Karl and Klärchen had collected a lot of “Karma points” during their lives. They had nurtured each other with tenderness and love and by doing so reminded everyone around them, that at our core we are good people and seek kindness in this world. You spent five minutes with them and then left with the urgent desire to hug a stranger and adopt a puppy.
I imagine Karl’s soul must have been quite overwhelmed after it was set free. On one side the light and joy of his eternal existence, but on the other side the magnetic pull of his soulmate. Karl wasn’t complete without Klärchen, Klärchen wasn’t a whole being without her lover. Their souls wouldn’t stop calling out for each other, just because they resided in different planes of existence.
Klärchen was left in Tim Burton’s world. After the initial breakdown, she dealt with everything that was expected of her. She filled out all the documents, but the letters looked strange. She organised the funeral, but the trees in the graveyard felt black and grey. She comforted those who came to comfort her, but they all looked like bizzare puppets. She kindly listened to every complaint about the weird coffin and ignored them all. The sun had left her life. People came by, concerned about her, but were politely shown the door.
She wasn’t ungrateful. Their lives had been like a delicious yoghurt cup. They had eaten it up with full spoons and then licked the lid and walls for every last ounce of joy. They had a full life in the truest sense of the word. And that was enough.
Now she was tired. She felt like a traveller, who hangs around an airport gate in the middle of the night. Waiting for a flight that had left long, long ago. She longed to be reunited with her soulmate.
No need to hang around.
Five weeks after Karl died, workers arrived to dig up the grave again. They opened the extra wide “double-bed” coffin under a court order that Klärchen’s lawyer had secured. And they buried Klärchen as instructed. In Karl’s arms.
The two of them were whole again.
THE END