“Yes, but I suppose you're settlers more than you are Transients, at least once you've decided to stay here permanently and not keep jumping back and forth?”
“That's true, although we still habitually call ourselves Transients. Anyway, back to the sex. I died a virgin, so I don’t know what I’m missing. Was it any good?”
Ed thought back to the memorable night with Abella in the car before they were married and how he had an orgasm so massive he thought his whole head was going to be shot off his shoulders like a rocket. Then he simply decided to lie.
“Not much really, Donald. You don’t need to worry about that. All hype really.”
The duo arrived at the room where Ed would be staying. He turned round and looked back over the balcony into the large domed hall.
“It’s such a wonderful atmosphere, the grand hall and the choral music. Don’t you think it’s quite spiritual?”
“To a point. I guess it depends on how you define spiritual though.”
“Maybe. It reminds me though of a church I visited on a business trip to Bologna in the nineties. It was on a bustling square and when one escaped inside into the quietude and calm it gave a real Goosebumps feeling.”
“That might have been down to the serenity of the building as much as you had been touched by the spirit of God. I would often feel a similar spirituality amidst the grandeur of nature, in a stunningly secluded but wondrous place with the birds singing and the wind gently caressing the leaves into an atmospheric symphony. In my short life I stopped associating that feeling from any ‘presence’ there might be in our conceptualised and pre defined spiritual locations and honestly put it more down to our ability to marvel at and be overwhelmed by the magnificence of nature.”
“That’s very true. The sheer scale and grandiosity of some temples and churches are quite capable of making us feel like that, even if we don’t have an ounce of religious belief in us whatsoever. Maybe it is tapping into an archetypal spirituality deep within us, not defined by religious belief but more by an innate awareness of the sheer magnificence of the universe we’re part of.”
“Well said, Ed. It is certainly the conclusion a lot of people here have arrived at after much deliberation. Those places of worship did have an important function though, for people to experience that wonderment, and understand their place in the grander scheme of things, even if it only gave fleeting humility. Anyway, this is it. No mod cons, I’m afraid. Comfortable though,” stated Donald, as he swept the curtain aside and they both entered the room.
“Same as the other place; simple but functional. Could be a Japanese hotel for all I know. I’ll be fine,” uttered Ed, as he slipped down onto the bed.
“By the way, she mentioned she was Jewish, but you said there was no religion here. Why would she say that?” queried Ed.
“She’s not religious. She is just using that as a reference to her background when she was in the physical world. People tend to say where they are from and what their background is, but once you’re here, it’s impossible for anyone to continue believing in a god, whatever faith they are from.”
“I can understand that,” replied Ed, as he glanced at his watch and then slid flat onto the bed. It was now eight o’clock so he figured that after a six hour walk, the music must have gone on for at least ninety minutes, much longer than he thought.
“Have a good rest and I’ll come back later, then we can go over to Yedida’s. Are you okay with that?” queried Donald as he turned tail and started to leave the room.
“Cool. See you then,” Ed replied, as the soldier slipped out of sight.
Ed slipped back into a relaxed position with his arms folded back under his head. He began to reflect on how fast things were moving and how extreme it all was, from the tortoise to the time tunnels, then the cat, the hound and then in a time warp with a WW1 soldier and famous classical composers hooking up to collaborate. Just then, Donald slid back into the room.
“Sorry, Ed, listen. Please don’t judge me harshly on all those things I told you. If you’d been there, you would have understood. I was a timid child and youth, and never wanted to hurt anyone. The madness and cruelty of war turned me into a killer. That’s the bitter sadness of it all. That’s what I wanted to get across.”
“I understand, Don,” replied Ed using his abbreviated name for the first time.
“I cannot comprehend what you must have gone through but I can understand how it would have dismantled your reality and how that could desensitise you to all those horrors. I feel very strongly for you, honestly. There is not a single participant in any war that’s not a pained and troubled victim at their core. I would never judge you on that,” reflected Ed emotionally as he sat up on the bed and stared at Donald.