The CLEARNESS AND THE IMPENETRABILITY

My companions and I realise suddenly that we are actually in the world of the dead.

We walk towards an open-air market that has many different stalls and see a newspaper headline about a boy from Titanic telling his story of what it was like to go under. This newspaper also features letters from road-kill animals relating their experiences of the last moments of life and the first moments of death.

I go to the CD stall first. It is selling music that musicians have composed since their deaths. I am particularly excited about finding John Lennon’s and Jimi Hendrix's new post-death albums. I also purchase Beethoven's 11th and 12th symphonies, Haydn’s 200th Symphony and the completed version of Mozart's Requiem. Poor Mozart never did finish it during his lifetime, but thankfully in this dead world he has had plenty of time to work on it.

Next to the CD stall is a bookstall. I browse through books that tell of the experiences of dead people, how they met their end, what their deaths felt like and what existence has been like for them since then.

Those who are concerned that death would bring an end to their personal hatreds and conflicts can be reassured that in this world they will be able to resume with renewed energy and the kind benefit of limitless time all of their old animosities and feuds.

Indeed, many wars that those in the living world think have ended with signed peace treaties are still raging in full force and with unabated ferocity and rage in this world, with slain soldiers picking up their weapons and resuming their formations.

The Hundred-Year War has now become the Six Hundred-Year War and First and Second World Wars have amalgamated into one conflict, with Kaiser Wilhelm II and Hitler assuming joint direction of the German armed forces and the Allies being commanded by leaders from both the First and Second World Wars. Japan is in a deep conundrum, not knowing which side to take, having fought for the Allies in the First World War and for the Axis in the Second World War. 

There is a whole paranormal section devoted to such esoteric, mystical subjects as Near Life Experiences (NLE) and making contact with the living world, which here has the appellation of “The Impenetrability” due to its characteristic feature of being composed of dense substance and because of its cryptic nature. 

As the properties of the dead world are directly opposite to that of “The Impenetrability”, its denizens call it  “The Clear World” or “The Clearness” and refer to themselves as the clear beings.

I pick up a book that addresses the NLE phenomenon. It describes how during NLE there is the sensation of drifting through a tunnel, away from a dazzlingly bright, warmly comforting light towards darkness and of accompanying feelings of great agitation, anxiety and confusion.

Consequently people in The Clear World dread the NLE and do all they can to avoid exposing themselves to circumstances that could make them leave The Clearness and return to the world of The Impenetrability.

Indeed so great and all-pervading is the fear of the NLE in the Clear World, that it is considered to be an imperative civic duty on the part of any citizen of this world to help those beings who are undergoing or are in danger of undergoing the NLE. All citizens are required to learn to recognise the symptoms and signs of NLE, and to know the First Aid procedures for preventing a clear being from returning back to The Impenetrability. 

Sometimes overenthusiastic citizens take the symptoms of NLE too literally and one sees a person, his loud protests ignored, being dragged out by his legs from a tunnel just in case that unfortunate fellow could be experiencing the NLE.   

Another book deals with the society structure and daily existence of the Clear Beings. It turns out that the epitaph “R.I.P.“ that the grieving relatives affix to the tombstone could not be more misjudged and incongruous, for a person’s existence only really begins when they die and become a Clear Being. No, there is no time in The Clearness to read a book, let alone rest in peace, so rich and vibrant is life in this world.
 
Possessing an unlimited life span, the clear beings are free from the many life-sapping insecurities and anxieties that stem from the ever-present threat of death and that plague the people in The Impenetrability. The only fear that blights the joyous existence of the clear beings is the possibility of returning to the land of the living. Consequently, in the wars that still rage in The Clearness the objective is to make the enemy alive again.

 And so we have this paradoxical situation in which the impenetrable beings are tormented by the fact that their lives have to end in death and the clear beings are tormented by the fact that they might possibly become alive again.

As with all human communities The Clear World has its hierarchy. One often sees a particular citizen surrounded by hysterical groups, which vary in size from just one or two to hundreds and thousands, showering flowers on that citizen and begging to be set any task so that they can experience the ecstasy of fulfilling the desire of their idols.

A particularly curious sight is of certain beings that have no devotional groups accompanying them and yet they still throw flowers on themselves as they make their way along the street.

I was mystified as to how these particular citizens gained such fame, devotion and fanatical following, why they were always followed by the same unchanging group of devotees and why some groups were quite small while others consisted of hundreds upon hundreds of followers.

At first, I was of the opinion that these beings made an exceptional contribution to the welfare and happiness of humanity back in The Impenetrability and that their devotees consisted of all those people whose lives were saved or improved by their work. My reasoning, however, was woefully off target.

