Galileo Sullivan

Inconclusive

The white card read; the guide's next assignment.

For spiritual guides, the assignment's details were never disclosed. Aside from a name and a given belief system, personalities, cause of death, and socioeconomic status were irrelevant—a mere body-less soul requiring passage towards their afterlife, or lack thereof one. The details and case files were handled at the doors of the afterlife or to a separate guide who determines the outcome of their past life. It varies between different beliefs, some involving separate processes for an individual's events and choices.

Many assume it's a simple process for souls to travel, a quick, painless, and enlightening one that leads to a life beyond.

Death is simple; the afterlife is simple—the journey between is a complicated one.

Guides were neither living nor dead. They did not have specific names, personalities, identities. As one might say, Shapeshifters presented themselves to their assignments from their past life's psyche and beliefs. Whether female, male, nonbinary, genderless, or somewhere between human and creature-like, all was decided by the assignment.

Inconclusive, the guide read. Peculiar. It wasn't unlike assignments to have undetermined or undecided. Especially for the young, who had not had the pleasantries of experiencing life for long, their cards often read undetermined given the lack of understanding of the world and the unique belief systems. But never had this guide read the words inconclusive.

The guide decided on presenting themselves as a grim reaper, with the typical garb and appearance many undetermined and undecided assignments received. With a black robe and hood, the guide grabbed their scythe. The guide presented themself as a masculine human rather than a skeleton figure, in case their assignment was a child. They had scared many youths in the past with such a face.

Much like their appearance, guides set the stage for what each assignment's journey looked like. Based on the vast array of beliefs, guides would manifest the spiritual aether to appear as what best fits their ideals. For many, it involved a river, be it Styx or Sanzu, a road like Hwangcheon, or a set of stairs or cave paths.

For this inconclusive assignment, the guide concocted a simple cave setting, one that could later transform to fit the assignment's beliefs given what visions and memories surfaced along the way.

The perilous journey required guides for that very reason. A summary of the assignment's life would replay in a short span, highlighting the good, bad, and everything in between right before their eyes. For some, reliving them was painful; other's addicting. Each assignment handled these memories differently; emotions were a complicated facet of the living. The guides were there to keep them moving. Reliving them for too long could cause an assignment to want to return to their past life, a feat that would be plagued with antagonizing pain and suffering, not to mention the shift in the balance of the universe. Very few humans survived long after returning through the gates of death, their tie to the physical world already disrupted.

The guide waited for their assignment, scythe in hand as the door to the In-Between opened up. Galileo Sullivan was an older gentleman, appearing to be in his late fifties. The guide watched as he stepped forward, unusually calm and collected. Peculiar, the reaper thought. Most were fearful, skeptical, or angry even; others would leave a trail of tears.

Not Galileo Sullivan.

Galileo was smiling, not a speck of fear in his soul. Galileo was content for someone with an inconclusive belief as he scoped the cave out, his gentle eyes settling on his guide.

"Galileo Sullivan," he greeted, jutting his spectral hand out. "Please, call me Leo, though. A pleasure to meet you. I'm assuming this is the afterlife?"

The guide didn't show emotion or wasn't quite capable of it as they disregarded the extended hand. Almost disappointedly, Galileo placed his hand down.

"It's not," the guide said. "This is the In-Between, a passageway for souls that lead to the afterlife."

"Ah, I see," Galileo uttered, taking the sights in. He practically danced around the guide, twirling around like a child in a candy store at the views. He turned to the guide. "And you are?"

"I have many names, but none are my own. I'm a mere guide for your soul to pass on to the afterlife," the cloaked figure responded monotonously. "Your name for me is determined on your beliefs, as is this place and my appearance."

"Ah well, that is an issue," he replied, gesturing towards the guide. "I believe in all and none at the same time. I'm a well; I was—I suppose—a scholar of religious and historical studies. I specialized in researching different mythos and theologies."

Peculiar, the guide thought again. This wasn't the first historical or religious scholar assignment, but one was never labeled as inconclusive. Many were agnostic, atheist, or even had a religion of their own.

The guide's appearance flickered before Galileo, shifting from close depictions of other deities like Anubis, to Charon, to Yama, to Yeomna, to Hine-nui-te-pō, and back to the cloaked figure. "I can alter my appearance to your liking. Whether ancient figures or more common ones, it's up to you."

Galileo watched in curiosity as, without fail, the guide had transformed themself into accurate and detail-oriented depictions of each deity. "Hmm, I don't mind the Grim Reaper depiction. May I call you that? Grim?"

"You are free to call me whatever you wish. I'm a mere guide-"

"That'll guide me to the afterlife," he finished with a smile. "Well, Grim, shall we start? I do have a few questions if you don't mind."

"You are free to do as you will."

"I found it strange," he trailed as they walked away from the entrance, heading down the river that appeared before them. As Galileo called them, Grim walked a few feet behind him as pieces of different belief systems appeared before them. Grim watched as Galileo gawked and admired the other places from rivers, roads, and staircases. "Many beliefs describe this stage as a journey, a passageway, as you've mentioned. Yet the differences between beliefs, between polytheistic and monotheistic systems, are inherently quite different. Some are more similar than others, but many believe in the afterlife. It's quite remarkable that for something we collectively don't exactly know what happens after death but have unknowingly agreed on similar depictions is utterly fascinating. I even wrote my thesis on it."

