Whispers from Heaven
by Ekai Ungson

sorry, charlie, but it's another angstfic. . i hate me.

disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion copyright GAINAX and other related enterprises. Characters used without permission.

written in inspiration of a boy i know.

Whisper to my soul, have you any regrets?

How have you lived, why do you live the way you do? Are you happy, are you sad, are you alive? Who are you, who are we, who am I?

Whisper to my soul, why ask each othrer questions that are often devoid of any answers? Why all this talk about life, about death, about heaven and hell, and where we go after thanatos? Why all this confusion, why all this pain-- and why view death as the best escape from reality? Whisper to my soul, son of Adam. Let me know what you are most afraid of.

Whisper to my soul, and dance to the music only you and I hear. Tell me about your dreams, your nightmares, your strengths and your weaknesses. Show me no inhibitions, talk to me as if you were talking in your sleep. Do not be afraid of me. You will not lose yourself with me.

"Tell me, Third Child, of what you know about sunshine."

"... Pardon?"

"We talk so much of death and of dreaming, of love and of losing, of fighting, of failing, of purpose and of being. Tell me today, Ikari Shinji, what do you know about sunshine?"

The young man paused. "Sunshine... is warm and bright, and light."

The young woman sighed. "Someday, I want to feel like sunshine-- warm and bright, and light."

Whisper to my soul so I may see the last sparks of light within you. Whisper to my soul and prove that you are not darkness-- we are not darkness. Once upon a time in our lives we were sunshine. That was the moment of our birth. Everyday after that we died slowly.

Take one hand and press it flat against the surface of a glass mirror. What appears is not what is. Face obscured by fingers long eaten away by guilt and desperation, fingers used as instruments to fight unknown, unseen enemies. Tainted by blood and stained with tears. Shall this be who we are, shall this be what defines us? Pain and beings devoid of fullness of heart?

Whisper to my soul, that which is splayed against broken glass and cold charred metal-- that which still defies mere human tears. The best of me will not be defined this way, and what of you, son of Adam, what role will you play?

Play the cello for me, son of Adam, and pretend, even just this once, that we are dreamers. Circumstances have led us to believe that we are beings not worthy of dreams but of nightmares. A strange string of macabre instances have led us to believe that we are who we are. Play for me, son of Adam, as I dance in your honor. Let us pretend to be still pure, still beautiful, stillness.

*

What do you fight for? Freedom, liberty, love? Are we not all afraid inside? Honor, charity, forgiveness. Concepts we do not fully grasp yet advocate for.

Take your chords higher, son of Adam. Take it as far up in the sky as you can and whisper your woes to heaven so the angels may cry the tears you do not shed.

*

Do all human beings not seek beauty? Beauty in life, beauty in nature, beauty in the things we tell ourselves and each other? Do all human beings not seek identity? Who we are, why we are, how we should be? Sometimes I imagine that we have been made to believe that we have no life, no pleasure, no identity nor beauty. We have come to believe this so much that we have learned to deny that there were such things.

Whisper to my soul, son of Adam; and tell me what you find most beautiful in this world that we may save it before the coming of Armageddon.

Children, we are called. Children, a mocking name for our damned souls devoid of base purity. We are not Children. No longer Children. Were never Children. Lives so full of tragedy, of hate, we are not alive. We are exisiting for the purpose of Instrumentality.

*

This is what could've been:

A girl with hair red as the sun raises her face to the sky. Her blue eyes laugh with the melody of birds, and she smiles.

She never would have smiled otherwise.

Somewhere past the hill a woman's voice calls to the child. When reality is truth and truth is a fallacy, then reality is a fallacy. Her mother lives and the child is free to cry.

Grow up she may, maybe without as much angst, maybe spared of unnecessary struggles. But she will not be what she was in the end. Normality in humans is non-existent.

When the Instrument is gone, then we shall be normal.

*

This is what could've been:

A boy cries beside the ruins of a sandcastle as the sun sinks itself into the horizon. Instead of the aloneness reality has dealt him, he is picked up by a man he can properly call father, and a woman who lioved long enough to be called mother. Dead to feeling, dead to beauty, he has learned to deny things such as love.

Grow up he may, but not dead to everything, not wretched, not silent nor complacent. Press your hands flat against a mirror, is it not cold? But he will not be what he was in the end.

When the Instrument is gone then we shall not be cold.

This is what could've been:

Hand in hand, the boy and the girl walk home, fighting battles not alone but with each other. In her eyes shine a light I have learned not to deny, and in her arms the whole world empties itself for me.

Hand in hand they look up at the stars in the sky without digressing on their origins or its symbols. Stars are stars, no question about it. Everything that I see in your eyes is all the truth I need to live.

Do you love me?

No lies, no empty words, no bitterness, no questions.

Yes.

We could've been happy children, happy people. But our world has been drained of this feeling that we have no propensity or capacity to be happy.

What is Happiness?

Why ask?

Dream yourself a happy dream, son of Adam, for of those you've had so little. Dreams and happiness. Close your eyes and try to lose yourself for a little while. Let the music of death fade into the night and let us have silence.

Let us have this to ourselves, for each other.

We shall not be haunted, just this once.

In the end, it was a girl-child sitting against a lone oak with the head of the boy-child in her lap.

Before the sun rises, before the stars dispapear, the girl-child presses her lips to the boy's with a soft sigh and these words:

Ich liebe dich.

--Owari--