The Eternal Doom

Chapter 21 Why the world left lonely?

The angels were playing in the silver fog which was falling like a waterfall from the tall trees around the immortal world; and the sky became a dark sea, filled with the spirits of holy ghosts, gazing down at the souls of immortals who were searching for something which they might never find again. The shadows lay dreaming of God once again, wondering what the immortals dreaming of now, and what the devil playing over now. the angels dived down from the trees into the waterfall of thick fog, in which the dreams were crying, searching for God again and again, where thousands of boats were filled with sad angels sailing in the dark sky, singing a song in the screaming night of the immortal world down there.

Many weeks passed and Stephen kept waiting for a reply to his letter from Della, which hadn't come yet. The dawn appeared like a breaking of dreams, and night fell with the glimpse of another world. Stephen sat entangled between immortal life and immortal death, vacillating between dreams and reality, the world and beyond it. The questions which always remained with him, about his mother's grave, about what happened in the chapel world, and why. Why was he still walking the immortal world? Is God still familiar with his existence? What was the world searching for? Why does Mr. Erick spend every night in sadness for his daughter? Was that devil or me? All these intrusive questions wrapped Stephen like a blanket, stitched by the thread of memory. The world belonged to a dream which no one ever envisioned. Oh Lord, never let mankind see the world beyond the heavy draperies of the seventh sky, the world from which god is looking down over the fearful world of immortals, and their whispers, even frightening the angels!

It was a quiet, silent night, Mr. Erick came over to Stephen's room and told him that the old blind man left all alone had a miserable life on the chapel street. There he was hiding away from people. Sometimes he was found wounded in the hands; the bad thing was that he didn't want anyone to go in there with him. He wanted to live alone, as he said, "Loneliness is mine! I played it my song of memories, and it satisfied me when it listened to me." He had been admitted to hospital four days previously, as he had fallen from the steps outside the door, from his wheelchair and got badly wounded,

After a while, Mr. Erick left Stephen's room, dismissing the topic of the old man, but since that night Stephen had found himself feeling grave indignation towards himself, a guilty feeling, as his old blind eyes appeared in front of him again and again, saying, "You were the one behind his darkness;" and once again the nightmare became alive which never leaves Stephen alone. "Why, LORD? Why it was me? Why is misery playing? Why is the nightmare chasing me? I can still hear the song of orphans; I can still feel their terrible deaths in that nightmare of the chapel world. Why did I bring hell to the chapel? Which created dreams for me. he was whispering all these words, sitting on the dusty steps of the deserted mansion, where the dead leaves were whispering. It was a semi-darkness, as the diffused light of the moon was hitting the white marbled railing, which was glowing in its faded reflection. The shadow of Stephen lay stiff beside him on the brick road at the end of the last step, where the hills of the thick canopy of trees stood dark, with their leaves outlined in the greyish moonlight. The whispers of the dark angels fell with the wind in the night; the sky was filled with metallic patches so that it seemed as if the angel were sleeping behind the sky, and zillions of stars seem to shower out dimly as if the fallen angels sneezed in his sleep and make all the stars to scatter away from its force with its feathers casting a metallic glow; and in such an atmosphere, Stephen was sleeping with his mind still on the old man. He was getting imprisoned by memories again. "Tell me, the darkness of midnight, why are you bringing the dreams into my sleep?" Stephen was whispering with a mesmerized expression in the silence of the deserted world around him.