Back to you
(by Alfredo Moyano Barroso)

 

"Help, help!!"
 
   Scott Parsons woke up to those very same words every night since he
                     lost his wife in a 1951 shipwreck due to a tragic thunderstorm not too far
                     from the Fiji Islands.
 
                         After crying, Brett, the doggie, rushed onto his double bed to lick
                     Scott's hands.  Scott couldn't even smile after that.  Time couldn't make
                     him forget about Isa, and no ideas came easily to him, though three years
                     had already gone by.

                         "Let's go for a walk, my puppy!" Nobody could stop them when playing
                     on the beach of that lonely little green island called Shortland.  A piece
                     of Fiji Islands , inherited 15 years before after lung cancer had ended the
                     life of Brian Parsons -Scott's dad.  After Scott had been born and his mother
                     had abandonned then both, Brian Parsons had won the "Australian National
                     Lottery" in 1940 and had become a millionaire.

                         Scott was alone with his puppy and on vacation, simply because he was
                     a fisherman and all of the fish of the season had been sent out and sold,
                     and Scott needed to take a breather.  But...

                         "...Brettie, we'll go to Cuchi-cuchi Islands on vacation.  What do
                     you think, boy?" said Scott while petting his puppy.

                         "Ruff, ruff!!" cried puppy.
 
                         Three days later they took Scott's fishing boat and were on their
                     way to some vacation spot 600 miles away to visit the only family Scott had left, his sister Kathy.

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                         Suddenly, the seas became extrememly rough.  Furthermore, Scott was
                     unable to control the boat through the shadows of the night and the cruel
                     wind that was shaking it.

                         Brett was barking loudly the entire time he was in the lower level
                     of the boat, probably because he water was coming in and he could no longer  hear Scott's voice.

                         A considerable amount of time had passed by...

                        (...)  "Brettie boy!!"
 
                         "Ruff, Ruff!"

                         "Oh Brettie, how great that you're here! But... Where's the boat?"
                     asked Scott as Brett licked the left side of his face.
                         Actually, the place where Scott and Brett were had nothing to do
                     with the violence of the sea a while before.  Bunches of bushes and trees
                     surrounded them.  It was early in the morning but the light wasn't coming
                     from the sun.  In fact, there wasn't any sun at all.  Four rounded moons
                     sparkled in the four cardinal points in the sky.  But their light wasn't as
                     hard and powerful as the sun's, and the total absence of clouds was curious  too.

                         The bushes and trees tended to mix different colors such as grey,
                     pink, blue, red, or yellow.

                         "This is a different world, boy! Probably the holidays I needed.
                     Anyway, let's go this way, Brettie," said Scott, pointing at the widest path
                     of the area.

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                         Already by midday, our two characters reached a peculiar area with
                     fields of purple tomatoes.

                         "Hey Brettie, don't! Those fruits could be indigestive.  I have
                     never seen anything like that before, so be careful, boy!"

                         "Those aren't sir..."

                     And it really was impossible to believe but....
 
                         "Isa???"

                         Scott became drunk with happiness and kissed his disappeared wife as
                     he had never done before. (...)

                         "Ahh, I've been missing you soooo badly, Isa.... Im really glad Im back to you."

                         After the happiest of the moments, our characters looked for someplace to sleep.

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                         (Isa) "After the shipwreck, I came here like you and Brett.  This is a
                     neverending land between eden and heaven, my love.  I've been eating fruits
                     and fish since I came here, but let's go to my shelter boys."

                         So our three characters reached some triangular mountains, kind of
                     like pyramids, whose bottoms were full of caves with wooden doors.  Isa
                     showed them her place and then they ate and talked:

                         "It is so magical that you came back to me, Isa!"
 
                            "Ruff, ruff!" barked Brett.

                         In fact, Scottie, this land is inhabited by people like you and me...DEAD ones!"

                         "What!?!" –cried Scott-.
 
                         "Yup.  People here can go either to heaven or to hell.  The Devil
                     reigning in the depths has a headless servant wandering around these lands
 every night when the moons  become united in this dark sky.  And, what´s worse, this one servant cuts off the head of whomever he sees.  Then their souls go to hell., it´s said.

                         "But who goes to this “heaven” you're talking about?"

                         "Well, people here say that once the headless servant is beaten,
                     then all of us will take part of that heaven, though nobody knows what that heaven consists of."

                         "Wow! Then somebody must do something...."

                         "I have never seen that headless man.  Though people say he's fast
                     and runs a lot.  He also uses his sword with great talent, it's said.
                     Rumors even say that onceyour head falls off after being cut, you can even watch the rest of your headless body following.

                   Whatever that “heaven” was, it was clear that Scott was living his own “heaven” by Isa´s side.
 

                         The next morning, Scott discovered something that astonished him completely.
  The  total emptyness –end of the world- was right behind those triangular mountains.
So in real  measures, that "neverending land" ended behind those mountains: The name  of “neverending” is, of course, ironic.  In fact, people coming here to live or
                     die have one or more things in common: a shipwreck ended their lives.  The risk of dying in a shipwreck is a small one, so there's not too many people
                     living here, and ten less people since last night.

                         The headless had killed and sent out ten more souls to his master in the  hell.
The people that Isa knew and introduced to her husband were really
                     scared.  Some said, "Who will be the next ones tonight?", or cried things
                     like "I don't want to die again!"  Fear was set across the land.

                         Scott thought over and over, and even more once he saw again all that fear
                     in such a peculiar world.  He had already got used to that world, and he
                     lived happy again with his Isa, though not yet completely because of these
                     scary rumors.

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