The Epitaph Of Elijah And Isabella

Started on 14th September 2009

-The Epitaph of Elijah and IsabellaElijah:

Is this not the most wondrous of all wonders, my dear Isabella? Who ever dreamed that there existed such light to be found in a darkness so absolute, so terrible? Is this not fulfilment beyond the original promise?

Isabella: It is, Elijah, my patient Elijah! It is all that you say, if not more besides. Not yet has the light fully entered, still I feel its growing warmth penetrating, seeping into my very being, so lifting me up to bare me weightless and emancipated unto you! Elijah:

It is not just me, all who you would seek are here. See: we are here as one, a singular entity, a solitary harmony of infinite voices.

Isabella: But it is you who I seek Elijah, after such a prolonged severance. So many solitary nights I have spent enveloped in a darkness that was as much within me as it was about. I have faltered in my faith! Fractured it by my very need of faith itself, that self-destructive reasoning that led me ever away from you! Elijah:

Come. Such things have now passed. This union is our final, and incorruptible; all that preceded was but a fragile presage of what awaited us. And of such past failings, all is forgiven, and in remembering them we should not dwell on sorrow, but rejoice in our overcoming. Take comfort now, and observe instead what immeasure of truth is borne to us by the light! Allow your mind to dwell, as it till so recently was want to do, upon those timeless mortal questions of man, and observe, that just by the simple act of musement you find yourself already in receipt of the answer, or otherwise arrived at the complete knowledge! But the light of the world is not diminished in the knowing. We may now perceive universe illuminated in its entirety, the timeless swirl of spinning galaxies as cogs in a machine, and the intricate, silent, perpetual interplay of atoms. We see all and know all, and yet are not weighted by the burden of

omnipotence, but are enlightened and lifted to a perspective of infinite beauty and amazement. Isabella: There is much I believed to have been lost, but now I see it is not so, at least, I see images of things that seem to live on. I see that what I know has come to pass, people and places of my childhood. I feel as though I am watching my memories played out vividly before me, but that little girl I see, her presence is real and living, and yet she is me! Elijah:

What you see is the past, and yes it lives on as real as the present, and we may observe it all.

Isabella: I see our son! I see him as he is now, doubled over my failed frame weeping for me! I can reach out and place my hand upon his shoulder, so he knows his mother is still with him. Elijah:

Oh! How often have I too tried this! I have endeavoured so often, my love, to comfort you in your hours of darkness. I was there beside you always Isabella, always at your side, if only you could feel me!

Isabella: No, I felt you Elijah, as keenly as I do now, I perceived your presence beside me, even as I lay there at the very end, as the hideous shadow of Death drew himself about me. I felt you! Elijah:

Alas! No, your strength came from within! That spectre was of your own projection, and yours alone. We cannot cross over, neither in whole nor in part. We are not permitted to change that what will be. The future is as dark to us now as it ever was, and we are not the ones to write it anymore, that remains the task of those whom we left behind. We can observe our son, and when his time has come he will join us.

Isabella: What strange fortune is this? What strange mixed blessing is this existence we are to endure for eternity?

Elijah:

It is the greatest of all. Just ponder your own question, my love, and you will see that it could not be any other way.

Isabella: How can I bare to see him so? How can I so much as tear my eyes from him, now when he needs me the most? If he did but know, he would not weep for us, but rejoice in our reunion, and the promise of his own salvation. There is no sting in death, save for the manner of departing. It is Death that has thrown its long pale and unshakeable shadow across the lives of all men, the tarnisher of all of life’s pleasures, a dark brooding cloud on the horizon that grows as imperceptibly and as steadily as a cancer, under whose oppressive shadow we all have lived. Now I know it is but a brief storm, or a heavy fog that passes as it is carried by the wind, liberating life in its passing! What impotent creatures our unfounded fear of annihilation renders us! But yes, I see that it must be so.