Newcomer
To a human, a mortal, the world after death is confusing, unexpected. This land of the dead is full of the haunted, the cherished, the happy. But it is confusing, because it isn’t a bit like humans expect. They want a long sleep, a quiet repose somewhere, a non existence, but it’s not like that. And it’s crowded. All the people who have ever lived and then died wandering among the stars together, arms, legs, building their crooked houses and cities, and pavement, speaking a common language, clashing and fighting, no order, no understanding. All the people that ever were and will be, here. It is exhausting for them to be so.
You could see why wandering Hel is a bit of a chore: to walk among so many souls who had not earned an honorable death, who sat only to feast, and to build crookedly, to come with views and ideas tempered by the chaos of their lives on earth was almost more than I could bear.
And yet, here I was, through the stages of grief we all go through when we die, and realize that we don’t get what we want. We all get used to it. I mean, we have to. We have an eternity to do so. I, perhaps more so than others, had adjusted. I had fuzzy memories of life, but they were like shadows on a wall - simple, lacking in depth. I could never clarify who exactly I had been. I knew I had a name, but I couldn’t remember my family, or ever having been in love, or having children, or a career, or anything. When your memories of your real life are fuzzy like that it makes setting into Hel quite comfortable - you arrive, confused, shuddering from the convulsions of death, or you float in peaceful on your last breaths, or you slam into the sidewalk here, bounce a bit, and wake up - and here you are and you simply must adjust. And for me, I couldn’t remember a whole lot, so I would be fine.
Hel, over the course of eternity, has been build on the scraps of memories we have brought in with us by fortune, chance, or disaster. If you remember your family, your lover, your job you are considered unfortunate. They are the people who spend their whole lives wishing they had not died, regretting what had come to them. Others remember their careers - that is considered more fortunate because those people are the ones who have made Hel what it is now. At some point, someone remembered how to frame a house, brought that scrap with them, and now we have framed houses. Another person remembered how to make cement. We have sidewalks.
As for me, I brought in twelve poems. A few snippets of lovely words by men with impressive names. I remember the shadows of my time with them, memorizing out of books with thin pages, the crisp crackle as I turned the page, the quiet repetition over a cup of coffee in a beautiful cafe back before death, the comfort of recitation when I was terrified or stressed. It was calming. And they came to Hel with me, so they were calming there too. And they were my small gift to this universe, built of fragments of memory, of unexpected experiences, of never sleeping and wandering until you find a way to survive and a room for respite.
***
My life had calmed considerably since that day where I lay on the pavement, breathing in, breathing out, breathing not at all. Dying was painful. I will be the first to tell you that, unexpected dying, especially, with life winding away before anyone was there to stab me with a needle to chill the shock out, ease the transition. But I got through it, as we all did, all of us who died for regular things.
I had made a little life for myself here - I had learned some new things, new skills. I had found a little room in a beautiful old building, one that had been constructed when the new ideas and fragments coming into Hel were from the renaissance. I had soundproof, thick stone walls, covered in muddy plaster whitewashed a dull and comforting grey blue. High ceilings. My existence here was gentle, and me and my twelve poems turned into a new lifetime of memories, of quiet existence. I was comfortable here in Hel, because it was meant to be a lifetime of pleasantness. Industry if it was was wanted, relaxation if it was not. There were many things for us to do, and a vast and endless world of most of the souls of the world hanging out, doing what they needed. Establishing themselves.
I had not yet met anyone I had known that had died, and there was talk of other realms that other people would go to based on what sort of death they had had. I was wont to believe it as we had never met a soldier who had died in war or battle, never met someone who had died the death of a noble cause, I had been told by some very, very old souls that they went to a place called Asgard. It was just us, senseless deaths like mine, or deaths for good people and bad people who had ended up in Hel.
***
The first time I met him I was cycling my little bike down the ten blocks. I was winding through an old park filled by sculptures left there over the years by those who had chosen to spend time sculpting, planting trees, cultivating gardens and wide walkways, for the enjoyment of both themselves and us who had joined them. It was that day, and that place that I first noticed the newcomer. He was splayed out on the pavement, half quiet, half asleep, half disoriented, and yet completely awake, unlike any newcomer to Hel I had ever run across. He was twisted crookedly in a green cape, wrapped in a thick black leather tunic armory thing, the likes I hadn’t seen a newcomer in ever, and his long black hair hid most of his face. Despite this, I could see sharp black eyes, and a young face sparkling beneath the strands, alert, moving.
