Take Me Back To Paddington (SERIES)

Chapter 35 - The Doe Eyes

DOUBLE UPDATE BECAUSE WHY NOT?
MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS MY HUNNIES ❤

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Pain.

For each will have to bear his own load.
Galatians 6:5 ESV.

But it felt nothing like what I could bear, My Lord, there would never be enough words for me to tell about how painful death was.

When a little girl me sat on my mother's lap, listening to one of the Sunday's preaches, I remembered asking her about something that caught my attention as a curious child—how does death feel like? Is it as painful as the Bible says it is? And I still remembered the answer she had for me at that time. My mother said, 'I don't know, honey. Nobody does until it's time to go'.

I also remembered how I stayed up later that night, thinking about the actual answer that could satisfy my interest. I was already upset about the fact that death could come at any time and for anyone, regardless of their ages, or whether they have had fulfilling lives or not. I remembered feeling disappointed by how unfair it was to die young because everyone deserved to die old—after getting married and seeing all their children grow up. But I was just a kid, I couldn't think of which part about life I was allowed to argue and which one was not. And I was forever grateful to have loving hands that stroke my hair every night before bed, a soft voice that reminded me about how Loving and Just God was, and I had become a woman without any doubt on Him anymore.

But it still wasn't enough to justify the reasons why God made death so painful.

I used to guess that death might feel as painful as the way someone died. I used to conclude that if someone passed in his sleep, he must have felt less pain. And it worked the same on the contrary—like if someone died in a fire, in an explosion, or in a terrible accident, then the degree of pain would be worse. If only I knew that I would waste my entire life guessing about it since it actually didn't matter, I wouldn't have thought about it at all.

How painful it is when death comes? Get that question out from your head, because even after you die, you still can't tell anyone about it, even to your own self. So why is it so important to be answered if you're still alive?

But the hurting didn't just end there for a soul like me. It was when I was left alone, without anywhere to go—no light for me to go towards to, only then misery showed what it was capable of. It was the feeling of having no control anymore, floating and wandering with no physical body to enter and live in anymore, only then the beginning of God's punishments opened up its secrets. And it was when I saw Lisa—how sad and heartbroken she was after she lost me, that was when I decided I couldn't stay in that same universe I died in.

So I left.

My journey felt so long, torturing to the heart without any answer of when it would stop. I kept jumping in and out from one world to the other, trying to find and get back what I had lost. Everything. I had lost everything. Even with new hosts to stay in, everything still felt so different. Even with new Lisas to love, everything still felt so distinct. Maybe it was never about the second chance, or how many chances I would be getting after death. Perhaps it was never about that at all.

Maybe it's because we never need a second chance. Maybe it's because there's nothing like our first life. And we beg to make it better while it's already good enough that even a thousand more lives couldn't beat it.

Maybe.

My other lives, they only felt like so when I was inside another body of mine. They were never perfect, and sometimes they tired me. Most of the time, I just stayed floating and didn't care about jumping in, because nothing was interesting, or no one worth the jump anymore. The same histories kept repeating themselves, same looking Lisas with differences here and there in personalities and traits, making me feel like I was living in my past without any future. It was like living a life that was no longer yours, and the universe rewind it over and over again.

And it was just another day in Leicester Square where I saw a figure of someone I had missed in thousands of universe, waiting for me.

"I'm so sorry!" I giggled after soft tapping her shoulder, feeling anxious. "I am super late!"

I would love to stay bubbly like I was, handling the woman in front of me calmly with all the experiences under my belt from so many versions of her before. But the surprise I received from her caught me off guard, vanishing the smile I wore for her in an instant. It was because of what I was staring into; a pair of doe eyes that welled up with tears, and I hadn't seen those eyes for such a long time.

I frowned. "Is everything alright, Lisa?"

Nothing. I heard nothing from her even though her lips trembled, looking like she wanted to say lots of things to me, but she couldn't. Her troubled and restraint expressions invited worries in me, and also curiosity that had filled my mind. So I gathered the small braveness I had left, knowing how cold and hot-tempered this Lisa was before, and I grasped her arms gently.

"Lisa?" I called for her again, hoping for her response and finding out if it was any similar to the one I had longed to listen to; my Lisa's voice.

But all I got was her tears, staining her cheeks that had terrible redness in them.

Panic barged into my chest immediately, forcing me to hold her face like I used to as I started to feel the familiar pain whenever I saw her crying.

"Lisa..." I whispered her name this time when sadness had weighed my breath. "What happened?"

I waited a few seconds more, stroking her arm with my other hand until I finally heard her voice.

"C-Chae..."

The pain intensified when I recognised that tone. It almost sounded like the one I had been waiting to hear, but it wasn't enough. I needed to hear more before I got my hopes high.

So I initiated a question as fast as I could.

"Lisa, tell me what's wrong."

"Chae, I-I'm..."

I was silent, waiting for her to say my name one more time.

Call me again, Lisa, call my name with your love.

"I'm so sorry-" She stuttered, yet her delivery was so powerful in regret that I couldn't seem to understand. "Chae, I'm sorry..."

Chuckling, I distracted my brain from something impossible to be true; she is my Lisa.

"Hey, what are you sorry for? You can tell me, don't keep it to yourself" I paused, still touching her with mixed feelings I was experiencing. "We can cancel the movie and go somewhere else if you want?"

I didn't hear her voice anymore. Instead, she went clumsy to take something out of her pocket, which was our movie tickets that she had bought beforehand. That was when I saw the surprise in her eyes as if she just found out something big.

"Lisa?" I demanded her attention when she looked like she was so invested in those tickets. "What do you say? You want to go somewhere else?" I continued to give suggestions. "We can take a stroll, playing tourist?"

"I just-" Lisa's speech was interrupted by her own struggle to speak. "Chae?"

"Yes, Lisa?"

"I just want a hug..." She shocked me again by how gentle her intonation was, almost sounding like the only Lisa I had lost lots of universes ago. "Can I hug you? Please? If you don't mind."

And I found myself unable to answer right away, wondering if she was really my Lisa, or just demonic deceit to torture my soul even more. Is this another form of punishment for me? Toying with my feelings and hopes, only to crush them in bags of bones?

"I'm sorry- I" She resumed, shaking her head at the same time. "I know this is awkward but-" She stuttered badly. "I just-"

I cut her speech off by pushing my chest against hers, catching her body in my arms as tight as I could when I failed to sustain all the questions and doubts in my head. I had seen her eyes—the only eyes for only one person. I had heard her voice; the only kind I could tell apart from millions of others. And I just had to feel her embrace; warm and enticing that made me feel like I was in heaven.

I was in heaven, I really was, when she wrapped her loving arms around me.

In my tears, in my sadness, I knew it was her.

Lisa, how can I forget you?