Traces: Songs of Destiny - Prologue

Harriet jolted awake, a shockwave sweeping through her. What happened?

It was not uncommon for Harriet to retrace her steps. Her mental capacities were degrading with age, particularly in the last few years. She knew that, at least. But where was she now? She could not remember.

Her vision was blurry, blinded by light. Sounds were muddled, as if she were under water. The light around her radiated a tapestry of shades of white and gold.

She squinted. Was she outside? She felt no warmth. Just brightness. She was laying down, her head propped up slightly. She was lying in bed.

The plugs in her ears popped as clarity returned. Her senses began to orient. Harriet heard crying. She turned. The blinding light dissipated. She could see. Rebecca, her dear niece, sat in a chair with her face in her hands.

“Rebecca, what’s going on, Dear? Where are we?" she asked, trembling.

Rebecca did not respond.

“Rebecca, did you hear me? I don’t know what is happening.”

Rebecca was silent, her sobs soft but steady. Harriet raised her voice.

“Rebecca! Why are you crying? I don’t like this.”

Rebecca still did not respond.

“She can’t hear you,” boomed a voice from the foot of the bed, causing Harriet to sit straight up at attention.

Harriet’s eyes darted in the direction of the voice. Was it a voice or a gust of wind? The sound emanated from what appeared to be the center of the light in the room, glowing at the foot of what she could see was a bed.

“Hello? Is someone there? I can’t see you.”

The lights moved. Harriet felt her heart rate increase, nerves beginning to crawl up the back of her neck.

“Help! Someone help me! Rebecca!” she cried frantically.

Harriet whipped her head around to look for something. Anything. She was not sure what. Rebecca to the right. She looked down. A bed. To her left, IVs and monitors. Above, sterile, flat ceilings. A white room. A white room with a window. A hospital. She was in a hospital. That’s right. The surgery. She was out of surgery. The tension in her back began to release.

“Fear not, Harriet, but it is time for us to go,” whispered the voice. Harriet’s panic ceased.

“Are you the doctor?” she asked.

Harriet fumbled around with her left hand trying to find her glasses as she held her right hand up towards the blinding light for a moment’s relief. The milky glow of light glistened with hints of rainbow specks around its exterior. She wanted a look at this doctor with the obnoxious headlamp.

“Doctor, what’s going on? I just don’t—”

She threw her left hand up in exasperation to try and get a look at this doctor.

“Can you please turn out that light? I can’t see a thing, and I really don’t feel up for an exam.”

“I am not a doctor, Harriet,” said the stern voice.

Harriet looked back at her niece in confusion, hoping for some clarification. Rebecca had been by her side for the last decade or so. Between the doctor's visits, the pharmacy pickups, grocery store runs, and the mature exercise classes (Harriet refused to acknowledge them as “geriatric classes.”), Rebecca sacrificed her own physical well-being for her aunt. As Harriet’s mind followed her body’s degradation, Rebecca became her thinking power too.

“Rebecca. Sweetie. Look at me. I don’t understand a thing this man is saying. What is—”

“I am not a man, Harriet,” said the voice. Harriet returned her gaze to the bright light. “My name is Aleifr. I have been with you from the beginning, and I am here with you at the end.” The breathy voice punctuated the sentence with a resonant stop.

Harriet froze for a moment, once again assessing her surroundings and trying to determine what cruel games her dementia was playing on her today. She was dying. She knew that. But what—

“You are not dying, Harriet,” said the voice, interrupting her thought. “You’ve already graduated. Now we must go.”

Harriet’s indignant self-defense mechanisms kicked in. “Young man, this is preposterous. Unless you are the Lord Jesus Christ himself coming to take me home, then I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“He will come, but I am here now,” said the voice.

“Son, who do you think you are?” she questioned, continuing to raise the tone of voice.

“Your kind would call me a guardian angel, although that is a gross oversimplification.”

“You must be crazier than me to think I’d believe that.”

She turned. “Rebecca? What on Earth is going on here?”

“How do you feel, Harriet?” asked the voice, softer now.

Her head turned back to the light, still unable to make out the appearance of this voice.

“What do you mean?” asked Harriet.

“Where does it hurt?”

Harriet felt the breath of his word strike her bones. This was preposterous, but Harriet paused to take stock of her body. She learned to ignore the aches and pains over the years. And even if she were in pain, the physical pain was minor by comparison to the mental anguish that she regularly found herself trapped in.

Harriet spent most of her time in a state of confused panic, constantly trying to piece together parts of life that she could not recall. The pain, however, was a friend she knew far too well.

She paused, waiting for the predictable wave of pain to wash up her back and down her arms. And yet, Harriet did not feel the familiar shutter. She looked down at her hands as she flexed and closed them, turning them over for an inspection. No twinge or trigger finger. No sharp sting or tingles. Not even the dull ache from carpal tunnel. Strange.

In fact, she could not even remember the last time her hands felt this good. Rheumatoid arthritis riddled those hands for the last 27 years. Probably even longer, but that’s when the diagnosis came. She lived with locked fingers and deformed joints, slowly twisting over the years like a mangled tree.

Harriet ran one hand over the other. Soft and smooth. Perfectly formed. Surely, these were not her hands. She grimaced with confusion.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said, shaking her head.

Harriet wiggled her hips, still wringing her hands. No stiffness. She twisted her torso, surprised at the ease. These movements were once impossible. Her lower spine and hips fused years ago after a nasty fall left her immobile for too long. Her body naturally fused the joints in an attempt to protect itself from further damage, leaving her to move like an old, wrinkled robot.

Harriet set her hands on either side of herself and twisted her body to see just how far she could turn. She twisted just a bit, then a bit more. No resistance. She could keep going. Her head turned past Rebecca, then to the monitors, then to the back of the bed and the mirror.