Let me tell you that there are few rules in Hel - you tend to live in pockets of like minded people, build and move within the spectrum of what you want - but one rule no one broke anywhere was that if you see a newcomer you must stop and help them, call upon the newcomer’s group, so that someone there, who has been there for a very long time, and who cares about the transition to Hel can help them adjust to Hel, comfort them in the chaos of death, ease them out of the pain of dying and into the gentleness and constancy of living here. And since I was a very law abiding citizen, and since I had only ever had the opportunity of finding a newcomer to Hel twice before I pulled my bike over.
“Hello,” I said, introducing myself slowly, gently, in a quiet but firm voice. “My name is Autumn. Welcome.”
I stopped there. The first time I had ever welcomed someone I had used the phrase “Welcome to Hel” in a very chipper way to disastrous results. The poor man had looked at me with fearful eyes as his body writhed on the ground, coming out of the death rattles in a sudden jerk. “Oh fuck!” he screamed agonizingly. “I knew I shouldn’t have cheated on my wife!”
It was at this point a passer by stepped in and relieved me of my welcome committee duty, nodding me off with a wry smile. “Don’t use the word Hel,” he said to me, in a quiet voice. “It freaks them out. They think that they’re in that hell, you know, and if they can bring anything over with them it’s probably going to be negative, scary stuff, they’ll pull that over with them as they fall in.”
But back to the newcomer. I stood near to him, wondering how he died, since there was no shudder, the shudder of the fullness of moving to the next world. He was quiet, steady, breathing in a pleasant pace, still unmoving.
I wondered if I should get closer so he could see me so I took a step closer. His eyes flicked to my face, ice black and still glittering, and he observed me. I leaned over him, getting closer to him, and that’s when I realized the icy glitter of his dark eyes were tears, and that he had cried his way over here. I wondered if he was terrified, or sad to be dying, and what he needed. Instinctively I realized that this would take longer than a simple call to the welcome committee so I folded the blue skirt I was wearing and sat down next to him.
“My name is Autumn,” I repeated again. “Welcome. I know this may be a confusing moment for you but I want you to know you are going to be ok.” I recited the speech that I had memorized after my first attempt had gone so badly. His eyes still glittered, red and pooled with tears. He looked at me and his face contorted with agony, and he raised a hand to brush the hair from his face.
“Stop.” he commanded with great authority. “Stop. I already know where I am. I know where I am. I know where I have come from.” The words tumbled out quickly, snidely and sadly and he turned his head to face me the tears in his running over the bridge of his nose, and down the side of his face. It seemed as if that was the first moment that he noticed that he had been crying, and he raised a thin hand to harshly rub his eyes.
“Autumn, he said, raising himself to sit. “I am in Hel. I have come from Asgard. What a distance to have fallen between these realms.”
“Yes, I am here to help you. I know you are probably confused but I will soon be asking someone who is very experienced at welcoming you to join us.” He cut me off quickly. “Don’t. You should not. I am from Asgard, and I have fallen and should my presence be known here in Hel I should be sent to further realms, ones darker than this.”
“So, if you are from Asgard then it is real, then? Are you a soldier?”
“No. I am a warrior. Though Asgard has many soldiers, many more are warriors still. Noble born, noble died, ending in a land where their lines have fallen in pleasant places.”
He looked around. “Hel is pleasant, what you have built. But Asgard is more beautiful because the minds that build it are infinite. You human souls only know how to make it a bit like earth, just a copy of what you had. Nothing further.” He shone a wry smile and wiped his eyes again.
I wondered if he had died reading a book about Norse myths in funny clothes, and that was the memory he had pulled forward. “You will soon find out that what we have built here we have built from the beginning of time using small fragments of memories, of what we know. Some people can pull useful things in, some people...”
“You forget I know these things. I am from Asgard, where we, from time to time, watch to see what the human souls are doing, to provide you with the food and drink you require, to protect you and make sure that your lines fall in the pleasant places. I know what you bring forward. I know what I have left behind.”
“What do you bring forward?” I asked. “Is there anything you remember in particular?”
“I remember everything, Autumn.” I found it unnerving that he was using my name so many times. “I bring everything forward.”
“But Autumn,” He said, rising to his feet gracefully. Commandingly he hissed “I must go make my way here now, to see if I can return to Asgard, or to find other places. Tell no one you saw me.”
He turned on his heal, the green cape sweeping over me, brushing my skin as I tried to stand up. It was coarse and cold, bringing me back to the memory of my own death, the pavement. It was a quick flash, no more than that. No more than a half remembered memory. He paced into the park and disappeared behind a statue, walked into the gardens until I couldn’t see him any more.
I got off the pavement, dusted my knees off, and walked back to my bicycle, balancing precariously on the kick stand in the grass.