The Celestial Gate by Avital Dicker (red white royal blue txt) 📗

wind spat the passengers out of the trolley with a thud, before turning its attention to the next trolley in line.

Anise bumped her knee slightly. She got up, rubbed the grazed skin and searched for Yam in the crowd. She found him a little further on the right and watched his solemn blue eyes light up with a smile when he caught sight of her. As she tried to wind her way through the crowd to reach him, a shower of shooting stars sent everyone scrambling for cover.

“Watch where you’re going!” cried a rather plump kid at a shooting star that scraped his leg on its way down.

Anise raised her head and looked around. With folded wings, angels with concerned expressions scurried briskly about, eagerly blowing what looked like alphabet-shaped smoke rings into the air. The letters hurried to form words, wrestling each other for first place on the long, elaborate lists that fluttered in the air behind the angels as they rushed busily from here to there.

Attendants wearing white gloves directed the flow of passengers urging them to descend with caution through the rainbow, which stretched proudly and with a grandiose shake of its palette, splashed drops of color all around.

Anise trod carefully on the rainbow, and in a flash, the green step changed to red. She stopped for a moment and watched the vivid parade of changing colors.

“Hey,” said Yam, resting his hand on her shoulder as he appeared behind her.

Anise breathed a sigh of relief. He’d found her. She laced her fingers through his long, firm fingers.

A ray of light tapped its foot impatiently at the end of the stairs. “Please exercise caution. It’s hot. And don’t forget to buckle your seatbelt,” echoed the stern female voice again across the expanse.

One after another, passengers climbed into the vacant trolley awaiting at the bottom of the stairs. The white metal railings rattled restlessly, and before she had a chance to pull the belt across her middle, Anise was pitched forward as the ray of light set off and went reeling into a spin. A burst of white light dazzled her. Just don’t let go of his hand she thought as they plunged into the darkness. She closed her eyes. Just don’t lose him again.

Sparks ricocheted impishly off what looked like the walls of a tunnel, but by then Anise was sleeping, blissfully unaware, with her head nestled deep in the warm hollow between Yam’s neck and shoulder.

She was woken by the sound of cheering and cries of joy. She raised her head and saw that the darkness had been replaced by a bright light. As the trolley inched forward, Anise looked around in awe. They had entered a vast hall where thousands of galaxies with innumerable stars glittered from the walls, taking turns igniting and extinguishing. Some vaulted off the walls, alone or in groups, cascading to the floor and sending a ripple of complaints through the crowd below.

“Look,” Yam whispered, giving her hand a firm squeeze.

Anise followed his gaze and shivered. There, in the center of the hall, turning on its axis, was Planet Earth in all its glory. With mixed feelings, she watched as rushing rivers, autumn leaves kicked up by the wind, forests, mountains, and deserts all went past her. A moment’s glimpse of a snow-capped mountain; then a fleeting peek at a radiant sun pouring its rays onto golden sand. An utterly beautiful but complex planet, she thought.

With a muffled creak, the trolley came to a halt. “Welcome to The Draw,” the female voice announced. “Last stop. All passengers out.”

There was a sudden ruckus, the passengers roared to life, bustling about, cheering happily as everyone hurried to disembark. Anise felt a hand on her shoulder and spun around. Mor! A playful twinkle caught the light in the jade bits of Mor’s brown eyes. He beamed a broad smile, and it seemed like his whole body was greeting her with joy.

Anise ran into the warmth of his embrace. There was a chorus of protest behind her as she obstructed the flow of commuter traffic. She didn’t care. “I missed you,” she whispered with no words.

Yam came to the rescue and quickly pulled Anise up the stairs and into the hall, Mor following not far behind. The soft cloud floor pleasantly tickled their bare feet.

Anise glanced at the two boys beside her. They hadn’t always had the names they had now. Each time they entered the gates of heaven they were assigned new names. These would be their names for their next reincarnation on Planet Earth.

Humans spend so much time choosing the perfect name for their baby. In heaven, it’s a well-known fact that babies are born with a name. The eager couple might argue, deliberate, and prepare long lists of possible names when, in fact, it’s impossible to name a child anything other than their true God-given name. This very name might appear in a young father’s dream the night before a baby’s birth, or it might be the name that just felt right to a young mother’s intuition. Anise had no need for names. She would recognize them both anywhere, on Earth or up above. The three of them had been together, inseparable, for as long as she could remember. Since the beginning of time.

Century after century, they had chosen their journey together, learned countless languages, and shared the metamorphosis of time as humanity evolved. Anise remembered the very beginning, the start of it all, before words existed, before man discovered fire. At the beginning of time, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, and humans lived in caves.

She’d been through so much since then, and a lot had changed on this planet known as Earth.

First came horses, then wagons, trains, enormous ships that could cross oceans, hot-air balloons, cars, planes, and space shuttles. Every time she returns to Earth, she is met with a new adventure.

There were times she was reincarnated as a man and other times as a woman, once as an Asian,