"Heeey, what's wrong with you?"  I had just now flashed in
and found my now-all-grown-up-but-still-my-little Kitten
gloomy and downhearted.  She was sitting on the edge of a
cliff on the side of a gorge, staring out into the sunny
distance.  I sat next to her and gently stroked her neck.
"What's going on?"

  She sighed as tears welled up in her eyes.  "Gramma 'Fina
died."


  "Oh..."  Poor Naline.  She'd been really close to her
grandmother.  She was always telling me stories of the things
she'd said or done.  Even though Naline had long left her
kitten days behind, she still adored her grandmother as much
as she did when she was three months old.  "I'm really
sorry."

  "We'd been expecting it for a while," she stared down into
the deep cliffs of the gorge, blinking the tears away, "she
was really old."

  "But it doesn't make the pain any less, does it?"  I
silently read her face, gauging the hurt and the sadness.

  "Little bit."

  "Hey, I'm sure that wherever she is now," I nodded up to
the brilliant blue sky, "she's really happy."

  A single cloud was in the sky, throwing its shadow on the
savanna lands.  The shadow undulated and waved as it traveled
across grass and trees and hills.  It seemed almost like a
living thing, traveling as if with purpose, unstoppable
towards the horizon.  I followed the shadow for some time,
watching it first cast a dim twilight on the trees as it
neared, then completely engulfing them in shade, then finally
releasing them once more to the blinding sunlight.


  But after a while, I noticed the shadow diminish and grow
less and less dark.  At first, a few patches of light
appeared in its middle.  Then a few more.  Then, as it
slowly moved along, the cloud gradually disappeared until it
vanished completely, leaving the sky clear and clean, blue
from start to finish.

  I was suddenly awakened from my cloud-watching trance by a
movement of Naline's head.  She was looking down into the
gorge. At a hawk, flying down below us.  Like a miniature
cloud, the hawk cast its own little shadow on the canyon
floor as it zipped hither and thither.

  "You think so?"  Naline's eyes followed the hawk as she
talked.

  "I think so what?"

  "You think she's somewhere, out there, happy?"

  "Sure, Kitten."


  "I don't know, I've been thinking..."  She followed the
hawk as it wove and danced its way around canyon walls and
sheer cliff faces.

  "You've been thinking what?"

  "I've been thinking that maybe there's no 'out there.'
Maybe there's no 'there' after we..." she hesitated at the
word, as if something dreadful would happen upon its
utterance "...die."

  Oh, so it was like that.  The afterlife is one of those
things that living beings think and worry and argue about,
but always without success because mostly one has to quit
being a living thing in order to find out really what's
what.  But then it's too late, isn't it?

  "You think so?"

  "Well, my father always says that we'll become stars and
go to the sky after we die.  But I'm not so sure.  Maybe
it's just one of those things that they tell cubs.  Maybe..."
she stared and sighed and thought, unable to finish her
sentence.


  "Kitten, look at me," she turned her head and gave me the
full attention of her shining emerald eyes, "I can personally
guarantee you that there is definitely a 'there' there."

  "How do you know?"

  "Been there.  Took the tour.  Got the T-shirt."

  "Really?"  She examined my expression in minute detail,
making sure that I wasn't joking around or playing silly
games with her.  "Seriously for real?"

  "Scout's honor."  Lemme see, how could I explain this so
that Naline would understand it?  "You see, being in the
freelance mercenarying good-guy business, you get calls and
jobs from the most unexpected places.  Some time ago, I got
a call from the Big Cheese, from the Main Man, from the Head
Honcho #1 Guy himself.  He had a job for me to do and so on
and so forth.  Best thing was, I got to go to Heaven for the
interview.  I've been back a couple of times since."

  "Heaven?"


  "You know," I pointed a finger towards the sky, "up there."

  "Really?"  Naline's gaze went from me to the sky and then
to me again a couple of times.  "No fooling?"

  "No fooling."

  "You've been up among the stars?"

  "Sure."  I'd actually literally been up among the stars,
but I knew what Naline had meant.

  "What was it like?"


  "Classy.  Nice weather.  Nice people.  Pleasant place to
be."

  Naline's gaze followed the hawk as it rounded a sheer rocky
formation and disappeared from sight.  She sighed again, but
she didn't sound quite as forlorn as before.  I think now she
had hope, she had something to look forward to.

  "Hey, if I'm ever back there again, I'll make sure to look
your grandmother up."

  "Promise?"

  "Promise."

  I put my arm around her side and laid my head on her strong
shoulder.  In the sky, a new cloud began to form out of the
humid daytime mists.  She didn't have to worry about death,
Naline didn't.  Not for a long, long time.

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