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He wasn’t at all certain if this should have been life after death.
Peace and quiet.
Wasn’t that all he should have wanted?
According to Aristotle, the best possible life was one spent contemplating—after all, the gods themselves had an eternity to do so. In their immortality, the gods led a life of true virtue, having until the end of time to contemplate their own nature. A truly good person would attempt to do the same. What better way to become virtuous than to follow in the footsteps of the gods? Day after day, spent pondering the nature of humanity. Now, Virgil faced an eternity of it, but he wasn’t sure this was paradise after all.
Silence. Stone bricks, stack by stack, built themselves up to the sky, enclosing the green meadow in a sturdy luminous palace. Where Virgil laid, the roof of the tower opened up near the top, revealing a grey-blue sky. A soft wind blew over the hole, creating a howling sound as it moved over it. Strangely enough, he had never in his life felt more at peace. His back rested against the cool floor.
Virgil sighed. There was never much to do, and yet there always was. Such was his punishment, to experience himself outside of time with no sense of direction or order. Peace and quiet? It certainly was, and it was a bit maddening to him. Although this was true, he couldn’t help but make the most out of his eternity here.
He felt as if something more interesting awaited him below. Pulling himself up, Virgil started heading toward the castle’s entrance. The plains of the meadow opened up before him. As he stepped out, familiar and foreign faces surrounded him from all sides. The hills rolled on gently through the valley. Other souls sat on the soft grass, scattered out far and wide like morning dew. With the plains seeming infinitesimally stretched out, no area was too crowded with people. To Virgil’s far right was Homer and Ovid among others, but the hills beyond the castle presented him with a wider variety of people he did not know.
Upon walking further, Virgil stopped near a grove of trees, eyeing the people there. They all acted in their own unique ways but tended to stick to the same group. First, there were those who made like birds and flittered about, going out of their way to explore and talk with others, never missing the opportunity to converse. Some shades simply huddled together like sheep, murmuring among themselves as if hiding from something. Finally, there were the lone wolves, shades who strolled through the trees but mostly kept to themselves. Despite their differences, all of them lacked one thing. These shades, the unbaptized, searched around in a place that no longer held answers.
In Limbo, there were those such as Virgil who never led a religious life to begin with—they simply couldn’t. They were known as virtuous pagans, for they followed a moral code despite not knowing God.
However, the unbaptized in limbo were always peculiar. There were those who were both born at the right time in history and lived long enough lives to make a choice about their faith. Whether or not they chose to follow God did not matter, for they did not receive the first sacrament. The unbaptized who followed Him appeared in Limbo after their deaths. But perhaps even more heartbreaking were the children who died before their time. Breathing the essence of life for only a few months, weeks, or even seconds, the soft hands of death took them from the reality they so rightly deserved.
In the eyes of the Lord, it was only fair. But how could something so fair be so cruel? Virgil knew not to feel any sympathy. Still, these questions drifted to him, little wisps carried by the wind. He did not usually ask himself questions of this nature—it felt as if an outside force was leaving them in his mind, placing a ghostly hand on his shoulder and whispering the questions into his ear. An absurd idea, for sure.
Virgil sighed. Of course, he knew not to pity the souls. It still did not stop him from wondering.
These unbaptized children were the shades that Virgil observed. In the afterlife, they appeared as young adults, what they could have been. The experience they lacked in life was more than made up for with the innocence they currently carried. Virgil continued walking.
Beyond the grove was a more condensed area of trees. Here, he noticed a shade walking by himself, touching each tree. This shade appeared as a young man, wandering around as if something were missing. Of course, this was almost always the case with those who died in their infancy. Always searching for something to fill their hole.
Virgil quietly stepped down the path but still brushed against the undergrowth. The rustling of leaves brought the young man back to reality, causing him to snap his head up. He froze. Virgil fixed his gaze on him as steadily as the huntress draws her bow. Transfixed, the shade stopped in his tracks, then stepped back in slight alarm. He seemed to melt into the trees, making himself hidden while still keeping his eye on the unfamiliar man in front of him.
