Where the Bana Blooms

 When the boy woke up, he found himself lying on the bank of a seashore. The waves gently swayed and moved around him, as if holding on to something important.

 The boy straightened his head and glanced toward the sky. The sunset here was dazzlingly beautiful, showing a gradual change from the color orange to pink little by little just like the color spilled on the orange flavored ice cream after mixing strawberry jam with milk.

 Well, I haven't eaten ice-cream for a long time, the boy thought with a small shrug.

 With that in mind, the boy sat up. It is like nothing is here, just, empty silence. In front of him, was the blue sea that he had seen when he first woke up. When he tried to look any further, he saw nothing but a white blurry mist.

 So, he has arrived at an island with no reason. Well, that’s just what he wanted. In this kind of separated island, he won’t heard noises, won’t heard anything. It is just him and nature itself. He slowly sat down and continued to stare at the rosy clouds in the sky. Everything seems to be static, even the flow of time seems to stop.

 The only question was, how did he arrive here. The only feeling that he felt before he woke up was this dizziness and the gentle flow beside his body. Maybe he has encountered a shipwreck or something, he just didn’t know.

 This place is beautiful, dazzlingly beautiful. The boy really wants to stay here forever, even if he lost all his consciousness. It's such a reassuring place. Not like the world that he once lived, noisy and hateful. He felt that he definitely suited more in this particular island than the society out there. It is much quieter, more peaceful and the most important thing is, he could do whatever he wants.

 The boy stood up and turned. He was startled for a second and then gazed at the ocean of blood red Bana in front of him. These Bana were not like the other flowers that he had once seen before; they were like fire that burns all the way to the horizon of the sky. These colors mixed in with the dazzling warm lights of the sunset, giving the boy both a warm and a bleak feeling.

 There were nothing else, just these Bana flowers, but when the boy looked more carefully into the flowers, there were a few transparent figures wondering in the flowery ocean and one figure with a dark black cloak that stood out among the others.

 The figure in the black cloak was singing something, some song that sounded bleak and desolated, giving the boy a dreary feeling. The singing voice echoed in the silent island, the ones who heard the voice slowly looked up and kneeled before the figure with the black cloak. The black figure touched their foreheads and the transparent figures slowly vanished and disappeared completely into mist. The only thing that replaced the vanished figure, is another blood red Bana on the edge of the seashore.

 The boy was scared but also, obsessed, like an unknown power forcing him to walk toward the figure with the black cloak. As he walked nearer and nearer, the figure, as if sensing something, whirled around and stared at the boy.

 “You aren’t supposed to be here.” The figure said slowly, trying to hide the amazement in her voice. It was a woman’s voice, a voice that sound no more than 20. However, the boy could not see her face, because it was also covered in the dark cloak.

  “This is not the place that you livings should be,” the girl’s voice continued when she received no answer from the boy, “this is the place of the dead.”

  The boy doesn’t know what to say. He was scared, terribly scared, scared to death. Does it mean that he has died? How did he get to this “place of the dead”? And who is the girl that was cloaked under the black cloak?

 “Who are you?” The girl continues to ask.

“I…I…don’t know.” The boy started, as if realizing it for the first time, “Sorry.”

 The girl stared deeply into the boy and sighed: “You are lost, terribly lost, a lost soul. But I can still sense life in you. Do you wish to know who I am? Well, I am the guardian of the dead’s soul, or, you can say that I am the grim reaper.”

 The girl took a deep breath and continued: “You see these bana flowers? These are souls, souls of the resting dead, who will live eternally in this place.”

 The boy, suddenly realizing something, kneeled before the grim reaper and spoke: “Please, accept me into your island, turn me into one of the Bana like them, I have enough.”

 The grim reaper looked at the boy and let out a small, mocking laugh. A small breeze breathed over the flowers, making them sway lightly: “No, boy, of course not. Everybody eventually met their end, but you still have life, a long life to live on, I can sense it in you. Even I is constraint by rules.”

 The boy suddenly felt that he was choking, he breathed in air desperately and continued to bow his head down in front of the grim reaper: “Please, I do not want to be an outsider again. You mean, you can accept me, if I die?”

 The grim reaper chuckled: “Well, maybe, if you asked me, I’ll say you’ll probably turned into one of those.” She pointed at the other ocean of flowers beside the red Bana flowers. These were also Bana flowers, but they were not red, but blue. A sad, miserable color of blue.

 “What’s the difference?”

“What’s the difference?” The grim reaper looked straight into the boy,“If you say that the place where these red flowers are staying is heaven, you can think of that place as hell. Where souls of resentment and souls of sins are forever punished. Of course, people who committed suicide probably will turn into one of them as well.”

 The boy looked up at the grim reaper and broke into a smile:“You are nothing like the reapers in the stories.”

 The grim reaper shrugged: “Trust me, you should not believe in fairy tales. By the way, boy, I may know how you came here. I am just offering you one chance, do you wish to go back to the place where you once belonged?”

 A swarm of sadness and frustration flew into the boy’s chest. For no reason, he wanted to shout, he wanted to scream, but all that came out was:“No.”

 The grim reaper looked at the boy with great interest: “Well, this sensitivity I understand. If you really want to stay, you can help me with my job, you think you can handle this?”

 “What job?”

“The things that a grim reaper should do, turning people into flowers and blah blah blah. However, I still need to calm those haunted souls, I don’t think that a normal person can handle all the curses and the pressures of the resentful souls back there.” The grim reaper pointed at the ocean of blue Bana flowers and turned to the boy, “If you really want to stay, you better get used to these souls’ curses.”

