The Meadow

I’m lying on the ground. The bright sun warming my face. Squinting, I rise up feeling the grass with my hands. Strange, tall, smooth, with some green while most gold. Is it wheat? I’m not sure. Looking around, I’m in a huge meadow surrounded by trees. Deep rust red but smooth trunks under thick canopies of large yellowish leaves. The forest is thick and shaded. There’s something not quite right. The colors, lighting, textures, and scents all seem just a little off. Worse than that, I can’t remember how I got here.

My last memory is putting on the shirt I found at a garage sale of all places. I went there to buy some cheap tools, but saw it on the same table. It was certainly unusual with the embroidered Tarot Card figure of the Hermit on the back of a long sleeved denim shirt. I’d liked that image ever since I saw it on a Led Zeppelin album years ago. Standing on a mountaintop holding a lantern. How could you not like the guy? Amazingly it was in my size and clean, so I did an impulse buy. I get home, try on the shirt and don’t remember what happened between then and my arrival here. Now I’m getting scared. What the hell is going on? Where am I?

Standing up slowly, I turn in a circle looking for a path out. I see none. The grass or wheat in the meadow is almost chest high. I walk in the direction that seems the shortest distance to where the forest starts. Before I get very far, I hear a faint voice through the background sound of birds and breeze. I adjust my walking towards the voice while wondering why I had not seen the source before. I get closer and the song is louder until I start to see the top of a woman’s head through the wheat ahead of me. She’s not facing me and all I see is her long gold hair and the back of a gown in a color to match her hair. That why she blended in. Her song is sweet, haunting, and full of longing. It suddenly stops as she senses my nearness.

“Hi Charlie, we’ve been waiting for you.”

“How do you know my name? Where am I?”

She turns, and smiles. Porcelain skin and piercing pale blue eyes. Strikingly beautiful but there’s a tinge of fear in me.

“I know all about you and this is the place you are destined for.”

“What does any of that mean? Just give me some straight answers. Am I kidnapped? Is this some kind of sick joke?” I’m getting angry on top of the fear.

She motions to low stone bench across from the one she sits on.

“I prefer to stand till I get some answers.”

“Suit yourself, but you may not like the answers.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Very well. You are in the meadow between worlds and I am the keeper. I maintain this place and look after the residents.”

“What residents? I don’t see anyone but you?”

“Oh, they are all around Charlie, and you are one of them now.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. What am I doing here?”

“You were summoned. It’s your time. The shirt brought you here. It called you, didn’t you hear it?”

“I didn’t hear anything, I just liked the shirt is all. A shirt can’t bring someone to another place anyway.”

“It’s all things to all people, becoming whatever people want it to be. Right now, it’s a ring for an old woman in Dallas. A minute from now it will be something else for someone different.”

The fear is rising in me, I start to realize beyond the shadow of a doubt that this place isn’t earth and the woman in front of me, as beautiful as she appears, isn’t human. No kidnapping. No elaborate practical joke. I finally have to ask the question whose answer I fear the most.

“Am I dead? Is this the after world? Heaven or Hell?”

“Your girlfriend will find your body soon, so yes, you are dead.”

My mind is reeling. This is incomprehensible. I don’t feel dead. I don’t remember dying.

“What happened to the ole grim reaper skeleton with the sickle and black hood?”

“I don’t do that anymore, Charlie. It just frightened people unnecessarily. I use the auto reaper, you knew as your Hermit shirt, instead. That way I can spend most of my time with my harvest.”

I’m shaking, sweating, all the things a normal body would do when presented with death. How can I be dead, I feel my heart beating in my chest?”

“How can I be dead? My heart is pounding and my body is solid?”

“That is all an illusion to make your transition easier, Charlie.”

“What about you? You don’t look like death.”

“Looks can be deceiving.” She smiles a mouthful of perfect white teeth in a drop dead beautiful face.

“Are you going to hurt me? Is this hell or heaven?”

“Why would I want to do that? This is neither reward nor punishment. Simply the place were souls go after death.”

“What happens after death? I don’t get. Are we just stuck in this meadow forever?”

“No, periodically the Boss drops by and removes some, but beyond that, I don’t know for sure. Could be they’re recycled back to be born again or maybe even the heaven and hell thing. That’s not my concern. My job is to bring souls here and then take care of them.”

“Them? You mean the souls are stored in these stalks of grass or wheat? If so, I must have crushed thousands when I lay on the ground and then walked over here to see you. Doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

“Oh, whatever damage done has already been repaired.”

I look back at the way I came and there is no evidence of me walking through.”

“Besides, the wheat is only illusion. The souls aren’t literally in the wheat but they are everywhere in and around this meadow. Unseen to the human eye but I see them all. I sing to them while they wait for their fate. Whatever the Boss decides.”

Then she starts singing again. I suddenly feel peace like I’ve never know. No problems. No fear. All the work done. Nothing to worry about. I feel light. Floating. I see them now. We are content.

It is always not too hot, not to cold, with a slight breeze. Her voice is always sweet and fills us with longing and contentment equally while we wait for the Boss to come and get us.