Deep in the ground beneath the graves,
there is a vast, ancient cave system
where the dead spend their days,
and none among them remember
the light of the sun, or the stars of the night.
They shuffle about in shifting shadows,
and mutter words without meaning.
They come to the cavern through a river,
the waters of which erase all memory.
They remember no pain or pleasure from life,
nor do they know one man from another.
No memories of fear or hope enter them,
nor any knowledge of right and wrong.
They lack all desire and disgust.
They lack all joy and sorrow,
for all is grey in the cavern of the dead.
No eye meets another, no hand holds another.
No face is more beautiful than any other.
All friends are forgotten, and all enemies,
for all is lost in the river that bore them
into the cursed cathedral of the cavern.
Another river runs out of the other end,
it whisks away any that stray too close.
This is the river of remembering.
Souls fall into this river just as they fell into the first,
and are born along into the world of the living.
The waters restore the memory of life,
destroying all knowledge of the cavern,
just as the sunlight destroys the darkness.
The grey souls of the dead burst into color
in the light of the sun, and the earth and sky
welcome them home as children again.
Mothers and infants remember each other,
friends and enemies remember their promises,
and all remember their language,
return to their home, and to their land.
All fears and desires return,
as well as all pains and pleasures.
Everyone lives as if they never died at all.
They go on, sometimes together, sometimes alone,
sometimes with laughter, sometimes in weeping.
When night comes they sleep, and awaken with the sun
to do the work they always remember doing.
Life goes on just as you remember,
and you know nothing else.
One day you will find yourself
on the banks of a strange river,
you will slip into its waters,
the swift current will carry you down
into a vast, ancient cavern
where all is grey, and all is forgotten.
You will forget that you have forgotten.
The dead don’t remember having lived.
The dead don’t know what death is.
The living don’t know what life is either,
Because they don’t remember being dead.