Given that the overriding and most powerful factor that animates the existence of the clear beings is their fear and hatred of the Impenetrability, the citizens who are the object of such fanatical celebration are those that back in The Impenetrability were called murderers and their devotional group consists of all their victims.

The murderers of young impenetrable beings are held in an especially high regard for having given a child a way to partake in the glory of the existence in the Clear World.        

A uniquely intimate and extremely loving relationship exists between the killer and his every victim. The victim is forever in debt and devoted for all eternity to his killer for having had the courage and wisdom to overcome the ridiculously misguided taboo against murder that exists in The Impenetrability and enabling the victim to escape the dreary clutches of the living world.

As suicide victims are their own murderers, they throw flowers on themselves as they walk, making certain that others know that they too possessed the bravery and intelligence to escape the living world.    

Young clear beings, in particular, love their killers with the intensity that never even existed between them and their parents back in The Impenetrable World. Sometimes their unflagging devotion and endless expressions of gratitude wears out even the most patient of killers.

There are also books speculating about the possibility that people exist in the world of Impenetrability before they are actually clear, a world wildly different from The Clearness.

According to these books, in The Impenetrability all people come into existence at the same age and form, namely at the age of zero in the form of a tiny, helpless being. The inhabitants of The Impenetrability are apparently all composed of solid, crudely wrought material that deteriorates over time. Their bodies, this book claims, are incapable of such simple actions as penetrating physical objects, making themselves invisible to sight and overcoming the tyrannies of gravity and time to move freely in all the four dimensions.

The purported existence of The Impenetrability is a hotly disputed subject in The Clear World and is the cause of an ancient and deep rift in its population, contributing directly to major conflicts and catastrophes throughout its history.

For The Believers the existence of Impenetrability is a fundamental and crucial plank in the foundation of their world-view and is of inestimable significance to their spiritual and emotional wellbeing. The Believers are of the firm opinion that human beings undergo a period of growth and development in The Impenetrability that prepares them for their real existence in The Clear World. Our characters and our destinies in The Clearness, according to their sacred tomes, are shaped and determined by our experiences and our lives in The Impenetrability.

The Unbelievers reject any claim of person’s existence prior to The Clearness. They cling strongly to the view that it is beyond the scope of human knowledge and reason to comprehend what occurs prior to a person coming into being in The Clear World and therefore all such discussions are just empty words. According to their creed, the clear beings come to exist in The Clear World already possessing, ready-made, all of their attributes, abilities and imperfections and that the destiny of a clear being is of his making only.

A favourite way of passing the time for The Unbelievers is to mock mercilessly, to the point of tears, The Believers for their blind, unquestioning faith in some imaginary world, asking them to point to where they think this world is situated.

Partly as a way of countering these attacks upon what they hold most dear, a sizeable proportion of the Believers has formed a splinter movement that goes by the name of The Believing Believers.

For this schismatic group the act of believing has become more important than the issue of what it is that they actually believe in, namely the existence of The Impenetrability. In effect, belief has disassociated itself from what it was based upon in the first place, and it is this pure mental state of faith, in and of itself, that has now become an object of veneration and a source of spiritual and emotional nourishment.

Indeed a vast majority of The Believing Believers no longer remember what it is that they believe in, only knowing that it is their faith that distinguishes them from The Unbelievers and gives them the identity and the security that they so cherish.

Recently, there have been unmistakable signs of rising levels of tension and antagonism between The Believers and The Believing Believers, with The Believing Believers accusing The Believers of undermining the whole movement. The Believing Believers are of the opinion that by obstinately holding on to the belief in some conjectural world of The Impenetrability, The Believers infect their sublimely pure faith with an imperfect and uncertain element as well as making themselves vulnerable to the attacks from the Unbelievers. 

Those who have studied the past events of this world and are now studying the present state of affairs are predicting that in the future eras, there will be cataclysmic conflicts the likes of which this place has never seen.

These conflicts will no longer be between The Unbelievers and The Believers, but rather between The Believers and The Believing Believers, given how vociferous and zealous The Believing Believers are in proclaiming that their faith should not be sullied with any alien ingredients and how ignorant they are of where their faith came from in the first place.

Another splinter group that has garnered wide recognition is the Clear-Again Believers. This movement puts great stress on the significance of the Near Life Experience that I have mentioned previously. The rising popularity of this movement is a clear indication of the extent to which the phenomenon of NLE has impressed itself upon the Collective Consciousness of the populace of this world. 

A key feature of the Clear-Again movement is the initiation rite that is centred upon the re-enactment of NLE, of experiencing the dread that it provokes and the feelings of relief and ecstasy that arise in one after escaping its clutches and becoming clear again. Hence the name of this group, which, incidentally, in our old parlance would be known as the dead-again movement. 

