Part 88: "The Vision at Dawn"
Sometime after this—it does not matter when—Alex Matthews was walking on a road—it does not matter which road—in the very early morning. The road was empty and the fields were empty, and the sun had only just begun to rise and bend the bloody sky. The colors of the world were still in twilight and indistinct.
There appeared suddenly, a few yards ahead of him, a bright figure in the air. It was a woman all wreathed in buttery yellow and cloudy white, shining brightly but gently, like ten thousand candles, and wearing a silver coronet. Behind her stretched two white swan’s wings, and she stood six inches above the ground. Alex caught his breath, and bowed his head, and the ikon, in an echoing, multiple voice, spoke:
“What happened before is before, and what happens ahead is ahead, and what happens now is now, and that is all; but your imagination fails you. You know that there is more than you can see, but you are all but blind even to the scope and profundity of your blindness. You don’t begin to suspect the almost infinite filmy squalor of your vision. Like an infant in the womb, or a yolk within an egg, you have no view, and your questions and prayers are confused. Like an infant in the womb, you go where your mother goes, but do not know where, and see what your mother sees, but do not know what. You may conceive yourself a prisoner, but you do not realize that even that conception is a part of your mother’s love and care, a part of the living egg whose outside you cannot imagine, whose grace you cannot comprehend. Like an infant in the womb, you kick, but only kick, and your kicking will never move you. Like an infant in the womb you are protected and preserved, you are growing and perfect, not by any choice or will and with no reference to your merit, but by the very nature of things, inescapably. But you do not know. Someday when you die, you will be born again, and a painful light will force itself into your eyes, and the cutting, empty air will rush into your throat, and that will be your answer. Then you will be awake. Then you will breathe, then you will see, then you will know. Now you must have faith in the perfection of your blindness, because now you are a fish tied up in the belly, a yolk protected and hidden by the amniotic egg, and your days and beliefs are only visions, and all of it is obscure.”
Then the angel blessed him with her first two fingers, and disappeared in the light of the sun, and that was all.
It may be that, while always remembering Lily, Alex went on to marry again, and had children and grandchildren, and lived a long and happy family life; or it may be that he did not. Some years after Lily’s death, the town of Tembray developed a glass industry, and it may be that Alex returned there—after memories of him had faded—and learned the trade, so that he could make a beautiful flower of leaded white glass, to keep with him always in memory of her.
Indeed it may be, wife or no wife, family or no family, that every springtime Alex Matthews went walking in Tembray’s orchard, smiling fondly as the years went by; or that he knelt beneath the cherry tree and wept; or that finally when his own time came, after a long and different life, there was someone who remembered him, after all, or who had heard stories, and made sure that he was buried in the green grassy turf beside her, so that finally in death they were inalterably joined as they never quite had been in life, Alex Matthews & Lily Daw.
But however it may be, that is a different story.
There appeared suddenly, a few yards ahead of him, a bright figure in the air. It was a woman all wreathed in buttery yellow and cloudy white, shining brightly but gently, like ten thousand candles, and wearing a silver coronet. Behind her stretched two white swan’s wings, and she stood six inches above the ground. Alex caught his breath, and bowed his head, and the ikon, in an echoing, multiple voice, spoke:
“What happened before is before, and what happens ahead is ahead, and what happens now is now, and that is all; but your imagination fails you. You know that there is more than you can see, but you are all but blind even to the scope and profundity of your blindness. You don’t begin to suspect the almost infinite filmy squalor of your vision. Like an infant in the womb, or a yolk within an egg, you have no view, and your questions and prayers are confused. Like an infant in the womb, you go where your mother goes, but do not know where, and see what your mother sees, but do not know what. You may conceive yourself a prisoner, but you do not realize that even that conception is a part of your mother’s love and care, a part of the living egg whose outside you cannot imagine, whose grace you cannot comprehend. Like an infant in the womb, you kick, but only kick, and your kicking will never move you. Like an infant in the womb you are protected and preserved, you are growing and perfect, not by any choice or will and with no reference to your merit, but by the very nature of things, inescapably. But you do not know. Someday when you die, you will be born again, and a painful light will force itself into your eyes, and the cutting, empty air will rush into your throat, and that will be your answer. Then you will be awake. Then you will breathe, then you will see, then you will know. Now you must have faith in the perfection of your blindness, because now you are a fish tied up in the belly, a yolk protected and hidden by the amniotic egg, and your days and beliefs are only visions, and all of it is obscure.”
Then the angel blessed him with her first two fingers, and disappeared in the light of the sun, and that was all.
It may be that, while always remembering Lily, Alex went on to marry again, and had children and grandchildren, and lived a long and happy family life; or it may be that he did not. Some years after Lily’s death, the town of Tembray developed a glass industry, and it may be that Alex returned there—after memories of him had faded—and learned the trade, so that he could make a beautiful flower of leaded white glass, to keep with him always in memory of her.
Indeed it may be, wife or no wife, family or no family, that every springtime Alex Matthews went walking in Tembray’s orchard, smiling fondly as the years went by; or that he knelt beneath the cherry tree and wept; or that finally when his own time came, after a long and different life, there was someone who remembered him, after all, or who had heard stories, and made sure that he was buried in the green grassy turf beside her, so that finally in death they were inalterably joined as they never quite had been in life, Alex Matthews & Lily Daw.
But however it may be, that is a different story.
posted by Will Heinrich at 9:01 AM
