OK, it's meant to be imaginative. That would be obvious from 'imagination' being repeated several times.
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Disambiguation
Something tapped as I wriggled my left forefinger. Good, that meant I was conscious. Of what, is the question.
I try opening my eyes. That doesn’t work particularly well; my eyelids are most likely gummed together. It takes only a few seconds before I realise that my eyes are open, it’s only a simple case of having nothing to see. Pitch dark, blacker than the most unholy stygian midnight if one wishes to be poetic. I try to discern which way is down, and it turns out to be underneath my right shoulder. Good, I roll onto my back. Inventory check: Right leg – check. Left leg – check. Right arm – not there! I realise it is twisted awkwardly
While untangling my body, I wonder, where am I? The eternal question ever since man had drank and debauched. The surface I am on is hard and smooth. I stagger upright, random nerves firing off and causing me to jitter uncontrollably. I try to survey my surroundings, fail, and simply shiver through nerves.
What happened anyway? Minute threads of memory trickle back. There was a motorbike. There was a speedometer reading 80. There was a combination of pothole, wall, and a lack of helmet. Unhealthy in every sense.
Suddenly, light floods my universe with an inaudible click. A complete contrast to the dark – the whiteness stretches for infinity. No landmarks, just the smooth unyieldingness beneath my shoes.
“Welcome to the afterlife, Mr Stevens.”
I whirl around, almost falling from my numbed reflexes. Actually, I do fall anyway, smack bang onto my rump. My gaze drifts upwards, past a pair of shiny black leather shoes, to the face of a young man who addresses me. Handsome with high cheekbones, smiling, immaculately dressed. If not for the jet black suit with a rose lapel pin, he would be the perfect PR representative.
“Where the hell am I? And who are you? You just popped out of nowhere...”
It took a while, but my brain caught up with my mouth and stopped me. I staggered up again. Mr Undertaker Suit spake:
“I am an anthropomorphic representation, created through a combination of your ego and superego, with insight on several other planes of existence. In English, I am a figment of your imagination, as well as a guide of sorts.”
“Ah.” In some other parallel universe, I currently lie dead with brain fluid leaking from my skull. “So this is the famed afterlife.”
“Of sorts. You are more or less a combination of particles still held together by some odd quirk of entropy. It gets complicated. Basically, your memories and personality has moved onto some higher plane of existence, where physical matter no longer exists, everything you currently see,” the man waves his dainty hand around, “exists within your consciousness.”
“So, fill me in here. I am now dead, and now exist in some twilight zonish realm where the only constant is the imagination. Yes?”
“I see you’ve been reading your derivative fantasy fiction, Mr Stevens. You are very correct. If you were to check, you would see that your beer gut is gone and you are extremely well endowed.”
I didn’t bother checking, instead, I continued the interrogation: “You called this the afterlife. What about heaven and hell and so on?”
“As you’ve said yourself, you are in a realm where the only constant is the imagination. So nope, no heaven or hell. No Lovecraftian nether-beings either, unless you insist.”
“Wait, wait. So there’s no heaven or hell. What about the people who do good or bad things? I mean, if some nut blows himself up with several dozen other people in the name of God, and wouldn’t he go off to some milk and honey filled paradise?”
“Not fair eh? Somewhere out there, the eschatology didn’t go right. Build your own world here”.
“But that’s not the same! They were real people back there!”
“So make those your people real too. They wouldn’t know the difference. Be your own god.”
“Wait a second. Wouldn’t that just mean that everybody I’ve met before I die could just as well be a figment of my imagination?”
“No. That’s just solipsism, and is the epitome of self-centredness.”
“But what does that all mean? What the hell is the point of this if everything around me”, I swing my arms to emphasise, “if I know it’s not real?”
“You can’t know what reality is. Even back in your ‘physical world’, everything you perceive is inside your mind. Be happy that consciousness isn’t locked up in your brain cells, that there is a soul. That there’s something besides the nihilistic entropy of death.”
I could find no words to say. There must be some kind of meaning within the world outside of the meaningless dream this man offers me. Before long, it dawned.
“If I dream a world, and make those within it conscious, would this weird state occur to them as well? Would the place I call the universe be just another dream by some other entity?”
“I can see that you no long need me, Mr Stevens. That is impressive, already you understand the implications of this world.” The young man turned on his shiny heels, and walked away. As a last word: “I can only hope that you make the right judgements.”
He walked off into the distance. It took a long time for him to disappear. I did not follow.
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Thoughts? Comments? I'm thinking of reducing the stupid witty bits at the start, and trying not to change the tone of the story half way through. I welcome all constructive criticism.
