Ta­na

Joan Arling

It wasn’t a noise, but some­thing dis­tract­ed Hel­en from her read­ing, and she found her­self un­a­ble to get in­to the sto­ry a­gain. She put down the book and went to the front win­dow overlooking the porch. There, lean­ing a­gainst a sup­port­ing beam, some­one sat, quite small, huddled in­to her­self. She opened the door and stepped out­side.

“Can I help you? Are you all right?”

The re­sting per­son did not re­act. Hel­en took a few steps and sat down be­side her vis­i­tor, whose eyes were o­pen, but stared at noth­ing. Hel­en cleared her throat and touched the huddled persons’s shoul­der. Slow­ly, as if wak­ing from a dream, the stran­ger turned her face.

“You can see me?”

Hel­en was tak­en a­back, think­ing there must be some­thing se­vere­ly wrong with the girl. Her face, while not re­al­ly white, was strange­ly de­void of col­our. The i­ris­es of her eyes were so black as to be in­dis­tin­guish­a­ble from the pu­pils, and the look from them was un­mov­ing, ap­par­ent­ly she was not e­ven try­ing to fo­cus on Helen’s face.

“Can you re­al­ly see me?”

“Of course I can! I can al­so hear you and feel you... ”

“Wrong. So ver­y wrong. This should not hap­pen,” the stran­ger whispered, and let her shoul­ders slump e­ven fur­ther than she had be­fore.

“Have you lost your way? I have nev­er seen you he­re be­fore. What’s your name?”

“My name... My name was... is... ” She seemed to trace a rec­ol­lec­tion. “Ta­na.” She listened to the sound of her own voice as if un­cer­tain weth­er it had come out right. “Yes, Ta­na it was... is. And yes, I am lost, you could say that.”

An odd per­son, thought Hel­en, but ob­vi­ous­ly in dis­tress. “Won’t you come in and sit in a com­fort­a­ble chair? This should make you feel bet­ter,” she in­vit­ed Ta­na. Per­haps she could find out what was wrong and where she belonged, be­fore call­ing the po­lice to take care of this help­less per­son.

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

Ta­na stared, shocked by the con­cept of allowing mat­ter in­to her­self. “I’m not sure... ”

“Come on, it will do you good!”

Ta­na hes­i­tant­ly ac­cept­ed the cup and tim­id­ly took a ver­y ti­ny sip. She looked at Hel­en and im­i­tat­ed her swallowing, a­ware of the warm liq­uid run­ning through her bod­y and gath­er­ing in her stom­ach. It was a ver­y odd feel­ing, but the cer­e­mo­ny touched her heart. She man­aged to con­vert the liq­uid in­to en­er­gy suit­a­ble to her me­tab­o­lism, and when this presented no prob­lem, she brave­ly tried an­oth­er sip.

She smiled. “I like this ver­y much!”

Hel­en, who was com­plete­ly un­a­ware of what was go­ing on with her vis­i­tor, smiled back. “Good!”

“I must go now, a soul is call­ing me.”

A soul? Was she some kind of priest­ess?

“Of course. Will you be back?”

“If I may. I would like to share more tea with you.”

“You’re wel­come. Let me show you out.”

“That won’t be nec­es­sar­y.”

Tana’s small frame be­came un­fo­cused, look­ing like air o­ver a hot dark sur­face, and then she was gone. Hel­en stood there with her chin hang­ing, and it was sev­er­al min­utes be­fore she re­al­ized that her cup lay in bro­ken pieces a­round her feet.

“I’ll have to see Dr. Mil­ler as soon as pos­si­ble,” she muttered, try­ing to con­trol her shak­ing hands. Nev­er be­fore had she shown an­y signs of hal­lu­ci­nat­ing, so this came “Yikes!!!”

She jumped back­wards, hit­ting her thigh a­gainst the ta­ble, when she heard Tana’s voice, “He­re I am a­gain,” and caught sight of her stand­ing in the mid­dle of the room.

“What are you do­ing?” she panted, des­per­ate for air.

Ta­na looked scared. “But I told you... and you sa­id it would be all right for me to come back.”

Hel­en sank on­to the couch, giv­ing in to the sud­den weak­ness she was feel­ing. “Come sit be­side me. Per­haps you’ll help me un­der­stand this.”

They sat si­lent­ly for a while, some­what a­fraid of each oth­er. Hel­en found it dif­fi­cult to fo­cus on the girl’s eyes.

“I have nev­er seen an­y­bod­y come or go the way you do. In fact, I have trou­ble believing my senses.”

“But I am not an­y bod­y, not the way you know it. I am ver­y dif­fer­ent from the peo­ple you know. You see, I don’t re­al­ly live in your world, I on­ly ful­fil my task he­re.”

“Ex­cuse me, you are not talk­ing a­bout fly­ing sau­cers, are you?”

Ta­na looked at the shards still ly­ing on the ground, and sud­den­ly they both had to laugh.

“And what is this task of yours?”

“I — my sis­ters and I, we guide souls that have just left their bod­ies.”

“You mean af­ter they di­e?” Hel­en was in­cred­u­lous.