To make the NLE re-enactment as close as possible to the real thing, very narrow, dead-end tunnels are constructed, with bright, shiny lights being put up at their entry points. 

The Going In part of the rite is conducted in absolute silence and consists of crawling through the tunnel and never looking back. The director of the ceremony decides when they have gone far enough, and proven their courage of staring The Impenetrability in the face.
 
In the Coming Out part of the ceremony, the director commands a member to pull the crawler out by his legs and this is accompanied by shouts of great jubilation coming from the participants surrounding the tunnel. The new member has officially become clear again and now can bear the title of a Clear-Again Believer.

This simulated acting-out of the near-life experience is considered by some rather reckless members of the movement to be but a mere shadow of the real deal. They flaunt their bravura and daring by deliberately subjecting themselves to situations that they know will bring them close to the edge of life.

These foolhardy clear beings then take great pride in describing in detail their exploits, of how they feel their bodies acquiring a solid and unwieldy form, of sensing some intractable, unyielding power emanating from the ground and cancelling out their free movement capabilities, and of the astonishingly intense feelings of impending doom.   
  
I tire of reading all this esoteric stuff and continue my promenade through the market.
There are flower stalls selling wilted flowers, fruit stalls selling dried up, rotten fruit but otherwise everything is exactly the same as in the living world.

All of a sudden, an astonishing insight strikes me. I clearly see a way to resolve the endless conflicts between the factions and make this world one again. It now becomes my duty and my mission to spread my revolutionary, world-changing solution to the whole population of The Clearness.

I gather around me my first group of disciples and impart to them my Two Worlds Are One Gospel:

" Given that there are no differences between the dead world and the living world, except in the names that we designate them by, how can we prove that this is not the real living world after all? Given that we cannot even remember any differences between this world and the real world, how can we then tell that the real world even existed in the first place?”

I employ a mathematical argument to embed my solution in a firm, scientific soil.

“Suppose there exist two worlds, the real world and the dead world. Designate the real world by X and the dead world by -X. But on the other hand the 2 worlds are identical and therefore it must be that: X = -X. Solving this equation we find that X = 0, and if X is zero then so is -X.

So we get this absurd result that neither world exists. It then follows that our initial assumptions were incorrect and that there can only be one world. We can call it either the living world or the dead world. It is just a name and it makes no difference in the end."

Reviews

[dead]

Wow … yes … I understand what you mean when you mentioned you are continuing Kafka’s work, you even have his style, that linear progression I mention; Kafka is always walking, is always about ‘travel’.
I truly enjoyed the comical elements, especially the indecisiveness of Japan (which ironically fits in the with the Buddhist spirit). And the whole near life experience, very clever how you came up with that, something like that had actually never struck my mind.
The ending, brilliant; and it comes so natural, there is no sudden big twist; I like how you bring it in with such a natural flow. Leaves a lot to think aswell, that perhaps we are all dead!

Steven

[Lady Tyke]

I have never read anything like this before! This is amazing! Perspectives and ideas written in a way that hasn't been said before.
I really liked this in a 'this is way over my head but I'm hooked kind of way'. It's deep but at the same time it makes so much sense in a very realistic, tangible way.
Thank You.

[Annelise]

Wow, I'm not sure where to begin with this. So many things stood out to me, you had some really wonderful ideas in here.

"We walk towards an open-air market that has many different stalls and see a newspaper headline about a boy from Titanic telling his story of what it was like to go under."

I just love the idea of this. When I was six I became completely obssesed with the Titanic, so that line jumped out at me.

"mystical subjects as Near Life Experiences (NLE) and making contact with the living world"

This made me smile, to completely turn NDE into that was funny, and so very smart.

"A uniquely intimate and extremely loving relationship exists between the killer and his every victim. The victim is forever in debt and devoted for all eternity to his killer for having had the courage and wisdom to overcome the ridiculously misguided taboo against murder that exists in The Impenetrability and enabling the victim to escape the dreary clutches of the living world."

What an incredibley disturbing thought. This actualy made my blood run cold for a minute. So disturbing.

"So we get this absurd result that neither world exists. It then follows that our initial assumptions were incorrect and that there can only be one world. We can call it either the living world or the dead world. It is just a name and it makes no difference in the end."

Great last line, really great.


I can't say that this is how I pictured my after life. Such a uniqe take on it.

[Alessander]

"I also purchase Beethoven's 11th and 12th symphonies, Haydn�s 200th Symphony and the completed version of Mozart's Requiem."

That's what heaven is for! That and who really killed JFK.

"Those who are concerned that death would bring an end to their personal hatreds and conflicts can be reassured that in this world they will be able to resume with renewed energy and the kind benefit of limitless time all of their old animosities and feuds."

So we can continue hating Bush even in the afterworld? Cool. How about that "Can you here me now?" guy...