What a strange one, Virgil mused.
Virgil locked eyes with him. The shade quickly looked down, as if ashamed of what Virgil might find there.
“Speak to me—what is your name?”
Ringing out in the otherwise silent forest, these words grabbed the young man’s attention, causing him to look up again. Tentatively, he stepped out from behind the trees. Pondering for a second, he searched for the right words, as if this were a question he wasn’t too familiar with. “It was Dante, I believe.”
One small success. “Well, I am pleased to meet you Dante.”
“As am I.” Dante shifted awkwardly, until it occurred to him to keep the conversation going. “Ah… and who were you?”
Virgil smiled. It was always souls such as these that humbled him. Under normal circumstances, he would have expected any other well-read person to stare at him in awe or jump up and down in delight. “You may call me Virgil.”
Dante nodded. Virgilio, in his native language. The name rolled nicely off the tongue, leaving a bittersweet taste. It should have been familiar.
“Tell me,” continued Virgil as Dante regarded him, “what do you seek in these woods?”
The words he spoke made something rise within Dante’s chest, his feelings about to burst out. Virgil’s prose was both a request and a command.
He was missing something. Dante knew why he was here but couldn’t identify what it was that made him incomplete. Was there an answer to why he deserved what he got, to what could have been his life? He understood the nature of his punishment but refused to accept it.
“I think,” after a while, Dante had spoken up, “I think that I’m looking for truth. Some kind of answer to the fate that I was given.” Or taken away from me, he thought.
Thinking about it for a moment, Virgil replied: “There’s not much new knowledge you can learn in the afterlife. By the word of the Lord, certain people get certain fates. You are simply one of many fated to Limbo. There is not much else to it.”
Unsatisfied, Dante opened his mouth to speak, but Virgil spoke first.
“However, if you have any questions about the nature of the universe, I’d be more than happy to explain.” He hadn’t spent the last millennia listening to Homer nag him for nothing.
It wasn’t Limbo that puzzled him, but what lay beyond it in the realm of the living. Everything laid so far beyond his reach. “I do have a question, actually: about people. I see them all here in Limbo. They are so different and unique, having led different lives with exciting stories. What I want to know is, what can you tell me about mankind?”
Humanity. So wonderful, so unique, so small in the face of God. And Dante would never know.
Virgil contemplated Dante’s question—he couldn’t exactly put his answer into straight words. He was a poet, after all. He decided to phrase it in the best way he could.
“They are like bees. They—"
“Bees?”
A simple question that provoked an enormous response. “Yes,” explained Virgil excitedly, “you see, they are small insects—do you know what an insect is? —or rather, animals, striped black and yellow—"
In all honesty, Dante knew what bees were. Upon death he had gained some understanding about life on Earth, both past and future. He understood events but not the humanity behind them, hence why he had asked that question. Virgil projected the persona of a wise man, but in that moment, with his rapid voice and vivid eyes, he seemed like his equal.
Dante just laughed and laughed, and Virgil came to a stop, looking at him.
“I’m sorry,” Dante chuckled out, “please continue.”
“I’m… not sure I understand. Was my explanation not sufficient?”
“No no, it was perfect.” Dante smiled from ear to ear.
They sat down on the cool grass, speckled with dew kept fresh from the blowing winds. The two friends laughed together and continued to converse for a while, Virgil demonstrating his vast knowledge and Dante absorbing it all. One could not have felt more content reveling in the satisfaction of these moments. And yet…
“Virgil.” Dante looked up at him. “I think I’ve been in Limbo for a while now, but there’s always a certain emptiness here. I’m grateful for all you’ve shown me and for having you, but… what can I do to fill this hole? I wasn’t content with life. I’m not sure if I’m meant to be content here.” Dante had never had the chance to be authentic with anyone and now here he was, oversharing with someone he had just met. “I’m sorry. I felt as if I should have put that out there, just to get it over with.” No response. Dante didn’t know if he wanted one.