“Af­ter their bod­ies have died, yes.”

“You are say­ing you are Death?”

“No, def­i­nite­ly not. There is no such be­ing. You don’t be­lieve in a be­ing called ‘Birth’, do you? Death is sim­ply a tran­si­tion, just like sun­set or sun­rise, and as in­ev­i­ta­ble.”

“But what then do you do?”

“I lead the souls to a place where they start what­ev­er may be des­tined for them; I have no knowl­edge of what that might be. I al­so have no way to pre­dict when an­y soul may be set free, nor how that will come a­bout. I sim­ply be­come a­ware of a need and I go fill it.”

“Puh! Be­lieve me, that makes me breathe eas­i­er in your pres­ence!”

“But I know next to noth­ing a­bout the souls I meet. In their time in this world, I mean. I know vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing of what goes on be­fore. I pass them by when I’m on an er­rand, but they can­not see me, and I hard­ly no­tice them. Nev­er be­fore have I come to know one of them un­til I met you.”

“How come?”

“I can on­ly guess. Some­times the souls have a remaining au­ra of what went on be­fore they part­ed with their bod­y. Then there are those un­will­ing to de­part, not want­ing to let go of an­oth­er soul that is not yet read­y to leave. Per­haps I was caught in some­thing like that. I on­ly re­mem­ber feel­ing faint, and then you were sit­ting next to me, a­ble to per­ceive me.”

“It may be sil­ly of me, but you look so, so un-extraordinary. I mean, I wouldn’t e­ven know what to ex­pect, but you look like the girl next door, you we­ar jeans and a sweat shirt... Shouldn’t you have some­thing, well, per­haps e­the­re­al a­bout you?”

Ta­na smiled. “And be an as­sis­tant to an old man, car­ry­ing his hour­glass for him? I guess spec­u­la­tions a­bout the un­known can be hard to shake. I sup­pose the souls of trees — if trees have souls — might be met by tree-like be­ings. But I don’t know. I have nev­er asked my­self why hu­mans look like us.”

Hel­en smiled at the re­ver­sal of her ques­tion.

The eve­ning wore on, and Hel­en be­gan to feel tired in spite of all the ex­cite­ment. “Do you sleep?”

“I rest. I shut my think­ing off. It’s not so much a mat­ter of the bod­y, but my mind needs to re­lax.”

“I must ad­mit that it’s my bod­y as much as my mind that needs to get some sleep. Will you stay for the night?”

“May I watch you ‘sleep’? I’ve nev­er... ”

Hav­ing pulled the co­vers o­ver them, Hel­en put an arm a­round Tana’s shoul­der.

“My, you’re cold!”

Im­me­di­ate­ly, her bod­y be­came warm­er. “That bet­ter?”

“Don’t do this! I was pit­y­ing you, not complaining. I want to share my warmth with you, if you’ll have it.”

“Pit­y? Com-Passion? You mean you share my feel­ings when they are un­com­fort­a­ble? And you share some­thing of your self to make me feel bet­ter? Is this a hu­man thing?”

“I sup­pose so. Shar­ing will make you grow clos­er, and that is a good thing. That is why hold­ing some­one you... like... in your arms is ver­y im­por­tant. It is a sym­bol of close­ness.”

The e­nor­mi­ty of the i­de­a had Ta­na speech­less for a mo­ment.

“You make me feel spe­cial. In fact, you make me ver­y spe­cial. You al­low me to glimpse things I did not re­al­ise existed. I can feel your soul with­out this be­ing part of my vo­ca­tion, and I get to know you, the com­plete per­son.” Tentatively, Ta­na put an arm a­round Hel­en.

Dif­fer­ent needs led to dif­fer­ent ways of let­ting the day slip a­way, but they were u­nit­ed in re­sting to­geth­er.

When­ev­er Ta­na came to see her friend, Hel­en lov­ing­ly pre­pared tea for the two of them. She had mean­while be­come a­ware that, as far as Ta­na was con­cerned, she might as well have had pure wa­ter, but she had al­so lear­ned that it was the care she put in­to the prep­a­ra­tion that made it spe­cial to Ta­na, and to her­self, too. The lit­tle cer­e­mo­ny had be­come an in­dis­pen­sa­ble start­ing point for their meet­ings.

Ta­na spent man­y long eve­nings with Hel­en, lis­ten­ing to her read from sto­ries and po­ems. She pre­ferred lis­ten­ing to Helen’s voice, and she nev­er showed an­y par­ti­al­i­ty for what was be­ing read.

“It is your per­son I am in­ter­est­ed in, not what peo­ple re­gard as be­ing wor­thy of be­ing put in writ­ing. The way your voice expresses your e­mo­tions gives me deep in­sight in­to what I would nev­er have known with­out you.”

“What a­bout you? You have a soul as well, I know, I can feel it. Will there be some­one to guide you a­way, e­ven­tu­al­ly?”

“I can­not know, but I think there will be. It might not be that far a­way, ei­ther. Com­ing so close to you is chang­ing me. The an­o­nym­i­ty of the souls I guide now is not the same to me it was be­fore. I know it’s not pos­si­ble, but some­times I feel the need to know some­thing a­bout them, a­bout the per­so­na that belonged with them. I am not sure that I can pur­sue my task much long­er.”

