Limbo

Stanislav didn't know how he came to be in a great labyrinth built of sandstone, nor did he care. It was not such a bad place to live. Once you got used to the occasional bouts of screaming that was. Stanislav had seen much worse in the place before this one. The last place had varied terrain and cigarettes and so it wasn't all bad. Still, the labyrinth was better in almost every way.

It did surprise him, of course, when he woke up in the grand maze. Before that point, he didn't believe in an afterlife. He believed in God and did his best to please the being. Not with the hope of getting to relax forever above the clouds, but because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

He tried to believe in heaven when his wife died, to ease some of the loneliness, but he couldn't manage it. It seemed childish and simple and not at all like something God would design. Wherever Raisa went after she died, it wasn't the labyrinth. Or if it was, she'd already gotten lost within because she was nowhere to be seen.

It was confusing as well because Stanislav didn't know if it was a place for good folk or bad folk. If he was being honest, he expected he'd make it to a good place. Especially considering that soviet-nuclear-false-alarm incident in the 80s. He could be responsible for saving the entire planet. Very few people could say that. He kept this to himself, of course, as he wasn't one to brag or stir up trouble.

Stanislav had one good friend in the labyrinth. Charles was his name, but Stanislav called him Charlie. He said he was a writer in the life before this one, a well-known one at that. Stanislav asked for the titles of his books, but Charles didn't know them. Nor could he remember the stories anymore.

For many months it had been just the two of them and sometimes they'd wander a little.

"Let's go for a gander," Charles would say and they'd walk together into the mess of ancient stones.

They knew where the others were, of course. There was a shanty town sixteen paces to the right, forty-two paces left, and nineteen paces left again. The newcomers arrived fourteen paces to the right, then thirty-three paces left.

Charles was a clever man, sometimes asking questions that Stanislav felt silly for not thinking about before. "I knew not a word of Russian while living, and you say you spoke no English, how then, are we talking now?"

Stanislav could not figure it.

"Most curious." Charles's eyes would light up and he'd smirk and say again, "I wish I had a pipe and some tobacco." Charles said this most every day.

Most people who came to the labyrinth tried their luck at getting out, wandering through the endless twists and turns, hoping to find something at the end. Sometimes Stanislav could hear the cries of people who'd been unlucky in their search. Despair from deep within the labyrinth walls. The begging of a desperate soul at risk of going mad.

There were other cries as well, even less pleasant. There was an animal within the maze that devoured explorers.

Those who stayed in the shantytown were those who saw no point in trying their luck with the maze. Most were addicts in the life before this one, who were clear-headed for the first time in years. They enjoyed swinging in their hammocks and hearing their own thoughts and not remembering what caused them to become an addict in the first place.

Some in the shantytown found true love in the life before and were waiting. Waiting for the person they died before. Or the person they died after. Or the person they died alongside. None of them knowing if there were other places people could go instead of this one, but not wanting to go on alone.

"There must be other places," Charles said, "Here we get only a few newcomers each day. There must be more than three or four deaths per day? In the entire world?"

Stanislav supposed he was right.

Charles hadn't carried on through the maze because he liked meeting the newcomers. He liked explaining to them they were someplace new. He liked warning them that deep within the labyrinth there lived a monster that would eat them. When they asked what lay outside the labyrinth, he'd smirk. His eyes would glisten and he always said, "None of us knows."

He'd guide them to the shantytown and speak to them about their lives. Often taking little pieces of their story for his own. Charles' story stretched on for more than 1500 paces. Carved into the walls with a piece of stone.

Stanislav was in the story as well, as an elderly man offering to take in an orphaned boy. The boy had meant to accept and live with Stanislav's character, only bandits took the boy someplace else. Charles' stories all went something like this. Good things placed on the table but snatched away at the last possible moment.

Once there was someone who recognized Charles. Her name was Nellie and she'd been a newspaper journalist and also had gone around the entire world in 72 days. "I've seen a picture of you!" she said. "Though I cannot remember where. You wrote the Christmas story. The one with all the ghosts."

"Ah yes!" Charles sprang up. "I remember now!" He began to tell us a wonderful story about a selfish old man who met a ghost. Only at this point, Charles began forgetting again and grew sad. "I know there was more," he said. "I 'm certain of it. That's not how a story should end." He took his gander alone that day.

Stanislav understood the pain of it. Sometimes he could remember things from his life before, but then he'd forget. He could go weeks without remembering he had children. Or a wife. Or had stopped the nuclear war from happening by disobeying his orders. And when he remembered his family, he wanted to cry, as it's a horrible thing to forget about love. He wondered if he and Charles had forgotten each other before and had become friends many times over.

Nellie had tried her luck with the labyrinth for many years unsuccessfully. She chose to stay with them, offering to read Charles' story and present critiques. He didn't like this.

When people asked why Stanislav never tried his luck with the maze he'd laugh. "I'm waiting to hear the end of Charlie's story." Usually, people accepted this without further questions.

In truth, Stanislav wasn't sure why he stayed put. He could be waiting for his children. Or enjoying Charles' company. It was some form of test, he was sure. Though he didn't know in what way.

He found his days in the labyrinth pleasant and felt no urge to move deeper within the walls. He didn't need more than he had. And there was always the chance that deeper within was worse in some way than where he'd begun.

This changed one day.

Charles was busy scratching away the next part of his tale into the walls. Nellie was watching him work. Stanislav was relaxing with his eyes closed, enjoying the silence mixed with the quiet scraping of stone on stone. He knew that soon Charlie would begin another column and ask to stand upon his back to engrave the first few lines where the wall was highest.

This isn't what happened.

Charles took a step back, and then another, and another after that. "I'm finished," he said.

Nellie and Stanislav stood on either side of him admiring the work on the wall.

The final line read: "I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her."

Charles read the line and thought it meant there was no hope for any of them.

Nellie read the line and thought it meant Charles was in love with her.

Stanislav read the line and thought it meant it was time for them to try their luck with the maze.

"I wish I had a pipe and some tobacco," said Charles.