A Chronical of Life and Death
III
Christall liked her job, and was never lonely, despite the complete absence of any actual company. In fact, this was one of the reasons she enjoyed it so much. Here, she was the exception. Next to the Poor Souls she was a real standout, something special, something different. Here she was a Big Deal.
Occasionally Christall would wonder if it might not be nice to have a change; sometimes she even found herself pondering a life with an almost personal interest, wondering what it would be like to experience first-hand some of the things that seemed to go on in them. She had always held the opinion that life was almost certainly overrated, and probably something of a fad. But as non-time wore on, she began to wonder more and more whether she could perhaps be wrong. After all, she had never had any complaints ...
One day - or night or, at any rate, instant - a most curious thing happened. Christall was perusing a life she had picked at random from the apparently infinite mass of them that jostled forever just below her. She had observed the death first, as usual, and had been mildly amused to see it involved a religious element of frightfully complex, vaguely hopeful, and magnificently erroneous conceit. After this she had leafed through the layers, seeing nothing more of particular note, until he was stopped short by a component that inspired in her a most unusual feeling.
The component was nothing special in itself - a simple pair of shoes carrying a battered look and bearing a distinctive gold stripe down one side.
The feeling it brought about was the worrying thing.
It was a profoundly strong and inescapable feeling. A feeling of utmost weight and undeniable truth.
It was a feeling of simple, absolute recognition.
Christall was shaken to her core. This had never, ever happened before. Although, when viewing a life so that she could describe it to her client, she was somehow instinctively aware of all that went on in them, nothing had ever before seemed to her to contain any personal relevance. Usually, it was as if she had a vast and automatic encyclopaedia splayed open in the centre of her being, something that transmitted to her every nuance of meaning in the lives she held. This was different. This was an item she recognised without its essence having to be translated for her.
'Those are shoes,' she thought, 'You wear them when you go outside. They feel good at the front where the tips have been broken in, and sometimes the back scuffs your ankle and the skin chafes away and you bleed. You buy them at a discount price from a market because you think your friend would like the gold striped design, but then keep them for yourself because you find you like them, too.'
It was an unsettling feeling, for the most part.
For the most part, but not entirely.
Occasionally Christall would wonder if it might not be nice to have a change; sometimes she even found herself pondering a life with an almost personal interest, wondering what it would be like to experience first-hand some of the things that seemed to go on in them. She had always held the opinion that life was almost certainly overrated, and probably something of a fad. But as non-time wore on, she began to wonder more and more whether she could perhaps be wrong. After all, she had never had any complaints ...
One day - or night or, at any rate, instant - a most curious thing happened. Christall was perusing a life she had picked at random from the apparently infinite mass of them that jostled forever just below her. She had observed the death first, as usual, and had been mildly amused to see it involved a religious element of frightfully complex, vaguely hopeful, and magnificently erroneous conceit. After this she had leafed through the layers, seeing nothing more of particular note, until he was stopped short by a component that inspired in her a most unusual feeling.
The component was nothing special in itself - a simple pair of shoes carrying a battered look and bearing a distinctive gold stripe down one side.
The feeling it brought about was the worrying thing.
It was a profoundly strong and inescapable feeling. A feeling of utmost weight and undeniable truth.
It was a feeling of simple, absolute recognition.
Christall was shaken to her core. This had never, ever happened before. Although, when viewing a life so that she could describe it to her client, she was somehow instinctively aware of all that went on in them, nothing had ever before seemed to her to contain any personal relevance. Usually, it was as if she had a vast and automatic encyclopaedia splayed open in the centre of her being, something that transmitted to her every nuance of meaning in the lives she held. This was different. This was an item she recognised without its essence having to be translated for her.
'Those are shoes,' she thought, 'You wear them when you go outside. They feel good at the front where the tips have been broken in, and sometimes the back scuffs your ankle and the skin chafes away and you bleed. You buy them at a discount price from a market because you think your friend would like the gold striped design, but then keep them for yourself because you find you like them, too.'
It was an unsettling feeling, for the most part.
For the most part, but not entirely.