The Hallway

Follow with our narrator the interior monologue of Life as he explores his Hallway.

"Lights, candles

Art, paintings, portraits

People!

No, just portraits...

Intent, movement, progress

Progress?

Direction, forward, continue

Continue?

Time, age, anticipation, nostalgia, anxiety, pace

"A Hallway with walls, and probably a ceiling, but too high and dark to see.

Running down the Hallway as fast as I can to get where I'm going.

Lights? Candles! I would like to see where I'm going, so I will carry this one with me.

You can't run with a candle or else it will blow out, so protect it by covering the light...

I still wish I could see better. I will light other candles I find along the way to better light this path.

A Door? In a Hallway? It only makes sense. Where else might I go though?

Another Hallway, but there seem to be more candles already lit here than mine.

Let's see where it leads.

"Well it certainly is a lot brighter in here than where I was. Now I can make out the portraits a lot better... except some of them I wish I hadn't. There are definitely others I adore though. They share my likeness, don't you think?

Yes, they do indeed, for it is my likeness that I have judged in them and can now measure accurately in my bright Hallway! I have found and gathered quite a few that all share in our likeness to one another called 'me.'"

We share not a likeness with thee!

We all share in likeness to others, but not these!

Others! More! Less! Please!

"Hark! These paintings have meaning! Hear their plea? Each would have themselves divided another way according to likeness! How silly, for their likeness to one another is...

"Me? Yes, you, almost, not quite, but Yes.

Others? Yes, Creators, Painters.

Obviously. No, and Yes. Perception and Logic.

Oh I remember how Dark now, Yes. I hope I never return. But I must!

For Experiment shows that the lit candle will dwindle,

such that it is the ultimate fate of them all

to be extinguished.

The igniter is at folly? No.

They did not know. Or they didn't care.

Then they are evil-- No!

How could I be so quick to judge those whom I have shared in Darkness and Ignorance with, to deny them the lighting of a candle? Hypocrisy.

Destroy Hypocrisy! Reflection. Understanding. Forgiveness.

Others! Yes. Creators, and Igniters.

Painters?! Yes, and an Other.

An other Creator? What about the Hallway? Who created the Hallway, The Doors, EVERYTHING?!

"It doesn't matter. Reasoning and Experiment will never give us a complete answer... only analogy to model what I experience. And I return to where I find likeness, the paintings, created from the desires of others... others... Others.

"What was Art? A concept long ago, even before painting? Before our precious portraits?! Yes!... But what was it? Knowing Genesis is not knowing purpose. Why would I create Art? To communicate with an Other that might walk this Hallway with me perhaps? In imitation of other works that were older than themselves, or came from an Other before them? Perhaps they were attempts at copying other works in tribute to them?"

And our Hero, Life, imagined how well a Creator or any Other might possibly portray the exact meaning of a portrait in great, eternal detail and therein lies our age of technology.

"Organize you on likeness I shall not!" cried our Hero of the Labyrinth. "For every likeness is in each, to your own, and I will mend my ways of Ignorance and Darkness by replacing you to where you belong, where your Proponent decided you shall be!"

Those ugly portraits he collected that failed to convey their meaning clearly, or who conveyed falsehood to trick Life, created great strife for our Hero in his quest to right his wrong, either with intent, or without. To say which quality makes for the forgivable transgression is not an answer to a question.

Though each portrait were merely the impressions of their Proponent, and in another way mere reflections upon the Hero himself, his collection haunted him and he gave them power over him.

Woe! Our Hero has fallen to the wiles of Our own beauty!

He mistakes Them for Us in all our Understanding!

How might we save Him once again from the likeness in Our art?

Death is the only way!

Be still and hear what I have to say! He will continually remember and forget that the Hallway he walks is in fact just another path through the House of God in His Labyrinth of Experience that we have given form as Our beloved, heroic Life, Illuminating Our lonely Hallways so that we might find an Other. Through this search will he find what it was he was looking for in the very beginning: The Door of Perception. A Door not born of wood, nor steal, nor of pain or pleasure, but the Threshold of God.

And so then, Our Hero returns to Darkness, to see himself more clearly.

"Light.