The Diamond

Interlude

At first I was pleased to discover that dead men dream. What other diversion is there for a soul haunting its own everlasting corpse? It provides some respite from a humdrum existence of lying about in cold cellars, counting each new mote of dust as it, with excruciating deliberation, settles out of the air and onto one's nose.

In place of the palace cellar, there is a deep wood: tall, ancient trees like columns, pierced betimes by long, slanting banners of light. There is a deep pool, still and clear, where fish lurk and drift in silvery silence and cold. There is the green and unmistakable smell of verdant life.

What better place to spend the off-hours of afterlife?

So I thought.

Until I heard the long, distant, beautiful, mourning song of the white dove, lost beyond the pool and forest and marching mountains. Until it drew me, and I knew it was the plaintive cry of my irrecoverable love. Until I realized this was not, perhaps, a dream, but the haunted lands of the dead, the places where souls ever pursue and never catch what they have lost.

It is better by far to count the settling dust.