The First Real Day

I woke up one morning and we were all our original selves.

I was able to see where everyone was coming from and how their otherwise pseudo-selves were mere distortions of who they were inside.

The day was much quieter than normal. With the absence of affectations people spoke only at the volumes they needed to be heard at. And they only said the things that needed to be said, whether it was for the sake of conveying information or love.

You could not distinguish the grown-ups from the children. There was no horizon between the earth or the ocean and the sky, because we had met the horizon and it no longer tempted us from afar.

All was enough and we were content to simply be and behold.

Things continued in this way up through the late afternoon and by that point it seemed as if maybe what was happening was real. Maybe this was it, the great revolution that was supposed to have come with fire and brimstone. Perhaps it was actually a much more subtle thing than they had always told us it would be.

"Perhaps passing through the gates of death is like passing quietly through the gate in a pasture fence. On the other side, you keep walking, without the need to look back. No shock, no drama, just the lifting of a plank or two in a simple wooden gate in a clearing. Neither pain, nor floods of light, nor great voices, but just the silent crossing of a meadow."

-Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War