.
“Not really,” said the ghost.
“How so?” she asked.
“Take my hand and I will show you,” said the ghost.
So Number 5 reached out and found the hand of the ghost which was offered without any strings attached, and with a whoosh she found herself back in her life, albeit without all her karma which she had left behind in the black void.
“Right,” said the ghost, “you have a new start. What would you like to do?”
“I want to give,” said Number 5. “Anything I can, for as long as I can.”
“Well that’s the spirit,” said the ghost, “you can’t go wrong there. But one little pointer...”
“And what’s that?” asked Number 5.
“Do it without any expectation of a return for your giving,” said the ghost.
“How can I do that?” asked Number 5, “when I know I have to give to get?”
“When you see someone who needs something, give them that, in that moment, and then walk on to where you are going and let it be just so without any thought that you have done a good deed. Let it be in the making that the thing is done,” said the ghost.
“Thank you,” said Number 5.
“You’re welcome,” said the ghost.
Image from Pixabay
https://www.audible.co.uk/search?searchAuthor=Dean+Moriarty&ref_=a_pd_Biogra_c2_1_auth