Grim remained silent, but their grip on their scythe tightened.

"But you probably already know that," Galileo sighed. "As morbid as it sounds, I was always fascinated by death, the idea of what comes next, what exists for us. The fact that no one really knows this mystery until you actually live it, or in this case, die and go through it. Of course, there are breakout cases of people claiming to have come back from the dead."

"It is a rare occurrence."

Galileo waved his hand in the air. "Many fabricate, I believe. Science picks them apart and believes it's a figment of their consciousness, while others believe they see their gods, never others. Albeit, I do find their testimonies fascinating."

"Yet you say you believe in all and none," Grim pointed out. "It is quite the contradiction."

Galileo laughed nervously. "Yeah, well...I was brought up religious, fell out of it, then took a college course and was fascinated at how many belief systems there were. Over the years of pursuing it, I realized that I never truly wanted to discredit any of them, but I also don't see myself in any of them. My own beliefs are different from what a collective group of people worships. I believe in the power and free will to believe, but I choose not to. I'm a theorist; therefore, I don't really believe in anything, yet believe in everything all the same."

Grim, for the first time, was disoriented at his words. Never had they been assigned such a strange and peculiar person before. He was contradicting and confusing, and it was no wonder he was listed as inconclusive. "What do you believe happens when your time is up? You are here for a reason, on the same journey as many who came before you. What does the afterlife look like for you?"

"Nothing," he replied with tenacity. "I believe it all stops once our physical body cannot continue. Our soul fades away into the abyss, and that's it. But, I also believe that each person is different. That is just my afterlife; others will have it differently. Some believe in incarnation or rebirth; others believe there are other realms we enter. It all depends on the individual."

"And, this?" Grim gestured around them. "If it were all to be nothing, as you claim, why might you be here?"

Galileo hummed. "Either this is the last bizarre conscious thoughts of my fading essence, or I was wrong. Many theorists are wrong. There's a near guarantee that I'm wrong; my opinions are vastly different from the norm."

Grim hummed too. What an interesting assignment.

"I had another question," Galileo wondered. "Well, a lot, but I figured this journey is meant to be temporary—the scythe. The connotation was derived from Greek mythos but has been widely associated with reaping souls. Not many beliefs depict a scythe-wielding figure at all, yet much of the beliefs depict some form of weapon, even after they collect the souls."

"It's not like the souls will leave this passageway," he continued. "What use does it have here?"

Grim pointed to a dimly lit part of the cave, adjacent to the rivers and bridges. They walked down a couple of steps before Galileo gasped and approached what appeared to be floating slideshows depicting his past life. Some flickered, others repeating over and over.

"What in the world?" He cooed. "Are these..."

"Your memories, from as far back as your consciousness can remember." Grim pointed blindly, in the general direction of the videos.

"And the scythe," Galileo looked past the memories and at Grim, seemingly not interested anymore in the videos. "Does it have to deal with the memories?"

Grim wasn't sure how to explain. They weren't sentient beings, foreign to the idea of empathy. But Galileo was different. So maybe it was the curiosity, but Grim glanced at the memories. Similar to those they've seen, much was positive memories of his childhood, others as an adult, or in his studies. And like the others before him, there were some negative ones. Emotions that Grim was no stranger to seeing.

"The scythe," Grim started, not even sure why they bothered. "They erase the painful memories, cleanse the soul of the unwanted memories. The ones that haunt you can be erased to help make the journey faster, painless, and as smooth as possible."

"Ah," Galileo hummed. "But if my afterlife ends with nothing, would that really matter? It wouldn't matter if I got rid of any, or if I kept them at all, would it?"

"I...I suppose," Grim hummed.

"Shall we find out?" Galileo beamed, brushing the floating memories past him as he reached for the scythe. With his hand above Grim's cloaked one, Galileo admired the blade. It glistened in the dim light the slideshows emitted, a trail of dark mist seemingly following its movement. "Nobody's attempted erasing them all, have they? In theory, wouldn't it lead to nothing left?"

In theory...Grim wasn't sure what to make of his theories.

Galileo smiled mischievously; before Grim could even respond, grabbing the scythe in his hand, swinging it with such force that it shattered the floating memories. They disintegrated into the aether. There was a silence that rang out, the rivers and stairs vanishing until all that remained was a plain cave, Grim and Galileo standing there.

"How peculiar," Galileo mumbled. "I don't feel any different."

Grim watched as Galileo seemed to think long and hard about what to make of this, no doubt, theorizing some more in his head. "I guess there is no way out except that door."

He jabbed a thumb at the door that led to the afterlife. Grim hummed, retrieving their scythe as Galileo paced the floor.

"Well, I shall be going, Grim." He smiled before jutting out his hand like in the beginning. "A pleasure meeting you."

Grim stared at the hand but didn't move; instead, he watched as Galileo happily stalked over to the door, almost as enthusiastically as he had walked in.

As Galileo stepped through the doors, he wasn't expecting an empty white room. A small piece of paper was in the center of the floor, no bigger than an index card. He bent down to get a closer look.

In a black script, was a name and a belief.

How peculiar.