 The boy walked, trembling to the ocean of blue Bana flowers, and he heard voices. Shrill, dazzling, resentful voices of the ones that were forever punished. Full of curses, full of resentment and insults.

 “You should be the one who died!”

“Damn you!”

“You will never be blessed, you will never be accepted by the lord!”

 “You should be the one that is damned!”

“Ha! You are nothing but a joke!”

The boy began to tremble, the voices are like curses and dark magic, like the chaotic buzzling of swarming pests, feeling his ears frantically, making him have a frantic feeling to throw up. He fell to his kneels, covering his mouth and tears began to trickle down from his eyes.

 The grim reaper looked at him calmly. She walked forward and sang that bleak song that the boy heard when he first came here. The boy stared at the grim reaper, is she not afraid? His thought was quickly denied when he saw the small trembling of the black cloak that the devil was wearing. The grim reaper was gritting her teeth while she sang and great drops of sweat began to trickle down her pale face.

  The cursing slowly stopped, being overpowered by the magical song. The color faded away, slowly turning to a dark and resentful black.

 The grim reaper turned to the boy: “They will come back, maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, I don’t know. Well, think you can handle this? This is one part of my job, dealing with these haunted souls. These are burdens that mortals like you was impossible to handle. So, what do you think?”

 The boy said nothing but slowly walked deeper toward the ocean of blue dana flowers. The grim reaper knelt her eyebrow and said faintly: “If you go any deeper inside, you will be damned by these souls. I don’t know what will happen to you.”

 “So what?” The boy whirled around, tears in his eyes, staring hard and directly at the cloaked reaper in front of him, “I am no more than a lost soul. I am already damned! Why should I be left alone as an outsider? Why should I be cursed and spitted at. I have enough! God damn it! I have enough!”

 The grim reaper said nothing, so the boy took a deep breath and continued to scream out his suffering: “I am also a living person. I have my own dreams, I have my own goals. But this world, this damned place will not accept me! Turn out that I am also not welcomed, even in the place of the dead! I just want to continue to live on in my life. That’s it! That’s all I wanted! That’s all I ever wanted! Who fucking cares if I am dead or not? I just, I just wanted to live, live freely, live in my own will. People who end up killing themselves were also like me, they have long suffered enough in this world. Why should they continue to suffer in hell in the place of the dead. It is not fair, so fucking unfair. Answer me, how can we be a decent person in an indecent time!”

 The boy burst out a laugh, a mocking laugh, but his laugh slowly turned into a cry, a pathetic, sorrowful cry. He slowly fell to his knees and began to sob.

 “Your life needs to continue,” the grim reaper reached out and pulled the boy aside from the sea of blue Bana flowers, “You never know. You wanted me to show you the world of the livings? I mean, the world that you live in, come on, it won’t hurt. Alright, here is the deal. I can show you what is happening and I swear that this is real. Then, you need to decide. I am offering you this one last chance to turn back. But, it is all up to you.”

  The boy said nothing, so the grim reaper continued her talking: “It doesn’t mean that it is not nice for me to have an assistant for my job or something. But, if you want to live on with your life, I can send you back. But, if you choose to stay, you can stay here and help me with my work here.”

 The grim reaper flicked her hand and an image appeared in the air, it is a blur at first, but when it began to became clearer, the boy could see that he himself was lying in a bed in the hospital. With his parents and friends surrounding him, some of them were looking at him with pity and some, including his mother, were crying.

 The grim reaper flicked his hand again and sat down at the edge of the seashore, leaving the boy alone all by himself.

 Voices began to appear from the image, it was his mother voice, his mother’s sobbing voice nearly made his heart broke.

 “Son, I am so sorry. It, it is all, all my fault. Please, just open your eyes, I will never push you any longer, please...”

 His father stood up and gripped the boy’s hand: “I am so sorry son, I am so sorry.” Although his voice was calm, the boy could sense the sadness and despair inside his father’s voice when he saw his father trying hard to pushed back tears.

 “We will never laugh at your life again.” One of his classmate said, he was looking at the boy with deep regret and pity, “I promise.”

 The boy felt tears began to trickle down his face: “Mom, dad, I am sorry…”He muttered softly to himself.

 “Well?” The grim reaper stood up, with a flick of her hand, the image vanished, “You made up your mind yet?”

The boy said nothing but slowly nodded and wiped the tears off his face.

 The grim reaper smiled: “Well, seems like that you have already made up your mind, and I just lost a nice assistant here. The choice is yours, we will meet again, boy. But I hope, not in like this.”

 “Wait!” The boy called out, he reached into one of his pockets and pulled out an amulet, a bright red amulet with blessing written in gold on it, he put it gently into the grim reaper’s cold hands, the boy struggled for words, before“ This may help you with your job.”

  The grim reaper looked startled but slowly broke into a smile: “Well, I never expected this. Thank you, anyway.” The grim reaper flicked his hand once again and the boy’s sight began to whirl.

 “He’s back! My son! Thank goodness! You’re back!”

 The boy slowly opened his eyes and saw his parents and his friends gathering around him, all in an expression of awe , disbelief and of course, happiness.

 “I’m back.” The boy muttered softly. He reached into his pocket and realize that the amulet was gone. He smiled and gently looked out the window at the bright red sunset.

 He would eventually met his end here, being blessed and turned into a blood red Bana that would bloom eternally at the side of the seashore. But, not today and not now.