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Opening his eyes, Gabriel’s blinded by a white-light, like the reflection from snow. He closes his eyes and hears digging and a voice tutting at him.

“You’re lying in my peonies.”

“What?” says Gabriel squinting through his eyelids, but this time his vision’s filled with green stems and many coloured petals. After the empty grey of his dream, the colours are incandescent.   He drinks in the sight of them, until he feels the nudge of a pronged tool and moist soil seeping into his tailored tunic.  He really is lying in a flower bed.

“Urgh!” he says, jumping up and fixing his hair. “What happened?”

“You tried to cross the Chasm of Darkest Nothing…again,” says the same voice. “Did you expect a different result?”

“I..I…I don’t know,” says Gabriel looking round unsure. “How did I get here? Is this the Eternal Estate?”

A voice, that could both sooth and command, says with a chuckle, “No, you’re not nearly ripe enough. A girl saved you. There was a girl here last time; you seem to be beset with them.”

“The same girl? But Lucie fell,” says Gabriel. Spotting his bag, with an emergency mirror in it, he walks over to it.

“No, a different girl.”

None of the girls Gabriel knows would’ve left him, especially if they’d just saved him, they’d want recognition.  But then he remembered an incandescent light, brighter than any he’d seen before. Considering this, he grabs his bag and collects his staff. Then turning says, “And who are you?”

“Just the Gardener tending my flowers,” says the Gardener, collecting up a basket and turning away. “If you’ll excuse me?”

“But I need to know,” says Gabriel, stepping after the Gardener, his voice strained.

“Know what?” says the Gardener, turning back.

“The Truth.”

“About what?”

“Everything! About the First Message and Lucie and the Unmoved Master.”

“And you think the Truth is over there?” says the Gardener, nodding toward the Eternal Estate.

“The Unmoved Master knows everything.”

“The Truth is whatever you believe it is.”

“That doesn’t make any sense?” says Gabriel, rummaging through his bag. “Things either happen or they don’t; it doesn’t matter what I believe.”

“A plant grows. A plant is picked. Those are the facts. But is the picker a murderer? Is the gardener who weeds a destroyer?”

“But we can’t know what everyone thinks or feels.”

“How do you know if someone’s your friend?”

Gabriel shrugs.

“Exactly, you can’t. You just believe in them.”

“I believed Lucie was my friend,” says Gabriel staring into the mirror in his hand but for once he’s not seeing his outer reflection, instead he reflects on long buried memories. After a while, he continues, “She fell. Was I wrong to believe in her? Was I wrong to deliver the message?”

“Those seeds have been sown.”

“But all those mortals, the Red Ghosts. How can I fix it?”

“You believe it needs fixing? You believe you made the wrong choice?”

“Yes.”

“Then you better do something about it.”

I’m alone.

Lucie’s fallen, Mykal’s departed and Gabriel’s gone.

I’m alone in a never-ending office full of luminous immortals.

I can’t believe how quickly everything changed. One moment we were all friends, we were racing through the Light. I was dancing in the Garden of Forms.

I think I almost shone.

But Lucie said I’d never be a Star and then she went on a quest without me, and when they came back, things were different.

I don’t know why I care what Lucie thought, she was a liar, and after everything she’s now Fallen.  But I do. I care because she made me feel special, unique. She made me believe we were friends.

But if she was my friend the betrayal is all the greater.  Not hers, mine. I didn’t save her, couldn’t follow her onto Night-Stage.

My own fears held me back, but also her words, “You’ll never be a dancer.”

Words that first ignited anger, then sparked fear, now simmer at my core. I’m resigned to the reality of my existence.

I am not special.

I never was.

Lucie was right and when it came to it, when she needed me most, I let her down. I failed my best friend.

Lucie, Mykal and Gabriel were unique to me, but to them I was never unique, just one of many. They could never have felt about me the way I felt about them.  I’m a defective and deflated balloon, blown up only to be let go and streak pathetically round a room. The sound of a raspberry heralding my deflation. 

The only thing left for me to do is fulfil the orders of the First Message.

In a weird way, by helping, I still feel close to Gabriel.  Not that it matters anymore. The spark, that was there, is only a flicker now and will soon be extinguished, smothered by the knowledge that I am where I belong.

We’ve set up The Company. Of course, I wasn’t good enough to be Management. I wasn’t even good enough to be a Senior Analyst. I’m just a Decision Analyst. The Never-Ending Office is full of DAs. I’m one among many.

At least I have my own desk (more than I deserve). Here everything I have has a place and everything is kept in its place, especially my thoughts. 

Keeping busy, I bury any wandering memories about the beginning, about Lucie, Mykal or Gabriel.  Sometimes a stray recollection sneaks to the surface of my mind; the mirage of a smile, the ghost of a touch, the echo of a laugh. They are like moles popping up and leaving a heap of disturbed soil.

My mind is full of mole hills.

Keeping everything neat, tidy and in its place, I pat down the disturbed area and reseed the ground with efficient ideas.

Maybe as time passes, there’ll be fewer mole hills and one day there’ll be none. One day I’ll forget that anything ever changed in the Edge of the Light.