From the Dust Returned

“How can they laugh?” cried Timothy.

“Dear child,” said his mother. “It is a triumph over death. Everything turned upside down. She is not buried, but unburied, a grand reason for joy. Fetch wine!”

He brought two bottles to be poured in a dozen glasses that were lifted as a dozen voices murmured, “Oh, come forth, Angelina Marguerite, as a maiden, girl, baby, and thence to the womb and the eternity before Time!”

Then the box was opened.

And beneath the bright lid was a layer of—

“Onions?!” Timothy exclaimed.

And indeed, like a freshet of grass from the Nile banks, the onions were there, spring-green and lush and savory on the air.

And beneath the onions—

“Bread!” said Timothy.

Sixteen small loaves baked within the hour, with golden crusts like the lip of the box, and a smell of yeast and the warm oven that was the box.

“Bread and onions,” said the oldest near-uncle in his Egyptian cerements, leaning to point into the garden box. “I planted these onions and bread. For the long journey not down the Nile to oblivion but up the Nile to the source, the Family, and then the time of the seed, the pomegranate with a thousand buds, one ripe each month, surrounded by encirclements of life, millions crying to be born. And so…?”

“Bread and onions.” Timothy joined the smiles. “Onions and bread!”

The onions had been put aside with the bread sheaved near them to reveal a gossamer veil laid over the face in the box.

Mother gestured. “Timothy?”

Timothy fell back.

“No!”

“She’s not afraid to be seen. You must not be afraid to see. Now.”

He took hold and pulled.

The veil plumed on the air like a puff of white smoke and blew away.

And Angelina Marguerite lay there with her face upturned to the candlelight, her eyes shut, her mouth enclosing the faintest smile.

And she was a joy and a delight and a lovely toy crated and shipped from another time.

The candlelight trembled at the sight. The Family knew an earthquake of response. Their exclamations flooded the dark air. Not knowing what to do, they applauded the golden hair, the fine high cheekbones, the arched eyebrows, the small and perfect ears, the satisfied but not self-satisfied mouth, fresh from a thousand years’ sleep, her bosom a slender hillock, her hands like ivory pendants, the feet tiny and asking to be kissed, there seemed no need for shoes. Good Lord, they would carry her anywhere!

Anywhere! thought Timothy.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “How can this be?”

“This is,” someone whispered.

And the whisper had come from the breathing mouth of this creature come alive.

“But—” said Timothy.

“Death is mysterious.” Mother brushed Timothy’s cheek. “Life even more so. Choose. And whether you blow away in dust at life’s end or arrive at youngness and go back to birth and within birth, that is stranger than strange, yes?”

“Yes, but—”

“Accept.” Father lifted his wineglass. “Celebrate this miracle.”