On the first day, I became best friends with the wall.
I spent my free time staring at its pale emptiness
as my mind was in another space.
I saw the flames flowering up like lotus petals
suffocating the building, erasing decades of progress.
Piles of pity letters and a grant of paid leave
sat unopened on my home office desk.
It became a quiet place that was once overfilled with love
but you took that warmth and joy with you
as the blaze guided you out of our mortal plane.
On the second day, I took a drive to visit a mystic.
You would have never known him or his spiel
as you saw the world in numerals and statistics.
He believed in the unseen powers of the bodies above
and demanded me borrow his Key, so that even I
could believe in his miracles.
Knowing within me that his intentions were good
wasn’t enough to keep me from harboring my doubts.
Seeing my skepticism, he was quick to assure me
that the Key’s pages would give me answers.
On the third day, I made myself peruse the book.
The timeworn, leather-bound pages were nigh illegible
had I not had a pension for cursive script.
They proclaimed a means to speak to the Sun and Moon
and anything that called the cosmos home.
They promised guidance and clarity that no Earthbound
folk could provide, their expertise immense.
Horrendous, impossible nonsense, I thought.
And yet, here I was, my doubter’s brain wanting
to find some truth in this like a madman.
On the fourth day, I gained an audience with the Sun.
Key in hand, we baked in the afternoon heat.
I asked him, in all his radiant glory, why she
among all people, was forced to forfeit her life.
“You ask me that which I bare no answer for,” he said.
“Death strangles all when the time is right. Even me.”
I decried his words, demanding the truth I was promised.
“Turn your gaze to the Moon at the turn of midnight,
for she is the master of closure,” he spoke.
“Her words will give the truth you seek.”
On the fifth day, I conferred with the Moon.
Again, I held the Key, beneath an eerie lunar glow.
I asked her for guidance, as the Sun offered none.
“Don’t fret over his incompetence,” she said.
“He knows not the trials and tribulations of humankind.
While I cannot answer your ‘why,’ I can offer words
of heartfelt comfort and sympathy.
Appreciate the moments you shared. Revel in them,
for the cycle of life and death need not reverse.”
Having learned nothing, I decided to try once more.
On the sixth day, I counseled with the Earth.
This time, I sat atop a mighty ridge,
above the crashing waves of a nameless sea.
The Key looked tired now, having seen more use
than it likely could bear.
Wearily, I asked why she was stolen from my hands.
“The Sun and Moon are the worst to ask for help,” they said.
“Though I too cannot answer ‘why,’ I can state the ‘how.’
She returned to me, body and soul, to be reborn again.
Fear not, child, for you, too, will fall to this cycle.”
On the seventh day, I spoke to no one.
I stowed the Key away and planned to return it forthwith.
After these efforts, I despised being left without answers.
And yet, amidst the confusion, the desperation, the contempt
I was at least graced with food for thought.
The Sun, clueless yet powerful, professed brutal honesty.
The Moon, sympathetic and kind, wanted nothing but to heal.
The Earth, ambiguous, preached compliance with an unseen cycle.
Perhaps it was foolish to seek the answer to life’s mystery.
Perhaps this is why you trusted logic and facts over spirit.
On the eighth day, the Key was returned.
Accusing the mystic of lies and deception, I fumed,
calling them cruel and beastly for toying with me.
They merely smirked and asked me to regale my happenings.
I spoke of the three bodies and their efforts.
“Ah, but that is the blessing of being human, no?” he said.
“There is glory in the unknowing. There is peace in ignorance.
If the answers were obvious, we would be without wonder.
Wonder is what keeps us from falling to mundanity.”
Without another look, I left, feeling unseen eyes upon me.