The Land of Sarnath
By:
Charles D. O’Connor III
A week ago, the claws of tragedy had sliced open
the surfaces of my sanity, leaving me a shivering bundle of possessed flesh. After the occurrence, I spent the majority of
my time attempting to lose myself within books that told of happier thoughts
dug up from one’s mind.
However, there is only so much one can do in
the grip of silence and solitude if they are human. They will find themselves in want of
companionship; I should know because that was what made me begin my frequent wanderings.
I would go wherever there were huge
gatherings of people and that eventually led me, one day, to the direction of a
bar located in a far off section of the county. The building was rather small, the grass it
sat on was turning brown and had the appearance of a dead and decaying animal,
just the way I felt within as I dragged myself inside to order.
Looking out the window at the yellowish
fields and hills while drinking my pain away, an old man entered the bar wearing
a brown suit, hat, and rimless spectacles on the edge of his nose. Trembling convulsively toward my table and
introducing himself as Emerson, he asked if he had seen me before. Putting my
beer down I depressingly said he must have me mixed up with someone else. Emerson looked a bit embarrassed and blamed it
on his aging memory but still expressed interest in my company. Sadly nodding my head to his request, the
happy old gentleman slowly and painfully sat down and asked me the reason for my
sad demeanor while motioning for the waiter to bring him a beer.
My tongue could not utter a single syllable
without breaking into tears but I went ahead telling him about the death of my
wife from cancer a few weeks back. The
old gentlemen’s face took on a hint of empathy as he expressed his
condolences.
I did not pay heed to this stranger’s attempt
of reaching out because my heart began filling with rage as my head turned
nearly 360 degrees around the bar at the many couples neck to neck in the red
booths surrounding us.
Silently growling of how I hated the world
and the ravaged vermin who stomped upon its soil, Emerson adjusted his rimless spectacles
and took off his brown hat and jacket and putting them behind his chair, he
looked at me with a sad expression on his face and said he felt sorry for me. Slamming my beer glass on the table, I asked
why, because I surely didn’t need heat from an old man.
Emerson begged me to calm myself and that he
didn’t mean to be cruel but said he didn’t understand why I hated the world. Many people have tragedies rise up in their
green fields of life but have to move on.
“Well I’ve had tragedies rise in my fields so
many times that they would be like the fields outside this bar, yellow and
mimicking the appearance of death.” Those
words began the complete opening of my heart to old man Emerson. I went on for minutes talking of how I was
always the backend of every joke in school and treated cruelly by the world and
the only happiness I found were in my parents and in my wife, god bless her
soul.
Emerson looked at me carefully; studying my
face as if thinking what to say. My
guess was that I hit a chord within him.
Emerson put his beer down and slowly began
telling me of a book he read that had to do with a small group in
O’Bryan told his friends that in this dream
he was introduced to a new way of thinking by two entities. It was something that many members of man kind
were blind too but they were given this knowledge because of what they
possessed inside, innocence.
From there, Emerson sipped his beer and said
that nothing was known of what truly was brought before that group of people
but it changed their lives. Emerson
smiled once more and said that this legend took place over in the hills where
this bar now stands.
My sad demeanor changed and looking with
interest asked him why he was telling me this. He said because it had to do with a new way of
thinking. The book had gone on
describing how this group of people had found supreme happiness despite the
evil’s life had been throwing at them. They
viewed the world and life in general as something small and that alluring
beauty still exists if one would look beyond the materialistic scenery of life.
This place of thinking was called,
according to O’Bryan, The Land of Sarnath.
Growing up I enjoyed the idea of possible
existing avenues that lead to better places, frames of thinking or what have
you and I expressed that to Emerson. But
the fact that a part of me still held on to this idea in a world populated with
troubles and terrible people made my heart broken and bruised.
He responded with his usual warm smile as he
tossed his money for the beer on the table. You’ll find it one day son, please don’t ever
despair were the words he said as he left.
The sun began peaking through the grey clouds
an hour later when I exited the bar, transforming the sky to a spotless white
that slowly descended to a light blue and purple and then back to white. Leisurely walking across the pebble-covered
dirt road to my car, I looked up astonishingly at the breathtaking scene.
It was the most immaculate view my eyes had
ever took in and my face began scrunching up as I tearfully prayed to my
departed wife of my wish for us to share this moment.