But, there was no mirror behind the bed. Harriet’s mouth dropped open as she shrieked. She stared at her own body. Confusion was an old friend of hers, but this?

“What’s going on? I don’t understand,” said Harriet, shuttering as she tried to vocalize words. Only breathy squeaks came out. She turned back around and laid down, expecting what she just saw to disappear. This was a new level of crazy, even for her.

The voice softened further. “Harriet, your physical body was unable to withstand the stresses of the surgery. The doctors did what they could, but your heart simply could not go on any further. The stitches between your body and spirit are now broken. You are free, Harriet.”

Harriet opened her eyes, twisting once again to look at the old woman behind her. She had never seen a dead body, but this body was definitely dead.

“That is me,” she said.

She looked down at her hands, still clutching them and kneading the supple skin. She now saw herself sitting on top of the old woman in the bed. Harriet was raised in a local church, so the idea of death and afterlife was not new.

“If I’m dead, where’s my Jesus?” she asked anxiously. Did this mean she was not going to Heaven? Had she served her church and her family only not to make it? Was this...you know...the bad place?

“Harriet, please, remain calm.” The voice’s words wrapped around her body with an embrace.

There was no reason for Harriet to do anything other than scream, yet the voice’s words brought her peace.

“The realm you now exist in is far more complex than the world you are departing. The ‘afterlife,’ as your kind call it, is no such thing. It is the only true life. It always existed and will always exist. Your time on Earth was merely a shadow of the true reality.”

Harriet closed her eyes and took a deep breath trying to calm herself. Her mind scanned scenes from her life. Perfect clarity. No fragments or partial words. She felt sharp. Razor sharp. The voice’s words made no sense, but they anchored her. Harriet felt the words connect to her as she opened her eyes. She looked towards the voice, then over at Rebecca.

“She can’t hear me, can she?” asked Harriet.

“No, I’m afraid not. The auditory plane of her reality does not presently intersect with ours.”

Harriet didn’t know what that meant.

She rose from the bed, slowly turning, hoping the dead old woman would disappear. It did not work. Her eyes locked on the body that lay before her. She saw the white curly hair that contrasted starkly against dark skin. She saw the deep wrinkles that greeted her with every glimpse in a mirror. That mole. This was her. Or at least, part of her. The hospital IV was still taped into position.

“I know this is difficult to process,” said the voice. “It will take some time. All will eventually be made clear.”

His words hung in the air, comforting despite the gravity as her understanding took hold.

“Take my hand, Harriet,” said the voice. “We have an appointment, and we won’t be late.”

Despite the command, Harriet’s gaze shifted to Rebecca, who was still softly crying and holding the hand of Harriet’s former body.

“Will I ever see her again?” asked Harriet. She put her hand on Rebecca’s shoulder, leaning down to give a kiss on the forehead as she had always done. Her fingertips touched Rebecca’s shoulder, but Harriet only felt a warming pressure at the point of touch, the tips of her fingers disappearing beneath the surface of Rebecca’s skin. Rebecca’s face did not register any change.

“I love you, Dear. You took such good care of me.”

“Come, Harriet.”

She turned towards the voice. Where she previously only saw blinding light, she could now see the being clearly, and she was startled at the intimidating, masculine appearance. She instinctively took a step back. He was massive. Human-like but much larger, perhaps three meters tall. He wore a radiant brick red tunic. The fabric cascaded like water, swirling and tumbling down in tiny, shifting waves.

“Incredible,” said Harriet.

The longer she stared, the more detail she saw in his clothing. Intricate and multi-layered stitching. It was as if she could see the individual threads.

“We must go, Harriet,” said Aleifr.

His words brought her back to the moment. She stretched out her hand towards him, as her gaze locked with the being’s for the first time, his eyes burning white hot. Aleifr had the structural features of a human but looked unlike any person she had ever seen. His skin absorbed light, a matte black color. His features appeared chiseled into granite. Aleifr’s hair was chest length, metallic soft locks shining brighter than gold.

“My God...” she whispered in awe of what she saw.

“No, not yet,” responded Aleifr. Rich violet glints reflected off the surface of his skin.

Harriet flashed back to her days in Sunday school, drawing simple little triangle-shaped angels with halos. Always sweet and friendly looking. Aleifr was not that. His fiery eyes pierced her.

Aleifr stretched out his hand.

Harriet extended hers with trepidation. At the moment of his touch, Harriet suddenly felt herself yanked to the side and immediately blinded by light once again. So much light. She felt herself accelerating at untold speeds. Lights whizzed past her. They were wrapped in a blue orb of what most resembled water around them that twinkled with flecks of a rainbow. Aleifr stood motionless, still holding her hand and staring in the direction of movement. Harriet looked down and saw glimmers below her feet. Flashes streamed beneath her. Harriet’s eyes traced their path upwards to in front of the orb. A track of light extended into the darkness. Or was it water? Whatever it was, the gleaming streamer was alive with vibration, pulsing to an unheard beat.

“What is this?” she asked.

Before a response, just as soon as the movement started, the orb stopped and dissolved with a shimmer.

The area was dark. She clasped Aleifr’s hand tighter. Harriet looked down. She couldn’t see the ground, but it felt like cool grass between her toes. Her lower body disappeared about waist height into darkness. A few meters in front of them stood a single wooden door with a faint porch light hanging over top from a gooseneck fixture. It was well maintained but visibly aged.

Harriet did not let go of Aleifr, nor he of her. She still had no idea who this creature really was, but he was the only connection she had between her old life and wherever she was now. This is not what she imagined Heaven would be like.

“That is because this is not Heaven,” he said.