|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Empty Heaven
Written by: James Zhu
An old man lay upon the ground, wrapped in a worn toga. No one stood nearby. No one had come to witness his passing.
In his final moments, he felt no attachment to the world. His life returned to him in fragments: the great Temple of Zeus rising toward the heavens, a magnificent bathhouse built in Memphis, bards singing tales of the pantheon beneath the glow of torchlight.
A faint smirk touched his lips.
“We gain nothing from life.”
With quiet contempt, he closed his eyes and released his final breath, expecting only endless darkness.
⸻
Another old man lay in bed, dressed in a long white tunic, a cross resting upon his chest. Around him stood clergymen and dear friends, gathered to witness his final hour.
Yet he smiled.
“Why are you all so sad? I have fulfilled my duties in this world. God will receive me into His holy arms.”
His thoughts drifted through the years: Hagia Sophia rising over the shores of Constantinople, long nights spent composing letters to reconcile divided peoples, solitary vespers whispered beneath candlelight.
The world remained turbulent, but he had done enough. Its burdens were no longer his to carry.
With peace in his heart, he drew his final breath and awaited the Kingdom to come.
⸻
A young man walked a rope stretched between two towers.
Below him, a village watched in silence.
Then a buffoon leapt over him.
The young man lost his balance.
As he fell, half his heart was seized by terror, the other half by confusion.
A strange voice echoed in his mind.
“Man is a rope stretched between animal and Superman.”
But I have been outrun by the devil, he thought, and now I fall into the abyss.
His body struck the ground.
Pain tore through him.
A strange man approached and offered words of wisdom, but they brought no warmth.
His heart remained cold and empty.
As death came, he refused to close his eyes.
⸻
The man in the toga awoke.
Darkness had not come.
Instead, he found himself seated at an impossibly long table.
Around him sat figures dressed in strange garments unlike any he had ever seen.
He looked to his right.
A king in a jeweled crown.
Beside him, a warrior in polished armor.
Then—
an empty chair.
Across from him sat a familiar face.
Zeno.
Beside him, Diogenes.
Then another familiar face.
Socrates.
Calm as ever.
⸻
The man in white awoke at the same table.
Ahead of him sat an old friend.
Justinian.
Beside him, Belisarius.
Both smiling.
Both confused.
He turned.
An empty chair.
Beside it sat a stern man with an iron face.
Near him, a naked man sat with a barrel behind him.
Could these be angels?
⸻
The young man awoke with sweat soaking his back.
His eyes locked instantly upon the empty chair.
Something stirred within him.
The emptiness in his chest mirrored that vacant seat.
Then voices erupted around him.
A stern man with an iron face spoke first.
“True tranquility comes from mastering one’s own mind, not from mastering the world outside it.”
A mischievous voice interrupted.
“Why so severe? We are here to taste life. Eat what you like. Love whom you choose. Lie with the whore on the corner, if she agrees and you can pay. I live by a code, and I love my fellow man. Is that not enough?”
A gentle voice answered.
“The code must be Christ, and fidelity must guide the heart.”
Then a coarse voice thundered from the far end of the table.
A broad man with braided blond hair and a wild beard barked:
“I never thought I’d see Christians in Valhalla!”
Laughter followed.
Then shouting.
Then argument.
The entire table erupted into chaos.
The young man slowly placed a hand upon the table.
It was real.
He looked beyond it.
There was nothing.
No walls.
No stars.
No earth.
Only void.
Endless void.
The table and its guests hung suspended in nothingness.
Yet his heart no longer felt empty.
For the first time, it was filled with something he had never truly known.
Hope.
He looked again at the empty chair.
Then he finally spoke.
“Heaven is still empty.”