The Ocean of Death and Life

Youth and beauty did not change her conviction – she would not grow old the way most others did  – that death was a natural part of life.

“When will I die, and how?” she straightaway asked herself: “After all, you’ve all the known world to provide you with resources so you can achieve whichever outcomes you want.”

She left it at that then, knowing her internal dialogue was always extraordinarily productive and to re-visit these subjects in a month or so. Then several important points were already available: that her death not in any way be subject to interference; that it was immediately clear there was a necessity for secrecy; her intentions should not be thwarted, or distorted, by those who might announce her immature, or irresponsible, or incapable of caring for herself. Yet wonderfully, occasionally she found others who expressed similar leanings who cleaved to her, and so she had to pretend ignorance and incomprehension; though love of life and laughter burst through, often. Then those who really aligned with her found her out, and then those never again left her side for long, lest, unexpectedly they be left behind when the time came. So together these, a small band of young and not so young desired and built an entirely new type of glorious, and voluntarily shared home.

Time went on and they sat together one night, and knew then their desired reality was no longer so far away and though the group agreed there were limits to any plan’s effectiveness, especially as now their joint goal encompassed many virile lives – no longer one life, at that late point in a long and gorgeous Indian summer they deemed their plan well-crafted. Now they knew the time and they had all the knowledge they needed to remove their minds from their bodies, which in the end is all Death can comprise of. As they had grown together by now so as to be as one they knew how privileged they were in finding each other – eight in total with minds, spirits and hearts already well past everything in life but each other and their goal. While she came from family love and generosity of spirit and resources, others in the group had endured pain and deprivation throughout their lifetimes until they happened together. Their unusual mixture of joined sensitivities, to each other and to the seriousness of their venture, meant total commitment in the greatest degree, to William Heinesen’s statement: “life is not despair, and death shall not rule”. They all reached towards this idea and their desires bound them into a family and her parents welcomed them, made them at home, and so they had grown into a life never expected till now in this world. Those who stood with her did not consider her leader, nor any other, as all looked forward to their future together far from the deafening clangors of men, and each know his role in making it so and all saw her every move as those of quick-silver being, never  leading, simply glistening, glowing in the gloaming of life, in her every move.

Her family were always free thinkers and at birth she arrived, fortunate, into a group that entirely tolerated her rights when and if she so chose, and they all knew of her intentions, her future appointment with death. A mutually admiring and non competitive group, with simple pride, and no mantras, signs or symbols in the practical life their forebears had crafted for them, who removed their home as far as possible away from the economics-sodden, class-ridden 21st century. In her case she arrived, the sole child of her generation in that family group, and received their gifts to her mind, body and spirit. When she was young, and thereafter throughout her life, her kin swelled their ranks with adoptions and fostering and guardianships, and so in life her clan was large and with much diversity to be found. Sound practices by hard-working, good people who believed all were equal and all deserved and owned a fair chance at life.

After the last great war her group had chosen to live simply on the outskirts of a large city where they personally worked together to create their home, a complex of comfortable buildings, conjured by her kin out of many different, simple materials, whatever they could pay for, or find, and so they created an environment of beauty, around they grew all their diverse foodstuffs, and flowers for beauty, and wood to surround them, and for them to admire and grow strength from, as well as to build and to burn. Her family’s life, and home always had room for other creatures, all sorts of animals, the well and the needy, and their belief was they could always fit others, still free to roam and of all types into their well-functioning environment, where they cared for them, fed and loved them all, without reserve. So many were her family and she knew all by name, and well, too, and kept in close contact, by many methods, though none of them electronic.

And the sea was their great friend, and the river, and streams, and all the creatures that lived there, too, were part of their family and their home, for their land verged the sun and wind-swept ocean, where along one side a great river coursed, fed by many pretty streams that tinkled and sparkled across all the parts of their land, and there they were happy, as her parents described, so ironically, “for we are all little creatures that happily form the Great Unwashed”. The family spent lovely hours with the wilder creatures and knew their habits entirely and throughout these all of our globe’s dimensions, they looked after those creatures numerous and luminous, of the air too, catching only what they needed to exist, and asking each’s forgiveness, and making offerings to their divine spirits, set free in the taking of their lives.

For all her years her parents and all her big family were happy as she lived there, too, and her part of this home was in a Winnebago made to her design, exactly perfect in all respects for her entirely straightforward needs, which she bought from her very first year of earnings. She was a sound technician. (Michele Hobbs), and regularly she turned home to vehicle, disconnecting the solar power lines and travelling whither her wont as it took her far and wide, all over the country, and sometimes further she took her home elsewhere. For much as she loved her home and her people, and she always returned there, and her followers knew she always would, before she departed truly, she also loved to travel. Each year she found some new idea to follow, new place to visit, and so she did – always to return. The wide world offers much to learn to someone like her, and as each year passed she grew more wise, and more determined in her life plan.

They, the parents and family, and the newcomers, had a few key and common convictions, that humans were good yet generally not deep-thinking, and evil was banal, and it went wherever it chose, as the world was now ruled, and fuelled, still, by “the hideous gang of Great Unthinking”. They knew them and stood against those awful beings, and, whilst fierce in their devotion to the good of all, they steadfastly allowed no harm to come to others, whether human creature or another and from all these factors  came the foundation of her ideas – and those of her dedicated band and while all were pathfinders, none were completely lonely, nor yet together – as all were freely involved and all felt at home – where all were equal. So  they slept well, and their home and all its gifts to them kept them thankful and made them strong, and thoughtful.

