Merea Mea
3話 「メレア＝メア」
Drawn by the death-god, the body flew through the sky.
That this was my own soul taking flight, I knew because, far below, I saw my own body.
— My own face, a soft smile on it. The body that had been mine.
"From here, I shall guide you into my world."
World.
If the death-god said it, then — the spirit-realm, perhaps, or some such place.
"The otherworld-grass we sent across — bloomed at the close of your life. Surely the otherworld-grass approved your soul's crossing to the other world after death."
"Otherworld-grass?"
"Yes. Otherworld-grass. A strange plant whose roots connect world to world."
One hand drawn by the death-god, going through the sky.
I tilted my head, but the death-god only turned a gentle smile toward me; nothing in detail came back.
"Once you are there, you will see. The meaning of what I am saying. Once you are over, I will explain it properly. For now — do not let go of my hand."
"— Right. Understood."
So told, I quietly held the death-god's hand.
Crossing worlds.
Crossing the boundary.
I felt as though I heard the voice of time.
While I thought that, my consciousness thinned.
After that — where I flew, where I was bound, where I arrived — much of it I do not remember.
Only — the death-god's hand, gripping mine, held a strange warmth, and even within my fading consciousness left a clear, certain feel.
―――
――
―
"——"
"——a"
"——rea"
A string of sound, growing clearer in his ear, until at last the man's consciousness woke.
"Awake then, are you, 〈Merea〉."
The man could not, yet, be sure his sight had opened.
More precisely — he could not, yet, be sure that he was.
The sound piercing his ears — there was that.
The body had its sense of touch — there was that.
But —
— A moment ago, the death-god's hand…
There was a faint memory of being drawn through a hollow space by the death-god's hand, and that hollowness stood between him and the certainty of his own being.
"Merea — gather yourself."
"Ah…"
A face appeared at the corner of his sight.
— The death-god's face.
There, finally, the man came to know that he existed.
"Good morning, Merea."
"Mere…a?"
"Yes — that is your name. Long before you crossed worlds, we, all of us, decided that this would be your name."
The death-god, with a Look —, waved a hand to direct his gaze.
When the man took in the surroundings —
There, he saw a great many spirits in form.
Faintly real. See-through.
The thought that this might be the spirit-realm still held him, and reflexively his head decided that those had to be spirits.
"What — is —"
"It's all right. Settle. Merea — you are alive. You crossed worlds. Your soul, having seen out a life on the other-side world, we have called into this world. Said one way — you have been reborn into this world."
Reborn.
In that moment, the man understood the answer to the question he had once posed: what comes after death.
For the first time, in that moment, he recognised the second life that had come to him.
The man — Merea — for some time, watched over by the spirits, let his consciousness drift absently in place.
After that, finally, he turned his attention to his own body.
For a second life, the body felt rather large.
Thinking so, he held a hand up — about the size of a boy's.
He stood.
The eye-line went higher. But still well below the spirits standing around him.
"This body —"
"That body is one shaped by the gathering of fragments from the Heroic Spirits. An infant's body would not endure the harsh conditions of Lindholm Sacred Mountain. — Mind, it is a four- or five-year-old's body, so young and frail it remains; do not push it too hard."
"You — are not a death-god, then?"
"Me?"
Merea looked at the face of the death-god who had, presumably, brought him here.
Androgynous beauty, and an air of soft bearing.
But the body — see-through.
A spirit, after all.
"I am one who lived in this world some two hundred years ago. I was called 〈Flander Crow〉. By now, simply a figure in an old hero-tale."
"Two hundred years ago? Hero-tale?"
Merea could not, at once, take in what Flander said.
"Yes — a very old, ancient story. — I have been dead for a long time. The current me is only an ambiguous existence, drifting on this Lindholm Sacred Mountain as a soul carrying lingering regret."
"Is this place the spirit-realm or something?"
"No. This place is a different world from the world you were in. From your soul's standpoint, another world, would be the way of saying it."
"— Another world."
Merea, looking at his own two hands intently, murmured.
"We — to have you discharge our regret — called you here."
To Flander's orderly explanation, Merea began to take in what was being said, but new questions kept rising one after another, and his head would not clear.
"Why? Why — me?"
In the end, every question concentrated into that line.
"Because you found and raised the otherworld-grass. The otherworld-grass is said to select the one who will cross worlds. Even for us it was no more than a fairy-tale, but if we are to believe it — that pale-purple plant itself selected the one who would cross to this world. The one for whom it would bloom."
"That pale-purple plant…"
The plant that, at the very end, had shown him a beautiful flower.
That had been the flower that sent his soul.
"Yes. By the otherworld-grass, the world you were in and this world were connected. I only guided you so you would not lose your way."
"Am I — alive?"
"Alive, yes. Unlike the hundred spirits standing here, you, certainly, are alive. Unlike our souls, half-dead and wandering on lingering regret, your soul brims with vitality."
"I should have died."
"On the other-side world. Your vessel used up its store of life. But your soul did not die."
"That sort of… arrangement, then."
"That sort of arrangement, yes."
Merea took in the surroundings again, in a slow sweep.
As he did, finally — unable to hold it any longer, by the look — another spirit stepped forward and opened his mouth.
"Oi — fine details, leave them be! You're alive, yeah? From the way the talk's running, you took the death of your vessel on the other side once, no? Then celebrate being alive! Having a body is the best, yeah? — You can hold a woman!"
"Hold on — muscle-brain, quiet a moment. Merea — pity him. He's only just woken; the situation hasn't sat in yet."
A large-bodied male spirit, being talked down by a tall, slim female spirit.
"Yes? Let him sort his feelings out a bit more inside himself. We — died and stayed as we are now, but Merea died, became soul, and then re-entered a body. That is more complex than we are. So letting him sort himself out properly — needs to happen."
"Mn — all right… don't make that scary face… Sorry for rushing you, Merea."
The man, properly head-low; the woman, smiling and waving a hand.
"Ah — no —"
"For now, sit, Merea. I'll explain a touch more in detail."
At Flander's word, Merea sat down on the spot.
He set both hands on the rough rock surface, lay back, and looked up at the sky.
— Clouds, close.
The colour of the sky from there was nothing whatsoever different from the colour of the sky he had seen through his hospital-room window.
And, looking up, he felt — strangely strongly — that he had been given a second life.
— I am, again, alive.
For Merea, that, above anything else, was the thing he was glad of.