I Carried the Souls Home

In all of my years and maddening sorrows, I had yet to find a human being who didn’t utterly fascinate me in some way. Every single one I ever came across captivated me with their funny little expressions of life. Their joy, grief, hopes and fears were always present in their art no matter the person. I never truly knew if they were aware just how easy it was for me to read them - for this reason, I never failed to see through their clever lies and antics. The most heartbreaking thing about people is how vulnerable they were to their own lies, and how they often cried when they finally saw the truth. Crying was their beautiful release of energy in the form of rivers that flowed from the windows to their sweet souls, and I never failed to dry the tears I may have caused.

My eternal wish was to cry and laugh like living people could. I longed for the feeling of a real hug, the sensation of touching the skin I would have on a body fueled by a beating heart. The thought of having such organs to move and breathe with was exhilarating as much as it was hopeless. I pictured how I could bask under the light of the sun and moon, dancing and singing with utter passion like human beings could. It was the fantasy I knew I could never have, but still I adored people. I admired their high and lows, their silliness and their determination. I observed how the young ones raced through gardens and fields while the elderly ones rhythmically rocked back and forth on colorfully painted chairs. I saw the glisten in their eyes when they told stories, and heard the hundreds of languages they spoke. Though they never saw me until the end, sometimes I would drift down and join them in their endeavors. I came to sit, watch and listen as they simply lived on their beautiful green planet. It was my way of joining them, even if for a moment.

I ached for the feeling of being alive and all that had to offer, but I knew it was just simply not my purpose. Although I could not live and touch, it never stopped me from feeling something that people called love. It made me feel joyous knowing that what they called ‘love’, was simply the way the stardust would shine in their souls when they were happy, a tribute to their soul’s true home. I would watch as souls gracefully danced through the galaxies, shivering with excitement before making their way down to Earth. A green light would manifest in the constellations before a soul, calling it to Earth for an adventure. Green was the color of life, vitality, and hope. It was the color of life itself. A new human being would be born into their world, with a brilliant soul shining brightly inside of them. The person would never remember, but I did. I always remembered the souls and the people that housed them.

I realized one day that living people could not hear things the way I could. They couldn’t hear the way the Earth sang as it spun or the vibrations of the planets and stars. In fact, they couldn’t hear their own souls when their souls called out to me for help. I remember the first time I heard a person’s soul call for me. It cried out like a lost infant in the night, waiting for my presence to soothe it just as I had in the galaxies. In its cries, it longed to go home to a place that its person couldn’t seem to remember. People, no matter how old they had grown in their living years, never seemed to realize that their souls were eternally youthful even after many centuries. The soul would often want to dance and play just as its human did in their childhood. I longed to see the soul play again just as its human did, too.

When I arrived to answer the soul’s cries, I saw a human being up close for the first time - a living, breathing human being. I gazed at their happy laugh lines, beautiful wrinkles, eyes full of wisdom and heart full of memory. From that moment on, I could find something beautiful in every person even when they no longer could. For the first time in that person’s life, they finally saw me, too. The person gazed back at me with big eyes full of wonder, fear, and love, just as they had looked at the world for the very first time. I then understood that people never really grew up and I chuckled as I felt I had made a friend. I vowed from them on to make as many friends as I could, and I did.

Sometimes people looked at me with sorrow and regret, whilst others looked at me with acceptance and peace. Each person was a bit different, all unique. Perhaps that was why I loved them so much. Some did not love me at first and many did not recognize my presence from lifetimes before. Some backed away with fear spilling from their eyes and begged me to not hurt them, unaware of how their soul begged me to hold them. I quickly found that many people feared my arrival, for they knew not what came next. They had forgotten, but I knew their soul did not.

I would then whisper gently to them, crouch down and tilt their chin to meet my eyes. Although my eyes were not human like theirs were, both held the same windows of stardust. I would look at their tired bodies that had grown too old to house their youthful souls any longer. I told them of the other souls they loved that I had previously answered, and how they were waiting for them amongst the cosmos. I told them that it was okay to let go, and that bodies shouldn’t live forever and keep their souls trapped. I told the person how beautiful and precious their soul was - and that I was here not to hurt them, but to answer the call of their soul that longed to be set free. I dried any tears that spilled from their tired eyes, and shared any laughter that escaped one final time from the lips of the person. When they were ready, they would meet my eyes again. This time, I recognized a sense of peace. I knew then that it was time.

I would hold out my arms as the person finally surrendered, and allowed their soul to embrace me. It would hesitate at first, sometimes fearful of where I would take it. I would give each soul a gentle smile and kiss on the forehead, telling them how proud I was of the memories it created. Some souls then recognized me from the previous times I had answered them after they had lived in many lifetimes, and would babble on about their newest memories. Some souls gave a delighted smile and told me all about how their first life on Earth was everything they could have ever dreamed of, and how they couldn’t wait to come back one day to make more memories. Whatever each soul had to say, I would sit and listen until it was ready for the journey. The soul would say goodbye to the bodies they once inhabited one last time, and to the living families and friends that would grieve. Although the living humans had lost a person, they never truly lost the soul that would wait for them amongst the stars. Though their tears released the pain they felt, I knew grief meant that a person loved another person very, very much.

The journey always came shortly after the goodbye. I wrapped my arms tightly around the souls and we flew up past the trees, past the oceans, and past the clouds. As I carried them to the sky, some of them would cry of delight upon remembering where they came from. Some souls wouldn’t remember and would look up at me with wonder to ask me where I was taking them.

I would look down at them with a gentle smile and chuckle as I saw the stardust that had been a part of them all along. Stardust made up the very fibers of human souls, and each one glimmered in it’s own beautiful way. As the Earth would fade into the distance behind us, the souls seemed to glow just a little bit more.

“Home,” I would simply answer. When I reached the stars and released each soul from my arms, I would watch as they all floated away with curiosity. They would soon find the other souls they had loved in lifetimes before and they would dance together in the galaxies as they reunited. I simply watched with joy filling my being as the souls played and relished in their immortal youth now that I had brought them home. The cycle repeated with billions of souls, and I never grew tired of it.

Although many living people feared the ‘Grim Reaper’, as they named me, I still chose to bring their souls home when they called. I chose to love humans and their souls, even if they feared me whilst they were alive. I never let their fear of me take away from my love of them. I decided that even though I would never have a heart that could beat like a human, I could still always love like a human. A guide was what they needed, so that was what I was. I realized one day that human souls and I were not so different. We both held love as deep as the oceans, as never-ending as the galaxies, and as bright as the stardust that made up our beings.