by Tayler Tucker
From his lips billowed wisps of smoke, curling upwards enshrouding the hollow sockets where eyes should have been, cycling in a perpetual dance. His visage bore a labyrinth of wrinkles etched deep into his blueish foggy skin. God only knew where those ‘eyes’ led. His hair hung stringy and pale, framing his spectral face with a glow.
In the presence of this figure, I found not fear, but rather an insatiable curiosity. “You look odd.” My voice reverberated into the abyss of his eyeless voids.
“Ah! Vanity! You think I look odd. Did you ever consider it is you who is not quite ordinary?” His gravelly voice thundered.
“I’ve never seen such a being.”
He stretched his neck like elastic, contorting his face to meet mine in an inverted perspective. “And I, you!”
“Am I in trouble?”
“Trouble? With whom? Your idea of God? If remorse plagues you, it is your own doing.”
Peering into the darkness that enveloped us, I strained to discern any shapes or form. An unsettling emptiness clawed at my heart, urging flight, yet where could my legs carry me in this boundlessness?
“What is your name?” I questioned.
“I am Limbo, as your quaint tongue would have it,” The tendrils of smoke swirling between his mouth and the recesses of his eyes quickened.
Observing him more closely, I noted his form, reminiscent of a centipede, shrouded in a trench coat. He was adorned with a myriad of arms which matched the ethereal blueish tint of his face.
“So, Limbo, I am dead?”
Limbo’s mouth unhinged with rattling laughter which echoed through the expanse. His mouth opened wide enough to swallow me whole, should he wish. “Death? Death pertains to the Twelfth Era! We exist in the Third!”
“What is the Twelfth Era?”
In the blink of an eye, Limbo seized my face in one of his many hands, his grip firm, yet gentle. “I am accustomed to beings of a far greater complexity than yourself. You are but a…”
“Human?” I tried to gently push his hand off my face.
“Human! How precious! You do not understand that consciousness endures until the Twelfth Era!”
A putrid stench assaulted my nostrils, and a grotesque ball of a creature rolled into view, its limbs contorted in unnatural angles. I attempted to draw a breath, only to realize it was futile. Glancing down, I beheld my form, which mirrored Limbo’s spectral presence, although without his many arms. As I raised my gaze, Limbo presented a mirror before me, revealing my own visage, bereft of eyes, with smoke emanating from my hollow eye sockets and in between my lips.
“This is a testament,” he murmured, his voice hardly a whisper. “Eyes are unnecessary for sight. Noses for smell. Ears for hearing. You felt me touch you, tug at your fleshless cheeks.”
A tremor coursed through my essence as I shifted my vision to the trillions of stars above. “I feel as a speck amidst this vastness.”
“As is fitting. This is the destiny you wrought for yourself, through the choices of your corporeal form.” He coiled around like a snake in a resting pose. “In human form, were you man or woman?”
“I was-“ I paused and examined my memory. I looked at my hands to spark my knowledge. “I don’t remember.”
“Because you did not care.” Limbo stretched one of his arms out and put his hand through my face as if I were air. “You worked tirelessly yet bore no passion. You ignored your emotional capacity. You abandoned your love for more freedom to do what you wanted. You spit on those in need. You were nobody. You left no impact on any soul. So now, you are in training to become Limbo, like myself.”
“If I was so immoral, then who created morality?”
Limbo shook his head and dropped his vision to the glossy ground, which reflected the shine of the sky. “It is the natural ebb and flow of existence, polarity. You are not judged for your deeds, but rather placed where your resonance resides. It is the organization of the cosmic archive of all that has been.”
In a surge of defiance, I fled into the darkness, vowing to escape the clutches of this celestial entity. Yet, no matter how far I felt I ran, I found myself looping around to meet Limbo again.
“There’s nowhere to flee. No one to become.” He sternly reminded me.
Anger and disillusionment projected from my being, directed at the divine and the fabric of creation. How could I be expected to understand this in my life before? No guidance, no certainty?
“Fear not, this form fades as well, depending on what you do with this place.” Limbo dissolved into flecks of glittering dust, leaving me alone in the liminal space between worlds.
Category: Featured, Short Story, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU Student