So, though they had no intention to return they each bought their return air ticket to Copenhagen, so as to arrive there in good time of year, towards the end of summer. They travelled together, yet in small groups and, because so few blood links were involved, they were not apparent as one people to others, even when in their midst. Though many were extremely well-skilled, highly successful technicians none were leaders within their family group, and so none stood out more than any others around them.

Because all were good, and hard-working, kind and faithful, they had earned complete freedom throughout their  beloved, though now-depraved planet, with the glorious trappings of late summer draped all round them they boarded their plane, en-masse. For now all, their entire familial group, some twenty-six, having some months prior heard the rationale and that the time of the plan had come, had decided to join also. The family had many years prior forged other strong friendships and relationships with many like-minded, round them and within their wide-spread community far and near,  who already had many times prior entered into and enjoyed this unique life. Now the family invited those they cleaved to most – to share in all they had built, and soon those invited readily came and agreed with and took up their new roles to perpetuate that warm family for all creatures. Thus all was signed over to those arrivals, as it was necessary to the awful authorities and so the group’s paths were forever inextricably linked at the same time it was physically broken. As the idea was definitely valid, and those joining entered with complete conviction of the value of the life of the still-living, and thus all the first family might go along with her group to their ultimate goal.

No children came, as within the first family group all were now of age, and so with themselves and everything they needed, except for one thing, and, along that early short way, they read or watched the plane’s entertaining literature, and chatted, and gazed out the window, and all were calm and as all were in fine health they breathed in deeply of the cooling air, of what would soon be their last days on this now saddened earth, and none either ate or drank. No chance encounters stopped them, no one recognised them and with their great freedom these peoples arrived at the first point of their momentous journey, and being who they were, simply alighted, collected their little baggages and embarked for an evening. Though they came for some months, they brought nothing at all with them that gave the slightest indication of their intentions, and nor did they create any manifesto, or record to leave, and so they mingled with locals, bought food and drink and visited various shops, where one of their number, as a trader would do, bought, and paid in cash for the single other thing they needed; extremely sharp, strong, concealable knives, in sufficient number each person to have at least two in their possession – nothing unusual in the part of the world. Early the next morning, beautiful, now already more cold, as they had travelled North, all went down to the little harbour with their every possession and all waited to board a single friendly, strong and seaworthy vessel for the next voyage of their intention. That area was bustling, strong, optimistic, as almost always the case where humans live along the seaside, and they wrought fine energy from the magnificent vistas, the deep blue ocean before them, and those sea-peoples all round.  Again they moved naturally, full of life; love, happiness and laughter as they went onto the big ferry easily, where now, by necessity and ease, they came closer together again, and mainly stood along the deck for as long as they could, for although the day was very fine, the extreme cold soon forced them all inside and thus they sailed for more than thirty hours, through short day and long night.

At the last, they went, that July, down through the archipelago, on the old Faroese wood ship, and they breathed in the deep silence and deeply of the clear air, so delightful, and admired the beautiful tones of brilliant green spread all over the smoothed hills and deep, deep valleys. They mingled, and discussed how sometimes the green came all the way down to the sea, and how in other high areas, cliffs, some sheer black, and some cleanest white, cut straight down to the awaiting waves, and in so doing created sheltered, small, encircled harbours, many, on every side of every isle they passed, of the group of eighteen islands. Privileged they felt to see all of this, as they watched the sea birds in their thousands overhead, to hear their cries and the creaking of the old schooner and to feel as they did on that day strengthened again the positive and loving emotions in the group on that day’s sea journey.

So they arrived. Coming immediately to them from the shore were the marvellous sounds of another language, Faroese, arisen from the Old Norse mainly, as the sun went down even as they alighted on that day. Each day thereafter they swam the brilliant, cold waters even as the days softly grew ever shorter, and they joined in, here and there, in the life of the community going on around them. And on an autumn-brilliant day of sunshine and white clouds, and sweet light winds, and bright birds wheeling, when news of the Gridadrap was sounded they too, could stand up, leave what they were doing at that exact moment and all go down to where that bright gateway of death, with those creatures, tha had at once, there, opened up.

Not a word they then spoke to each other, only to the local people, and entirely naturally too, as their sharp new knives did they work, and still others never noticed the silken chords that by then loosely bound the group member’s all together, yet sat tight on over each writst, or even as they moved towards the shallows, on the side of that which has now been made into spectacle, how their family rejoined, for love and warmth. They then watched that red spread throughout that threshed water, waited until the pink on the edges reached the shore nearby, and then they all walked forwards into the sea, each loosening their own wrist chords as they did so . To meet that grisly pink wash there, so it covered their own feet and legs; higher and higher that dreadful moisture reached, as still they moved slowly forward into the deeper water, till each of their wrists, all hanging down were just above the water. Moving ever forward into the deep, they watched their blood flow, and soon they gave the softly pink colouration around them a new strength, now turned it into bright vermillion, and increased, as still entirely unnoticed, slid each one, softly, so softly, into that now-mixed red tide, all without a single sound, and thus their bodies, minds and spirits joined those friendly creatures all destined to die at that same place and time.

Then that is how they went down all twenty-six with those vital killed creatures, their kin of this world, to live on with them forever, wherever they all now went, as their shared home together had gone from this earth –  and home was now elsewhere.