Edit for latest version.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disambiguation
Something tapped as I wriggled my left forefinger. Good, that meant I was conscious. Of what, is the question.
I try opening my eyes. That doesn’t work particularly well; my eyelids are most likely gummed together. It takes only a few seconds before I realise that my eyes are open, it’s only a simple case of having nothing to see. Pitch dark, blacker than the most unholy stygian midnight if one wishes to be poetic. I try to discern which way is down, and it turns out to be underneath my right shoulder. Good, I roll onto my back. Inventory check: Right leg – check. Left leg – check. Right arm – not there! I realise it is twisted awkwardly
While untangling my body, I wonder, where am I? The eternal question ever since man had drank and debauched. The surface I am on is hard and smooth. I stagger upright, random nerves firing off and causing me to jitter uncontrollably. I try to survey my surroundings, fail, and simply shiver through nerves.
What happened anyway? Minute threads of memory trickle back. There was a motorbike. There was a speedometer reading 80. There was a combination of pothole, wall, and a lack of helmet. Unhealthy in every sense.
Suddenly, light floods my universe with an inaudible click. A complete contrast to the dark – the whiteness stretches for infinity. No landmarks, just the smooth unyieldingness beneath my shoes.
“Welcome to the afterlife, Mr Stevens.”
I whirl around, almost falling from my numbed reflexes. Actually, I do fall anyway, smack bang onto my rump. My gaze drifts upwards, past a pair of shiny black leather shoes, to the face of a young man who addresses me. Handsome with high cheekbones, smiling, immaculately dressed. If not for the jet black suit with a rose lapel pin, he would be the perfect PR representative.
“Where the hell am I? And who are you? You just popped out of nowhere...”
It took a while, but my brain caught up with my mouth and stopped me. I staggered up again. Mr Undertaker Suit spake:
“I am an anthropomorphic representation, created through a combination of your ego and superego, with insight on several other planes of existence. In English, I am a figment of your imagination, as well as a guide of sorts.”
“Ah.” In some other parallel universe, I currently lie dead with brain fluid leaking from my skull. “So this is the famed afterlife.”
“Of sorts. You are more or less a combination of particles still held together by some odd quirk of entropy. It gets complicated. Basically, your memories and personality has moved onto some higher plane of existence, where physical matter no longer exists, everything you currently see,” the man waves his dainty hand around, “exists within your consciousness.”
“So, fill me in here. I am now dead, and now exist in some twilight zonish realm where the only constant is the imagination. Yes?”
“I see you’ve been reading your derivative fantasy fiction, Mr Stevens. You are very correct. If you were to check, you would see that your beer gut is gone and you are extremely well endowed.”
I didn’t bother checking, instead, I continued the interrogation: “You called this the afterlife. What about heaven and hell and so on?”
“As you’ve said yourself, you are in a realm where the only constant is the imagination. So nope, no heaven or hell. No Lovecraftian nether-beings either, unless you insist.”
“Wait, wait. So there’s no heaven or hell. What about the people who do good or bad things? I mean, if some nut blows himself up with several dozen other people in the name of God, and wouldn’t he go off to some milk and honey filled paradise?”
“Not fair eh? Somewhere out there, the eschatology didn’t go right. Build your own world here”.
“But that’s not the same! They were real people back there!”
“So make those your people real too. They wouldn’t know the difference. Be your own god.”
“Wait a second. Wouldn’t that just mean that everybody I’ve met before I die could just as well be a figment of my imagination?”
“No. That’s just solipsism, and is the epitome of self-centredness.”
“But what does that all mean? What the hell is the point of this if everything around me”, I swing my arms to emphasise, “if I know it’s not real?”
“You can’t know what reality is. Even back in your ‘physical world’, everything you perceive is inside your mind. Be happy that consciousness isn’t locked up in your brain cells, that there is a soul. That there’s something besides the nihilistic entropy of death.”
I could find no words to say. There must be some kind of meaning within the world outside of the meaningless dream this man offers me. Before long, it dawned.
“If I dream a world, and make those within it conscious, would this weird state occur to them as well? Would the place I call the universe be just another dream by some other entity?”
“I can see that you no long need me, Mr Stevens. That is impressive, already you understand the implications of this world.” The young man turned on his shiny heels, and walked away. As a last word: “I can only hope that you make the right judgements.”
He walked off into the distance. It took a long time for him to disappear. I did not follow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thoughts? Comments? I'm thinking of reducing the stupid witty bits at the start, and trying not to change the tone of the story half way through. I welcome all constructive criticism.
Edit for latest version.
Last edited:
