Dark Side of the Rainbow

Dark side? What dark side? We are speaking of rainbows, right? The universal symbol of LGBT and diversity? Where pots of gold linger on the other side? Don't unicorns fart these? Do they not show up when the sun breaks rain clouds as hope the weather will clear?

By their literal definition, rainbows are reflections of light off water vapour. What dark side?

Rainbows also span the mortal world to a meadow in upper Elysium. This bridge of colourful light leads souls into the underworld, or to heaven - when dealing with the supernatural who cares if it's up or down? The point is that when one sheds their mortal coil they walk across this path.

Of course, not just anyone walks this path. For the chosen ones of divinity, humanity, we have the pearly gates, the river Styx, the gates of hell, and the veil. We chosen even get escorts like Thanatos, Papa Guende, and Azreal, among other psychopomps. No, this colour path is not for us.

It's for the companions of humanity. Beloved beasts of burden, work animals, and house pets, walk across this bridge of coloured light into this patch of Elysium. Where the grass is always green, and the water is always clean. Where they can warm themselves under an eternal sun and howl before an eternal moon. Where food is plentiful and toys available, with plenty of space to run and play.

Here these souls wait, but for whom?

A psychpomp walking with the one that owned them in the moral world. The caretaker who loved them as if humans themselves. A pyschopomp will take them to this spot to collect their companions of an age past, to be together, forevermore, in the afterlife. If the animal does not come racing, the human is forced to accept it was never meant to be.

This section of the heavens was carved out under the maddening belief that only humans have souls, and therefore their cats, dogs, and birds, among others, wouldn't accompany them into the afterlife. A thought so distressing many pious souls demanded hell or non-existence. The divine, wanting to reward the good humans, relented, and created the path for them to walk.

Just as we rationalized the Limbo of Children - where stillborns, miscarriages, and abortions go, surely a loving god, or set of gods, wouldn't deprive us of our pets! They are never gone for they exist in our hearts.

So there it is. The rainbow bridge is a pathway to the realm of the dead.