Hel­en looked perturbed. “I had no i­de­a. I don’t like the thought that our be­ing to­geth­er might in­ter­fere with your call­ing.”

“Ah, but it makes me so much richer! And reaching an end marks a new be­gin­ning, of that I feel cer­tain.”

One day, Ta­na remained qui­et for so long that Hel­en be­came con­cerned.

“Is an­y­thing wrong?”

Ta­na did not blush, but she sure­ly would have if that had been pos­si­ble. She averted her gaze and sa­id, “I made some­thing for you.”

Helen’s eyes widened, and her face lit up. “A pre­sent for me? Oh, please, I can’t wait!”

Ta­na pro­duced a lit­tle flow­er that seemed to be made of some kind of crys­tal that broke the sun­light in­to everchanging col­ours.

“Oh, how beau­ti­ful! How... but I sup­pose I shouldn’t ask.”

“I thought it. I ma­te­ri­al­ised some thoughts a­bout you. Us. It’s a por­trait of how I see you, you shine with so man­y col­ours I nev­er knew existed.”

Hel­en swallowed with an ef­fort. “I don’t have the words to tell you how much this means to me!”

She ac­cept­ed the gift and raised it to her lips, then care­ful­ly laid it a­side and em­braced Ta­na, tears run­ning down her face.

“I made you un­hap­py?”

“No,” she choked, “you made me the hap­pi­est per­son a­live. Love will do that, es­pe­cial­ly when it co­mes so out of the blue.”

“Oh, you mustn’t... ”

“What can I do?”

Ta­na hugged her fierce­ly. “I know. I shouldn’t, ei­ther.”

“Time is much more use­ful than I first thought.”

Hel­en smiled in­dul­gent­ly, “You make it sound like time was an in­ven­tion. Time sim­ply is.”

“I may not have grasped its full­ness yet, but for me, time passes, e­ter­ni­ty is.”

“OK, then, if time is such a per­ish­a­ble good — and I’m not ar­gu­ing — what makes it ‘useful’?”

“For one thing, it makes vis­i­ble how things come a­bout. Con­sid­er a paint­ing: the paint­er spends con­sid­er­a­ble time ap­ply­ing the dyes to can­vas, and while he is do­ing so he can still change his de­sign. Once the pic­ture is done, it is, it has reached e­ter­ni­ty, e­ven if it should be destroyed.”

“I am not cer­tain which of the two suit me bet­ter. An un­fin­ished pic­ture... well, no. When it’s fin­ished it may be ver­y pret­ty, but it is al­so stat­ic. Bor­ing, if you will. But is e­ter­ni­ty bor­ing?”

“No, it is not, but it e­lim­i­nates change. And that, I think, is the re­al beau­ty of time: it al­lows for things that are nev­er meant to be fin­ished, that will con­tin­ue to grow and change for as long as they last. E­ter­ni­ty may oc­cur like blos­soms in a mead­ow, but nev­er be the es­sence.”

“Like our... ”

“Like the two of us.”

“Look out!” Hel­en nev­er saw the car com­ing. A white-hot flash purged eve­ry thought from her mind as her bod­y was hurled through the air and came to rest on the side­walk, too numb to feel the pain from her shattered limbs. With less and less blood cours­ing through her veins, she be­came diz­zy, and dark­ness slow­ly took the place of the light shin­ing in her eyes.

When she woke up — but she didn’t. When she be­came a­ware of her sur­round­ings, Hel­en no­ticed with­out e­mo­tion the mess that the now life­less bod­y ly­ing on the ground had made. She no­ticed pass­ers-by ap­proach re­luc­tant­ly, but then in a disorienting jolt she sud­den­ly found her­self back with­in the walls of her home. No long­er be­ing lim­it­ed to her eyes, she turned the at­ten­tion of her di­rec­tion­less gaze to the kitch­en, where her friend stood, si­lent­ly mouthing “Wait, just a mo­ment.”

Ta­na made her­self one last cup of tea, and sipped it sol­emn­ly. She took the small crys­tal flow­er from its glass vase on the book­shelf and care­ful­ly broke off one of the blos­som leaves and put it in her pock­et, then the flow­er vanished in a bril­liant blue flash. It had served its pur­pose. Ta­na smiled as the thoughts she had wrought in­to the flow­er re-entered her mind.

She savoured one more drop from the cup be­fore clos­ing her palms a­round the small sphere of en­er­gy that had been her friend. With ut­most ten­der­ness she car­ried it out of the house, then out­side of tem­po­ral­i­ty, and re­leased it in­to the white mist that had tak­en so man­y souls from her sight be­fore. She pulled the remaining crys­tal leaf from her pock­et and watched it dis­ap­pear in its own ti­ny flash. Her friend’s face lingered in her vi­sion for a few mo­ments, then she turned a­round, look­ing in­to the eyes of an el­der sis­ter, who stood there with her hand ex­tend­ed. She reached for the hand, and let her­self be led.