The Holy City

Rozencrantz and Gildenstern lay wide awake, their seats too uncomfortable for sleep, as they rolled along on a train toward the Holy City. Or, was it a horse-drawn carriage? Either way, it was, and remains, a way to get from one place to another, usually in the most direct way possible. The two of them differed in their outlook in this respect. Rozencrantz was open to meandering, taking one’s time and not going straightaway in the quickest manner. In fact, not only was Rosencrantz open to meandering, but preferred it and disliked going direct. Dear Gildenstern was the direct type, and even suffered panic and worry when taken off of the straight and narrow. “Why are we going this way?” the panicky thoughts jumped around in Gildy’s brain, building one upon another in an anxiety scaffold. Rosie, knowing this, usually booked the direct package, the quickest route, though privately detesting this obligation, sometimes even making these recriminations openly, which usually ended badly as the protestations would come out sounding like silly selfish whining.

Either way, here they were on their way to the Holy City at last, where the magic happened, where the low hum of supernatural awareness is always in the air. The Holy City is in fact a place where, if you’re in the right frame of mind, the birds seem to look right at you and call your name, especially the grackles and the magpies. It was even perhaps mythologized that the magpies had brought the magic in the first place, and that once enough people bought into that concept, then the full slate of revelations unfolded like a perfect summer morning on the seaside.

There they were, Rosie and Gildy, about to get a taste of it themselves, and see what was true and what had perhaps been invented. Or, even if whether there was a difference between these two categories at all. At last, they approached their arrival and the conductor came around asking for boarding passes and passenger designation. It seemed like a prying question but the conductor was so amiable about it, to put everyone at ease. This conductor is so holy, thought Gildy, I could see this conductor gently talking a dog off of a meat wagon. A hungry dog, at that. Ten hungry dogs. They’d be curled up around the conductor’s ankles in no time., like little lambs. What a strange thought, mused Gildy, as the conductor punched his ticket with the wink of an eye.

The kind conductor called out in a sing-song voice. “If you are traveling to the Holy City, you will know the reason why. It will say so right there on your boarding pass. Printed out above your seat assignment, next to your Known Traveler Number.”

He raised the pitch of his voice and slowed his cadence. “It will say so, right there, your status, and your fellow passenger designation: Future wife, Just a friend, Romantic and Intimate. For now.”

“Passenger designation? What’s that mean?” Rosie asked the kind conductor. 

“Well”- he replied- “designation means your status. Are you a believer? Are you connected? Are you committed, and, if so, to whom or what? Or, are you open, unattached; skeptical, even? Perhaps unwilling to choose a path and believe in it, or to select a partner and to attach yourself firmly to that person, which is not as bad as it sounds, I might add.”

For those that believe the strongest, who unabashedly attach themselves to a believer or a person or an idea, it is them that sometimes fall off the quickest, their ardor having died out unlasting. Sometimes, it takes a mix of certainty, and openness to have an epiphany. Here we are. The Holy City, at last. Skeptics are welcome.