Of Heaven - The Kingdom

And that, he thought, was why the plague could never burn it down. It was never made of gold. It was made of the only thing that survives any darkness: the choice to keep building it, here, now, with whatever is left.

“I can’t go on,” he said. A black bruise had flowered under his arm. “Go. Find your kingdom.”

He stayed.

That night, lying on the floor of the single room, listening to three other people breathe, Piero understood.

“You’re the first living soul I’ve seen in a week,” the man said. “Where are you going?” the kingdom of heaven

Piero walked until his shoes wore through. He slept in ossuaries and empty castles. One night, he stumbled into a valley that the plague had somehow missed. A small stone church stood at its center, smoke curling from its chimney. Inside, a woman no older than twenty was kneading dough. A child slept in a cradle by the fire.

The kingdom of heaven was not a place you arrived at. And that, he thought, was why the plague

“It’s not a place,” old Margherita whispered from her sickbed. “It’s a story we tell so the dying don’t feel alone.”