Goldenreed

I was never really a religious person, but I had always hoped that at least one of two things happened when we died.

The first was complete nothingness. Most people thought the idea was scary, but I didn’t. If there was an afterlife, such that heaven and hell existed, I would hate it, even if I went to heaven. If God resided there, I would ask him a question: Why did he create shooting stars? Why did he not create all of us humans, without exception, as beautiful, fixed stars? Had he done so, no one would ever have to suffer; no one would ever be tormented by a yearning for things forever beyond their reach. Why must a shooting star be fated to die simply because it wanted to reach the Earth? It was bullshit. I would never be happy there. I would find it infinitely more comforting to know that no omniscient, omnipotent being exists—that no such entity, possessing the choice to spare us from suffering, deliberately chose instead to inflict it upon us—chose to deliberately make it so awful to want to be something great. That’s why I preferred nothingness.

The second option was for if an afterlife did exist anyway. In that scenario, the only heaven I could ever accept is a world devoid of any omniscient, omnipotent God. It had to be a paradise for all—a realm ruled by no one—where everyone stands as an absolute equal, and where no single individual is deemed superior or inferior to another, so that no one—no one felt the need to be something great. To realize such a world, the very concept of “skill” must cease to exist. In other words, in this particular kind of heaven, everything we ever wish to create or behold would manifest automatically, requiring absolutely no effort on our part. Could there possibly be a world more magnificent than that?

As I gazed out at the beautiful world around me, I could only guess that this place was heaven—that we had somehow made it here without having to go through the horrible process of actually dying. Perhaps my dream of no longer having to suffer came true. Perhaps, there wasn’t a god here like I hoped, that everybody here stood as an equal.

I wanted to believe that this was the true explanation for the strangely peaceful landscape around us, but in reality it was just a defensive mechanism to help me calm my nerves down. I had to believe that everything was okay, that we hadn’t fallen into some demonic realm, and that the voices just now were angels and not monsters… Nevermind the fact that in most depictions of heaven, it was located high in the sky and not down some dark hole…

Suddenly, the grass around us began to rustle violently and I found myself subconsciously moving closer to Akari. The two of us carefully watched the grass, not daring to move a muscle but preparing to run if anything dangerous appeared. The sound of the grass rustling came closer and closer to us and soon we began to hear the unintelligible chattering of… children?

A few moments later, a tiny creature jumped out from behind the grass. It was a piece of bread… or at least it looked like one. It had tiny black limbs protruding from its sides like the ones you would find on a stick figure, and its face looked to be drawn on using a black marker. It was not the only one that appeared either. Soon enough, a horde of tiny bread children began to pop out one by one from behind the tall grass. Each one was different from another, and together, they looked like an assortment you would find at a bakery.

“New friends, new friends!” one of them eagerly shouted.

“Who are they?”

“The one with the brown hair is so pretty!”

They began to clamor around us, jumping up and down in excitement like children gathering around a person tossing free candy. Despite their numbers, they didn’t seem to pose any threat, and if anything, it felt like we were the ones with power to harm them.

“Calm down, calm down,” Akari gently said as if talking to a child. “Can any of you tell us where we are?”

“Meraki!” one of them answered.

“We’re in Meraki!” another followed.

“Come to our village! Everyone will be excited to see you!”

“Goldenreed is a beautiful village!”

“...Goldenreed?” Akari asked. “Where is that?”

“That’s where we are right now silly!”

“Come on, come on! Follow us to the village! Our momma can explain everything to you better!”

The bread children began to run away one by one, stopping to look back every so often as if expecting us to follow.

“Should we follow them?” Akari whispered to me.

I paused and looked up at her. She was asking me for what to do?

“...I don’t know,” I replied, “but they look harmless enough.”

“That’s true… but what if the village they’re talking about is dangerous?”

“...I don’t know,” I repeated. “But I think they’ll be aware of our presence either way since those bread children have already found us, so it’s not like it’s any safer out here.”

Akari thought for a moment.

“You’re right,” she said. “Then I say we should follow them. If we’re going to be in danger either way, then we should at least try to get some answers.”

She began walking off, leaving me to sit alone in the grass.

Don’t leave me…! I silently thought. If you leave me, then how could I—

With great effort, I forced myself up on my feet and quickly followed after her. Together, we weaved through the fields of golden grass, being careful so as to not step on the children as they guided us.

After a few minutes of walking, we suddenly noticed a strange figure in the distance. Unlike the bread children, he looked to be a human just like us—a farmer perhaps based on his straw hat and loose garments. He was toiling away in the fields: a sight that made me wary. The bread children seemed to ignore him however, as if he were an ordinary sight, and we passed by him briskly but at a distance. Still, Akari and I kept our eyes on him, and when we got close enough for him to notice us, he stopped his toiling and silently stared at us from afar.

We both gave each other wary glances, but the man didn’t move from his position. Only when he returned to his work did we finally continue following the children.

Soon enough, we spotted a village in the distance, and as we approached it, the children began to sing and chatter happily.

“Goldenreed~! Goldenreed~!”

“Momma’s going to be so excited!”

“We did our job correctly!”

The village itself was very rural in appearance, and it reminded me of the farming villages in the quiet parts of Hokkaido. The houses were very traditional and rustic, each made out of wood and stone, and each one looking as if it had been meticulously built by hand. As we walked deeper into the village, the villagers began to stare at us. Strangely, they were mostly human too… or human-shaped at least, though some of them still had abnormal figures like the bread children.

As we passed by them, their looks of curiosity slowly turned into gestures of welcome. Some of them waved at us, while others directly said things like “welcome to Goldenreed” or “my name is… what is your name?” We awkwardly smiled at the ones who stood away and tried our best to avoid the ones that were more confrontational. After a few more steps, we finally made it to the front of a large, cozy-looking home that was mostly made of stone bricks.

“Momma! We found a new friend!!!” one of the bread children hollered.

Akari and I stood in front of the wooden door in silence. The villagers no longer seemed to be bothering us and had gone back to doing their own things, as if they knew what was going to happen next.

“I’m coming childrennn!” a voice called out from inside.

The sound of footsteps came marching toward the door, and a few seconds later, it swung open to reveal an older lady in her forties. She had short blonde hair and a gentle complexion on her face that reminded me of my mother.

“Ah, it seems we have new visitors!” she said. “I’m assuming by your faces that this is your first time here in Meraki? Why don’t you two come on in so I can introduce you to how things work around here?”