"You're late! Everyone has been waiting for you," said the guardian.

"I have had business to do," I replied.

He let me in, holding the gate open for me.

I walked along the alley with beech trees lined on either side. The heat was intense, so the shade was a nice surprise, for I did not remember there ever were beech trees in the graveyard, but you know how in dreams familiar things often look different, even if you recognize them.

When I arrived at the grave, there was a cluster of friends and relatives there.

That was the way I had always imagined it would be. Yet, everybody seemed disappointed in seeing me, and they kept repeating, one after the other: "Too late! You're too late!"

To get out of my embarrassment, I tried to apologize, for nobody had even informed me I should have been dead by then, but they did not care for my justification.

I looked at the gravestone: in reddish letters hewn in stone, my own name glared at me complete with dates and an epigraph:

Robert S******

1888-1989

"One that has lived too long."

I tried to think why I had lived so many years, what I had been busy doing, what I had seen in more than one hundred years, but my memory failed me.

One by one, the company dispersed, leaving me by myself, looking at my own grave.

Only a little girl remained, holding a small vase with red poppies. She smiled, put the vase in front of the gravestone, and handed me an enamelled, golden key. Then, she ran away disappearing among the hedges.

I wondered what I should do with the key, and looked for a door it might have unlocked.

As I walked to the gate, I realized it was closed. I tried the key in vain.

In the chapel, I knelt in front of the statue of the queen angel of the crossroads. She too had a reproachful look on her face.

By then, I was beginning to be annoyed.

There were three doors behind the sanctum. I bowed to the statue and walked past.

I stopped before the doors.

I held the enamelled key in my hands.

The first door was turquoise, rather plain, except that it ended in an arch.

The central door was red. It was ornate, and on the lintel there was a small, coiled golden snake. Its eyes were two rubies, and it seemed to enjoy the music that came from invisible cymbals.

The third door was an old, teal board placed across an aperture. It had many chinks that let the wind and the smell of the sea through.

I stood in front of the three doors for quite some time, unable to decide.

"What are you waiting for?" said someone.

I looked around and didn't see anyone.

"Just try!" the voice insisted.

It was the serpent speaking.

I did as it advised. I tried my key on the first door, but it did not open at all.

I went over to the second door and the key unlocked it at once.

On the other side, there was an orchard with all sorts of fruit trees, but I was too curious to enter: I wanted to know if the key would unlock the third door too, and what was beyond.

And so I closed the second door, and proceeded to the third.

And yes, it opened too.

There, an old boat lay reversed on a familiar beach: I recognized the place, and crossed the threshold at once.

I had been there long, long ago, when I was a child.

I had forgotten what it had been like, but the moment I went to the other side, it all came back.

And on the beach, I recognized the child with the red poppies. Marina F.

"Robert, do you remember?" she said.

I nodded. "Yes, I do."

And we played again on the beach, as the seagulls hovered above, and the sea brought us new, coloured shells.

All those years, I had been a busy man.

My truest childhood friend had come to bring me back to the land of the living.

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