Beyond The Azure

By Shengdi Sun

A phone rings in Stanley’s pocket, but he ignores its desperate pleas to tell Stanley its message. There is more at hand.

“It’s already been a year since I died in that accident? Wow, time really flies.”

A blue tree shakes its branches as its disembodied voice echoes on the sidewalk, cars intermittently whizzing past. An azure light dimly shines from the blue tree, only serving to emphasise the humble specks of dust as they gracefully fall beneath the night sky. 

The Azure Tree is not nature’s creation, but one purchased as insurance in life that sprouts in death, then roots where our bodies rest so that our minds may be indefinitely preserved within.

Stanley squats down at the roots of the tree, stabbing a peculiar, lollipop-looking device into the soil beneath the tree. The lollipop’s head — a computer — flickers to life.

An angelic face pops up in the screen. Emily looks better than when she was alive — the Ether within the tree offers customisation of the form that she presents to the real world. A flower meadow sprawls behind her. Their two children run across the field chasing butterflies.

“Yes. It’s been a year,” Stanley says softly, “I brought you a Rebirthday present.”

A small token manifests itself from Stanley’s pocket. He pops it into a slit beside the screen, and an ornate necklace appears on Emily’s neck.

“It’s…”

“You remember it? Yes, it’s the one I refused to buy you because it was too expensive. Now I can only give it to you in this form.”

Emily looks — startled — at the necklace, “Don’t you worry, sweetheart, I know everything was for our family.”

Stanley nods, then gazes behind Emily.

He sees genuine happiness on both his children’s faces. They believe they’re on vacation from school. He, Stanley himself, is the only missing puzzle piece of this façade.

“Dad? Is that you?” 

The callout shudders Stanley’s being. His call is specifically directed to Emily, but the trees of his two children do stand rather close by. He doesn’t want to confront them, not when all they have right now is a massive lie.

“No silly! It’s the wandering trader!” Emily says to them, “Do you like my new necklace?”

Communications end with Emily shortly afterwards, though a short sentence remains on screen:

“Break it or not? Decide. I cannot bear the illusion longer.”

Stanley sighs. A gentle gust blows open Stanley’s jacket to make way for his pants pocket. His phone is still ringing — more business at this ungodly hour. Emily knows little, but there is a third option that Stanley has kept secret, one possibility that he is professional at.

“I can’t wait any longer!” a man’s voice bursts from the phone, clearly not in a good mood, clearly under the influence. Everyone seems unable to wait a little longer.

Stanley continues to consider his options with Emily. It is illegal to suicide under law. Those who die wishing for death under any circumstance are denied access to the Ether. However, heaven made by humans lacks omnipotent surveillance, and there are methods and people who are capable of circumventing rules.

“When will I die?” The man on the phone sputters with drunken vigour, “All these years my wife is gone. I miss her to the core!”

Stanley can almost hear the droplets of spit flying out of the man’s mouth. This is pretty common practice from Stanley’s clients — many of them outcasts of society, lazy, good for nothing folks on the outskirts. Despite this, they still pay a good price — because payment consists of everything they’d owned in life. 

That’s the only way they get to enter the Ether early.

Stanley is just about to speak, when a muffled, yet heart-wrenching cry sounds through the phone. There is a baby, one that would never live with both parents dead.

“I heard the baby cry,” Stanley says, a plan formulating in his head.

“Oh! Just shut your trap about that! You paid murderer! Do you think you’re better than me because you pretend to care for the small little freak?”

Stanley wanders to a quieter place and sits down on a bench without any blue glow around it. “No,” he says to his caller, “I meant that I am now doing a double delivery, with one client not being able to pay.”

Silence on the line for a moment.

“I was told that people in your business are monsters,” says the man, “I don’t doubt my death a bit soon. As for the kid, take him, do as you please, a live kid can make a good fortune. He was an accident!”

The next steps are simple. A driver is drinking a vodka when they realise they hit a ten-thousand-dollar jackpot from a promotion campaign, and the sudden monetary gain blinds the man in utter joy and rekindles hope in life, already regretting the decision to die. The ensuing car crash kills two and injures four.

Acceptable collateral.

The following day, Stanley arrives at the man’s family home with his keys and paperwork. It is now Stanley’s house, and the baby inside is taken under his wing. 

It is very different seeing the baby than just hearing them on the phone. Their malnourished cheeks show deep neglect, half empty high-alcohol spirits surround the area. Poor thing has suffered so much already.

…So much so that Stanley already regrets his decision.

Just as planned.

About the Author

Shengdi was born in 2004. He has travelled back and forth between the completely different planets of China and Australia his whole life, making him an Alien from the limbo between — the cool kind.

He is also a student of biotechnology, where the sacrality of the genetic code is broken routinely, horrors beyond imagination are produced, and where some of the greatest beauty in the world “is”.

That is why his mind goes to crackpot places, uncontrollably.