A breath of new life

Ether gave an angelic smile. His work was challenging and endless. Unlike the lawyers and families, who sorted out the effects of their dear departed as well as those they were delighted to part company with, Ether was responsible for shifting through their memories.

Even though his job was an eternal one he could still envisage the pain of those who had lived tragic lives, and who carried into the next realm the mental scars inflicted through war and famine. It was the hoarders of memories that he found the hardest to separate from their spirits, weighed down by insignificant and countless memories. Usually, these were the same people who had filled their houses with things that they had bought and saved to comfort themselves. The person who would not relinquish 30 years’ worth of bills, letters, birthday cards, was not easily separated from their overgrown and rambling memories. However, for him the most unpleasant to deal with were those minds crammed full of petty grievances and spite. These were the hoarders of viperous words and thoughts that were often gangrenous, and so none of their malignant memories could be preserved.

What he enjoyed the most was reading the sweet remembrances of true love, loyal friendship and kind intentions. Wisps of deep and intoxicating moments like lingering summer sunsets that inhabited the hidden corners of generous minds. They were ‘the stuff that dreams’ were ‘made of’. These were the recollections that Ether allowed to be remembered and carried forward with the earthly dead.