Whither shall we go?

a story, in three parts

Part One

I heard the sordid story - the bell chimed thrice. On the third ding, my mallet dropped and I ran. The belfry became my hiding spot. Even yesterday’s clothes belonged there; a home made out of thin air. I decided the tower was my refuge, and so it became.

The third chime sent shivers throughout all of Romeria. The town was mourning its pastor’s passing. To whom shall they go, to what parish? There isn’t one clear to Flüchtigkeitland. Left with no huge guidepost - no true voice - no freedom, we must consign ourselves to meaninglessness. Yesterday, you see, the pastor’s accident happened. It was quick. Meaningful from the nature of such occurrence. When that horse and that driver bellowed towards him. I was there. I saw. I heard. I felt.

And just last week, he had presided over the marriage of Charlotte and Pedro. Newly engaged and madly in love, they ordered their lives around passion. Going to the latest play production and parting ways only after intense sorrow, shown in drops of tears that bespeak heartache through cries of unearthed madness, devouring each other’s name and turning it around in their vessels, the blood of life-giving ecstasy just one word away: Pedro, or Charlotte. But they all mourn this day.

Charlotte was the first to enter the Cathedral. She saw the body and stopped cold. For the first time since they met, she forgot Pedro existed. All faculties of her mind and spirit were transfixed - fascinated, almost - with death staring her straight in the face. It was no ordinary death, but the death of that human touch which gave her the most pleasure and joy. It was a death which should not have been. It was never meant to be. To Charlotte, it was so full of meaning, this death, that it became meaningless.

Part Two

“I now pronounce you man and wife! You may kiss your bride!” says pastor Roberts.

Charlotte leans down; Pedro lifts the veil.

“What a wonderful pastor,” Charlotte thinks.

“What a guy,” Pedro thinks.

They kiss. Cut to the look in his eyes. Cut away and back to scene.

They proceed with the best day of their life. Zoom out.

Part Three

“Do you remember the pastor who married us?” Charlotte asks Pedro, as he lies on the hospital bed.

“Of course I do,” Pedro replies. “How could I not remember? He preached the sermon about joy being a cure for all ills. That happiness can only be had when one truly understands surrender. What was the line? Surrender all unto laughter. Something like that.”

“I think it was, all that you ever surrender will laugh with you. He meant that nothing will ever be so important that over time, we won’t be able to look back and laugh. We should go ahead and surrender into laughter. Now isn’t that funny? Here we are at your deathbed. And neither of us can laugh.”

“The funny thing is how much we didn’t laugh, when we could have. Even now we still can. Think about pastor Roberts. His devoted soul would say, get it over with! Just go on. What’s holding you back? Why are you wanting to stay? But I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to go, either. What kind of laugh would it be to laugh at that?” Pedro asks.

“Maybe the sincerest laugh there is.”

“I didn’t even know there were different kinds of laughs until now. I wish I had laughed in different ways back then. It all seems a waste of purpose, now. Doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that funny?” Charlotte intones.

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