Suddenly a heavenly breeze from that sky of
carefully painted beauty slowly brushed across my face relaying a message to
me. Now, from the outside, it was just
the wind but I seemed to know what it was telling me. It said, “Come to the
I did not know if I was loosing it from there
but a whitish apparition that looked like my wife slowly appeared out of thin
air floating down to the fields and hills below, finally disappearing.
“Darling, is that you?” I shouted. Beginning to feel happy and refreshed, I eagerly
laughed and ran down the steep hill that bore the many beautiful fields and
hills.
Finally reaching the bottom, I was blown away
by the amazing scenery. The grass had a deep
depth of green and the flowers, which shook from side to side in the wind, were
purple, red, orange, as well as many other colors that I doubt any human man
could decipher.
I knew not the events that happened next but
unexpectedly I saw old man Emerson, dressed in white garments with a glowing
radiance about him. He looked like a
combination of different translucent colors and it made the task hard in
actually seeing him. He was walking
through the fields toward a blue mountain whose peek was covered by fog that
seemed to continuously drift passed it.
Confused by his being here and the odd change
that had come over his appearance; I began stressing to him the fact that I was
not mad but swore I saw my wife run down here.
He looked at me with an expression of oddness
saying, “I am not Emerson; I have no name for I am from The Land of Sarnath. Before the beginning of existence, spirits
have floated amongst black and mysterious abysses devoid of worries and cares
concerning existence, love, purpose and need, while filled with knowledge of
everything that was, is, and shall come. You many not know this but you were high and
mighty in The Land of Sarnath.
Confusion and shock took over as I tried to
make sense of what this person, if he still is, was saying. “You always had floated amongst mysterious
regions in Sarnath, but upon your acceptance of a human form, you, like others,
forgot about the land from which you came and devoted yourself to objects and
other things strictly forbidden. For
that reason, many entities upon leaving the earth realm were unrecognized by
the unseen vortex to Sarnath and subsequently tossed into the pit of eternal
decease but I, like others who remain, occasionally come down to earth looking
for entities to save. I recognized you
and revealed the story of what you and I did to O’Bryan in the Roman Times. I had to reveal it slowly and in a manner you
would understand for I knew your human mind was incapable of holding such a
grand perspective. Plus, I saw your last
lingering thread of innocence from Sarnath. Now it is time to go back before it’s too
late.”
I laughed madly telling myself this was a
joke and said I was going to return to my car at once but as I turned around he
mentioned my wife. She was one of the
entities found clean of worldly decay and was brought back home to Sarnath. Turning around I demanded to know what the
joke was but as I tried grabbing his white garment my hand went right through
it.
He smiled and said it was okay. Now was the time for me to lay down human
burdens and cares and come home to where I had always been. He spoke softly of dark peaceful skies and
glimmering stars with colorful mist floating about as well as other dimensions
and places of every conceivable thing of loveliness.
My tensions began to ease as I asked where
this place was. He took me by the hand
and guided me across the fields of green toward the blue mountain. I felt uneasy about having to climb the
mountain but found that, because I was holding on to his hand, I could float up
to the top and into that mysterious mist that I had seen covering the mountains
summit before.
What I saw was beyond words. A limitless space of colors and stars and
other openings of grandeur were before me. Suddenly I remembered. I remembered my previous existence before I
took on the human form and before the beginning of creation and life itself. I had no beginning and no end, I just was. My fellow being and I then floated back into
the never-ending heavens, never again to return to the mortal realm.
The sounds of spectators were heard about a
half-hour after I had floated off to The Land of Sarnath. They stood upon the steep hill looking down at
the hills and flowers below. What they
saw was my body.
A police officer asked a lady, who had
supposedly sat behind me in the bar, what had happened. She said I had come in deeply disturbed and
after many beers, began talking to myself, saying something about a land named
Sarnath. She claimed the next thing she
saw was me running out of the bar and down the hills laughing and saying how
beautiful the vegetation was, which she said was impossible because the land
was clearly dead and dying.
The officer then concluded I had died from an
over consumption of alcohol and quite possibly insanity and the fall from the
yellowish decaying hill but I know better as I now look down from The Land of
Sarnath toward the realm of mortals. I
know I was not delusional because I had now figured out the secret beyond
secrets. Like all, I am, was and always
will be one of the creators of the ongoing eternal cosmos. I had realized it and gone home but I sadly
believe my other comrades will not be returning but rather thrown into the
eternal pit of decease.
Votes for: The Land of Sarnath.
Back
(C)2006 All Rights Reserved