Welcome to Dearth
by Mark Mitchell
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
We walked on for a time, not saying much of anything to one another. I had enough on my mind to keep me busy. Curtis seemed to have nothing on his. He whistled along with his jaunty pace, as if he were only out for a stroll on the weekend.
I wish I could say the journey was at least scenic but, no matter where we went, the white void followed. The path below our feet filled in, and the occasional stick or stone passed underneath, but nothing more exciting than that.
“What’s with this place?” I finally said, annoyed at my surroundings.
“What do you mean?” Curtis asked.
“This,” I said, throwing my arms at the white walls. “All this. There’s nothing around!”
Curtis stopped and put his hands on his hips, studying me. He then broke out in a laugh.
“You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” he said. He smiled and slapped my shoulder. “Your file said you were a joker, but I’ll have to keep on my toes around you.” He continued walking.
“What?” I said, keeping up. “You don’t see it? You don’t see nothing but white?”
“Of course not,” he said. He shook his head and glanced back at me, wagging his finger with another chuckle.
“I mean it,” I said. “There’s absolutely nothing here. It’s so plain and... Wait. What do you see?” I asked when I noticed he was staring at me.
Knowing passed over his countenance, and he slapped his forehead. “How could I be so careless?” he said. “I forgot to tune you in, get your frequency aligned.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
Curtis pulled out some sort of electronic looking device from his pocket. It resembled a smart phone, so I assumed this was Dearth’s equivalent. He pushed a button and a drop down menu shot up from the device, projecting the menu into a 3-D model in front of his face. If I could read backwards, he navigated to Settings and a slide bar under the category of Surroundings. He toggled the switch to the right, my left, and all around me the white void began to tile away.
Like boxes flipping or folding out of one another, the white void was replaced with the world of the dead. The tiles revealed a magical world around me. Almost as if it were a negative reproduction of the town I grew up in — and ultimately died in.
What once had been in full light were now marked by shadows. Things that were vibrant and colorful were now dull and muted, consisting of limited shades of grays and greens and yellows.
On the reverse side, what once lay in shadows now popped with life. Splashes of color dotted the landscape. A tree by the old school house which had been hit by lightning when I was thirteen, had a second chance at life here. In my former world, after the tree had been struck and all the leaves fell off, nothing ever grew back. The beautiful blossoms that emerged every spring failed to return. Most people in town wanted to tear the tree down, but for one reason or another, the tree stood. And now, here in the world of the dead, the tree thrived, covered with dazzling flowers of pink and red. I thought I’d never get to see that glorious bloom again.
The tiling sped up as the crossover neared completion. Above me a diamond-studded sky twinkled with the magnificence of a billion points of light. Light pollution on Earth hid this vast display of illumination. Dearth had no such light pollution. Here every star and planet could be viewed with the naked eye. The Milky Way galaxy spilled across the sky just above the horizon. I couldn’t help but be awed by it all.
“Pretty cool, right?” Curtis asked. I nodded, dumbfounded. Who knew there had been so much beauty hidden in the world? “And this is nothing. You should see one of the cities.”
“There’s still cities?” I asked, gazing skyward and almost bumping into Curtis.
“Oh yeah,” Curtis said, “tons of them. All the major cities are here. Even ancient cities have been resurrected to their once great prominence. Cahokia stands near the ruins of St. Louis. The Mayan cities across Central America. Oh, and Atlantis, too! I went there last summer vacation. What a trip that was! Wild place, man.”
“I wish I could see them,” I said. After a pause, I added, “You know I never even made it to Europe while I was alive.”
“Is that so?” Curtis said, though his attention was on some wayfinding device in his hand. Dearth’s equivalent of a compass. He fiddled with knobs and alternated holding the device over his head and closer to the ground. As far as I could tell, nothing he did had any effect on gaining his bearings.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I couldn’t help but sound skeptical.
“Of course,” he said, completing a full one-eighty turn. “You’re in good hands.” He winked at me.
While Curtis figured out which direction we needed to go, I preoccupied myself with looking at the town of my youth. I had forgotten how different things had been over the half-century since I had moved away. Gone were the staples of modern convenience. The 7-11’s. The McDonald’s. Instead mom-and-pop stores lined the main avenue of the small town. In a way, it was as if we had stepped into a fantasy world. This town of a bygone era appeared more like a town from television. Mayfield or Mayberry, or whatever may have you. Quaint and charming.
“You’re sure you know the way?” I half suspected that Curtis was lost at this point.
“Nothing to worry about here,” he said. Curtis squinted at the fork in the road before appealing to his device. “Just a short walk... this way,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction. He furrowed his brow and second guessed himself. “Wait.” After assessing both paths, he opted for the one he had first squinted at. “Uh, this way. I’m sure of it.” He tentatively stepped in that direction.
“We’re not going to be late or anything are we?”
“How could we be?” Curtis shrugged. “We have all the time in the world. Literally.”
