After-Life

Chapter 28. Reunion

Mabel looked around her. Cain and Lilim had left her to her own mess of thoughts while they tried to find a way to reunite her soul with her physical form. Now that the lights were on around her, what she had assumed was a vast space of nothingness turned out to be a garden. It was a garden unlike anything she had ever seen before, however. The flowers that grew had a look to them that was both exotic and dangerous at once. Black petals with red tips bloomed from stems that were as thick as poles and scattered with thorns so large, she couldn't get close enough to smell the perfumed scents without feeling something stabbing her hand, leg, or throat. In a neatly presented rockery, toadstools and mushrooms of various shapes and sizes flourished proudly. Trees opened their branches wide around her, yet they seemed to be in a perpetual state of Autumn, all with leaves sporting shades of red, ochre, amber and brown. There was no grass beneath her feet, but a fine dust which had a deep orange colour to it.

Amid the turmoil in her own mind, Mabel couldn't help but smile at the surreal beauty of it all.
"It's his pride and joy, you know," Lilim had silently approached her while she'd been busy marvelling at her surroundings. "He never gave up hope that he would one day see you; his father; maybe even Abel – although that ship sailed many millennia ago. So, he worked on creating beauty where originally, there was none."
Mabel frowned, "how come?"
"Well," Lilim stroked at a flower head as though it were a pet cat, reaching its head up to be petted. "Everyone remembers him for the murder of his brother, they seem to forget he was a master at growing things. His gift to the Almighty were shafts of wheat which he had grown from his own farm. I don't know whether you've tried to grow wheat in the desert. It's a phenomenal achievement. When he eventually passed away in life, he learned that he would never be allowed past the gates of Heaven. It had been ordained by the powers that be. So, he assumed if that was to be his fate, the fate of his parents would be just as restricted for their original sin. He wanted to create a space where you could all stay together once more, should your paths ever cross. It would be your own paradise away from paradise."

Mabel looked around her once more and felt an ache in her chest. Had she hurt Cain's feelings by suddenly wanting to vanish away from the world he'd created for them all?
As if in answer to her thoughts, Lilim chuckled softly; "I see where he gets it from now."
"I'm not sure I follow," Mabel smiled back.
"Cain's head is always buzzing with questions, theories, conspiracies. I only have to say or ask something, and I can see a trail of thoughts flit across his features before he responds with maybe one or two words," Lilim chuckled. "You both have very expressive faces."
Mabel sighed, "this space is truly beautiful. It's not like any purgatory I'd ever envisioned, if I'd envisioned it at all, while living."

She rubbed at her arms, feeling a phantom chill stroking at them.
"I hope I haven't caused any offence at wanting to leave it so quickly?" There, she'd said it. She needed to know that everything was alright between them all.
Lilim shook her head with a soft laugh, "Mab, you especially, could never do wrong in your son's eyes. Ever! We, that is to say, Cain and I, both know you don't belong here; not right now at least – if you ever will."
"How so?" Mabel frowned.
"Well, for one," Lilim smirked as she watched Mabel continue to rub at her arms. "You feel how cold it is here. You are still connected above, you have not yet died in life, you are only lingering here. We're both terming this as a surprise, sweeping visit."
Mabel considered this and mused on the implications of what her absence might be causing in the waking world. She watched Lilim continue to stroke the heads of the plants. There was no doubt in her mind that Cain had sent his wife out to keep her company, while he focused on only heaven knew what, out of her sight.

Mabel returned to her thoughts. The son of God had teamed with Nemesis. The concept of such a union was beyond her comprehension; if anything, it was a clash of cultures! Mabel couldn't help but marvel at just how close the various religions through the aeons had been to getting it all right! Quietly, she wondered if other religions out there were experiencing just as complicated a circumstance as this. Every faith in the world had its own story of the beginning, it stood to reason that they all had their own questionable personalities who would be up to causing mischief. She smiled inwardly at the thought of Bo and Loki hashing out schemes against Anglo Saxons. Absent mindedly, she sat down and started to doodle in the sand, lost in thought.