Passed

Theodora’s bare feet sank into the soft, red sand. The warm, dry wind blew through her long, black hair. 

The sky was a clear blue, but a red and orange light formed a flaming horizon across it. Leaving nothing, but black behind.

Theodora knew this sensation, this ability she’s always had since she was a small child. Looking around, she saw the environment that she had been forced to enter. Souls preferred different natural landscapes to make their last pit stop on their eternal journey. Theodora has walked through forests, jungles, beaches, and tundras. 

Now she walked through a Texan desert.

She couldn’t recall when the walks started, only when it became apparent as to why she was on them.

She was only nine and that dream took her to the Colorado Rockies. That’s what they were back then, only dreams like her mother had told her. It was snowing in that walk, not a lot, just mid-November sprinklings promising a potential storm come December. The sky was a bright white, she’d never seen that living in Southern California.

Theodora remembered how cold she was, shivering with each step. She saw a big, white snowy owl soar above her, heading deeper into the woods. Just when she thought she’d collapse from hypothermia, she saw the cabin. It was a small, one bedroom, wooden log cabin. Inside, orange light poured out and a black smoke left gracefully through a grey, stone chimney. The owl flew into the cabin through one of the orange windows.

When she reached the door she knocked as loudly as she could, crying with the effort. 

“Help! Help me! Please,” she screamed.

A giant of an old man with a big, grey beard and even bigger, bushier eyebrows answered. 

“Oh, you poor child. Come in. Come in,” he said.

Theodora silently shivered while she sat on a big, leather chair near the fire, wrapped in one of the giant man’s wool coats. He busied himself with making a pot of tea while Theodora looked at the cabin around her.

It was a quaint home, and looked entirely handmade. The snowy owl sat perched on top of a leather chair opposite to hers. One wall was filled completely with homemade bookshelves that bulged with an array of novels.

“Why do you have so many books?”

He answered happily, not looking back, still making his pot of tea.

“I was an elementary school teacher in another life. I needed lots of books then,” he said.

“There’s a school out here?”

“I worked down in Boulder. I actually built this place as my get away spot, and this was always my favorite place to go to on a nice long weekend,” he said.

The man finished making the tea and handed Theodora a big mug of it. The aroma of green tea filled her nostrils as she tested a hot sip that went pleasantly down her throat.

“Thank you for the tea,” she said.

The old man chuckled and took a long swallow from his own mug, then sat in a leather chair opposite to her. The snowy owl moved to the man's shoulder.

“Now you finish that mug and do what you came here to do,” he said.

Theodora looked at him puzzled.

“And what’s that?” she asked.

The old man looked deeply sympathetic and placed down his mug on a crudely cut pine coffee table.

“Oh no, you don’t know?” he asked.

Theodora just shook her head, wondering why she was here. This was just a dream after all. Dreams don’t have reasonings, they just happened.

“You know my mother had the same gift,” the old man said. “I did too when I was really young, a lot of people do, but it stopped when I was five. Some people however are very special, and they keep the gift their whole life. And the job of those very special people is to help souls like us pass on to the next, and maybe final, stage of our journey.”

“I don’t understand,” Theodora said. “What journey? This is just a dream, my mom said so.”

“I passed away a year ago, and have been in this waiting place ever since,” he said with a sad smile. “And I’m ready for the next stop on my journey. I don’t know where I’ll go, but that’s the wonder of it all isn’t it? Maybe after this there is a final place where my soul will spend eternity, or maybe after this there is reincarnation, or maybe there isn’t anything after this. I don’t know, but I’m ready to press on in my eternal journey.”

“You’re not scared?” Theodora asked.

“A little,” he said. “But I’m also a little excited to see what else there is. After all, it’s the not knowing that can be the most adventurous part.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“I’ll show you,” the old man said.

Twenty years later in the desert Theodora saw a rattlesnake coiled up in front of her. Every soul had an animal with them, and they were always the ones who led her to where she needed to be. The snake uncoiled itself and slithered towards the open door of an old adobe home. 

She entered and saw an old woman sitting on a simple, wooden chair. Everything in the house looked as if it was from the nineteenth century. The snake coiled itself around the woman’s leg.

“You’ve been here quite a while,” Theodora said.

The woman’s voice was as frail as her.

“I’ve always been scared to call a passer, I think now it’s my time to go.”

Theodora crouched down in front of the old woman and took her hand.

“I understand why you’re scared,” she said. “But this is just another stop on your eternal journey. The journey we will all take and the journey we will always take.”

The old woman took a shaky breath. 

“Do you know what’s on the other side?” the old woman asked.

“No,” Theodora said. “And I know that can feel totally overwhelming, but isn’t it also just a little exciting?”

The old woman nodded her head.

“Okay. I’m ready,” she said.

Theodora had done this thousands of times after that night with the old man in his cabin, and she will do it thousands of more times until it’s her turn to pass on. She placed her left hand on the woman’s forehead and her right over the woman’s heart. 

She closed her eyes, and as she did, everything turned a bright white. Then, the home was empty. There was nothing but furniture left behind. 

One more soul had moved on. One more soul had passed.