Leaving the main street of town, the sparse buildings gave way to sparser land. The rolling hills were spotted with standing dead trees. The living trees, having fallen ages ago, sprouted wildflowers around them on the ground. Everything here was as it shouldn’t have been. Though for here, it was as it should be. Or something like that. All I know, everything was the opposite. This must have been how Alice felt.
Soon a looming corporate building jutted into the sky before us. The monolith looked out of place in the shabbiness of its surroundings. The building was much more modern than anything else I had seen here. How high the building rose, I couldn’t tell. The upper floors were shrouded in a layer of menacing clouds.
“This is it,” Curtis said, throwing his arms out to frame the opposing structure.
“Are you sure?” I said, obviously doubtful.
Curtis told me I was one of the lucky ones, but this looked nothing like the pearly gates I was led to believe existed. The building had a cold, stony face. Uninviting. Scornful in a way.
“This can’t be right,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” Curtis said to reassure me, “there’s an elevator that will take you to the top.”
I stopped in the middle of the path, refusing to take another step. “I don’t think I’m ready to go,” I said, thinking about retreating back to my makeshift Mayfield.
Curtis reached out and grabbed my shoulder. “Nothing to worry about,” he said. He smiled at me to help ease my nerves. “Once you get inside, you’ll see. The place is great. Everything you ever wanted awaits you up top.”
“What if everything I ever wanted,” I said, “is down here?”
Curtis knitted his brows. I may have stumped him.
“You don’t want to go to heaven?”
“Of course,” I said, my eyes probing the ground. “One day. Just not yet.”
“You’re having jitters, aren’t you?” Curtis swung around and rubbed my shoulders. “Just relax. We can go when you’re ready.”
“Really?” My mouth hung open.
“Yeah,” he said. “We have all the time in the world.”
This gave me an idea. If we really had all the time in the world, and there was no rush for me to get to heaven, perhaps I could stick around a little longer. Learn more about Dearth and what it had to offer. I took a seat on a living log.
“What’s Atlantis like?” I asked.
“Atlantis?” Curtis said, taking a seat next to me. “It’s amazing. One of the most exciting places I’ve ever been. Everyone who’s anyone goes there. They have all-night parties. Endless supply of spirits.” A smile spread across his face. He nodded to himself. “I can’t wait to go back one day.”
“Sounds really nice,” I said, trying to catch a glimpse of his reaction from the corner of my eye. “I wish I could go there before reporting to heaven.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. He didn’t seem to catch on.
“If only there was more time,” I added with a sigh.
“What’s your fascination with time?” Curtis said. “You get so hung up on it.”
“Time dictated everything on Earth. Take the different stages of life for instance. ‘When are you going to grow up?’ ‘When are you getting married?’ ‘When are you having kids?’ It felt like I always had to live to someone else’s plan and never got to develop one of my own. I never got to do the things I wanted to do. Go to the places I wanted to go. You know... live.” I picked up a stick and started to doodle in the dirt.
“I wish I could take you,” Curtis said. “But I would lose my job. I’ve already bumbled enough, if I don’t deliver you to the appointed place, I could—”
“What if I took full responsibility?” I tossed the stick away and turned to face him. His face looked dubious.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I’ll pay you!” I patted my pockets, forgetting I had nothing to offer in the form of payment. Then I caught him staring at my watch. I took it off and held it out to him. “Here, it’s yours.”
His eyes sparkled. “You’d really give me your watch?”
“As far as I’m concerned,” I said, “it’s already yours. Here,” thrusting the watch at him, “Take it.”
“Wow,” he said, admiring the face and the continually swirling hands. He looked up at me and smiled. “I never had my own watch before.”
“Put it on,” I said and helped him clasp it around his wrist.
“Thanks.”
“So you’ll take me?”
He nodded and then held up a finger. “But,” he said, “we have to make it quick, okay?”
“Of course.” I crossed my heart and held up scout’s honor.
“Okay, then,” Curtis said and slapped his knees. He stood and pulled out his compass-thingy to plot out our path. When we had a direction to go in, he yelled to the absent fields, “To adventure!”
I seconded his emotion as we set out. After several paces, I had a burning, nagging sensation that I had pulled a fast one on him. There was something I had to ask him.
“Hey, Curtis?”
“Yeah?”
“If time has no meaning here, why are you excited to have my watch?”
“This?” he said and held it up as if I’d forgotten I’d given it to him moments before. “Because it’s the most useless thing here. It has no function. No responsibility. It just is.”
He smiled and clapped me on the back, reiterating in a genuinely sincere tone: “Welcome to Dearth!”
I let Curtis go on ahead of me while I stopped for one more peek at the corporate building behind us. Shunning that towering monstrosity, I felt myself grinning at a new thought. It only took dying for me to figure out how to live.
When Curtis yelled for me to catch up, I ran to meet him at the crossroads of Dearth.
Copyright © 2023 by Mark Mitchell