Their comfortable shared silence could have stretched out for an eternity, and it would have been an eternity well-spent. Something had to disturb it.
“Forgive me for asking you this, but how did you come to pass?”
Dante broke eye contact with Virgil. There was not much to his life, not that he remembered much of it. It wasn’t pleasant. “Heat,” he said. “I remember heat, boiling my blood, making my environment insufferable. Breathing in and out. All the while, coldness gripped me from within. Abstract colors filled my vision. Only my mother’s shape made itself clear to me as she rocked me in her arms. I shivered, and all I knew from then on was death.” A momentary pause. “Forgive my lack of clarity. I’m afraid I’m not much of a poet.”
Virgil looked on thoughtfully. Dante’s experience had wormed its way into him, uncomfortably working itself into the pit of his stomach. It was all a bit too familiar. “You died of a fever.”
Slowly, Dante nodded. Were he not a shade, there might have been tears in his eyes. “Yes.” He stared ahead awkwardly, not daring to look at Virgil. He continued. “In death, I perceived the past and future. Time let her shackles go when I passed. In front of me I had suddenly seen a flash of a women so tall and fair, holding back her tender hand. How I long for her.”
How perplexing, Virgil thought. He himself had knowledge of future events as they would occur, but something about Dante’s description of the woman made him think of her as divine, as someone he had yet to know.
Shaking his head, Virgil decided to lay it down for Dante. “Well, now you have an eternity to get over it. It does not do well to dwell on the past—actually, the future for that matter. We must spend our time in Limbo simply contemplating.” Although they were sitting, Virgil’s presence loomed over Dante’s as if he were a teacher scolding his student.
Had Dante been raised on Earth, or if he hadn’t gotten to know Virgil first, he might have felt ashamed. Instead, he simply stared at Virgil like an oblivious child who had not grasped the words of the adult sternly speaking to him. He understood what Virgil meant but chose not to let it get to him. After all, what lessons do those in Limbo have to learn? He was imperfect.
“I’m not so certain about that…” Dante smiled weakly. “Had I known you in life, I do not think I would be here.”
Virgil frowned in stunned silence, but then let out a laugh. “But we were not from the same time! We would not have known each other regardless.”
“Regardless of what?”
“Well if you had lived, of course.”
Dante bit his lip. “I don’t know. It sounds absurd, but I’d like to think that I could have met you.”
The idea was preposterous to say the least, and Virgil’s expression showed it—but Dante stayed adamant. He continued on: “Something about your words, the way you carry yourself! What an influence it could have had on me.” He looked into Virgil’s eyes and saw all that he ever was, all the knowledge he could have learned from him in the life he could have had. Was any of this fair? Despite his feelings, Dante knew it to be true.
Virgil blinked, then sighed. He supposed there was no point in arguing further. He placed his hand on Dante’s, at a loss of words for once.
Dante refused to look up. “They shouldn’t be here. I should not be here.” He paused. “Since death, my hand twitches, yearning to tell a story. You may tell me otherwise. But I know I was meant for greatness.”
In all his centuries of being dead, Virgil had never felt doubt creep so gently into his heart. “Dante, please.”
Dante shook his head, again and again. Not just his head, but now his entire being, shaking in despair. It couldn’t be, he thought, it should not be. Slowly, Virgil leaned over, covering Dante’s intangible body with his own. He spread his arms out over Dante’s shoulders and encased him in them, embracing him like a long-lost friend. The shakes became shivers, and eventually dwindled down into a quiet rocking. Dante buried his face into Virgil’s neck while Virgil ran his fingers through Dante’s hair. It could have been an eternity, or it could have been a fleeting moment.
He wondered how it would have felt like if Dante’s body had been warm.