"drifting through a tunnel, away from a dazzlingly bright"
I like the inversion; it is very consistent with the rest of the piece. The reversal makes the reader question verbal assumptions, and ways of seeing and being.

Possible title of the piece..."Through the Mirror, Darkly"

"No, there is no time in The Clearness to read a book, let alone rest in peace, so rich and vibrant is life in this world."
experience without reflection or contemplation? now that's a great version of hell.

"the citizens who are the object of such fanatical celebration are those that back in The Impenetrability were called murderers and their devotional group consists of all their victims."
The satire, bordering on the grotesque. Again, good job of illustrating "the bizarro world"... Can anyone say "Zodiac Killer"?

"As suicide victims are their own murderers, they throw flowers on themselves as they walk, making certain that others know that they too possessed the bravery and intelligence to escape the living world. "

Talk about "Noble Suicide"! Let's see...Sylvia Plath, Kurt Kobain, Walter Benjamin, Hart Crane, a s**t load of Romans and Japanese...

"The Unbelievers reject any claim of person�s existence prior to The Clearness. They cling strongly to the view that it is beyond the scope of human knowledge and reason to comprehend what occurs prior to a person coming into being in The Clear World and therefore all such discussions are just empty words. According to their creed, the clear beings come to exist in The Clear World already possessing, ready-made, all of their attributes, abilities and imperfections and that the destiny of a clear being is of his making only."

This is a great way to frame the theist-atheist debate, although the implication is that the latter are foolish. (coming from the "living world" bias). Although..."Believing Believers" which can only form an identity through faith, and whose motive is not love of truth, rather security, does denigrate the theists.

There is one GIGANTIC problem which my logic can't suspend disbelief for:
IF "old feuds" are still enacted post-life, that means those inhabitants REMEMBER the pre-Clarity life, and hence no "faith" is required. For example, why would the Japanese debate which side to join - the allies or axis of evil - if they had no memory of the pre-cleaworld?

"Clear-Again Believers." Obvioulsy analogues to Born Again Christian, a recent "fundamentalist" splinter group (though they like to role play as the original christians). This reminds me of that south park episode "Go God Go" - check it out. "cataclysmic conflicts" = "the rapture" "armageddon".

"absolute silence" are you referring to Scientology?
"I tire of reading all this esoteric stuff" I think that maybe this piece should be broken up into two pieces: the non-metaphyscal (music, etc) and the metaphysical (the relegious satire). Otherwise, it seems like a heavily theological piece, with a side dish of social commentary.

" We can call it either the living world or the dead world" unless of course there is a third world (or thirteen - damn string theory!) in which case one can have a formula:

x-y=-x
x+x=y
2x=y

Wait a minute...I'm a poet - I'm sure that formula is very wrong!lol...oh well.

Overall, a very interesting read. It gave me the feel of Dante going through the Inferno. I just think that you need to somehow adress the "remembering/faith" problem (maybe an "unconcious" continuation of feuds, etc (that may add a dash of determinism into the mix). Maybe think about seperating the work into two parts. And maybe have another character to illustrate some of these other points and make it more "interactive". Definitely worth reading even though it was a longer work. I see my buddy Steven beneath me also likes these pieces. Good luck on the possible rewrite.

"

[Coco Haynie]

I have thought about this time after time. Never in so much detail. I even wanted to try to do some photography based on an idea much like this. I just never could get enough people to get on the same page with me. "Possessing an unlimited life span, the clear beings are free from the many life-sapping insecurities and anxieties that stem from the ever-present threat of death and that plague the people in The Impenetrability. " That is a beautiful thought. Thanks.

[Cursorblock]

Great turn-around on life vs death in this. I agree with Bubo in that there is a lot of great ideas sprinkled with humor in this. The murderer part made me uncomfortable a little as well.

It brings to light some very interesting thoughts on existence and what it means to 'live'. I did find the middle a little packed together, making the read a little more difficult. I think the only reason for that is that there is a lot of information presented in that section.

You have an excellent imagination and your imagery in this is spot on. I could see the market and the people. Thanks for pointing me to this one.

[Dave Crow]

I've been through the looking glass and I saw ...

Reading this kind of reminded me of The Inferno.

[Bubo]

I'm slightly in awe.........it was a heavy read mainly because it was so surreal, such a vast different place that no one would ever imagine.
I got to grips with many parts but didn't like this:

The murderers of young impenetrable beings are held in an especially high regard for having given a child a way to partake in the glory of the existence in the Clear World.

A uniquely intimate and extremely loving relationship exists between the killer and his every victim. The victim is forever in debt and devoted for all eternity to his killer for having had the courage and wisdom to overcome the ridiculously misguided taboo against murder that exists in The Impenetrability and enabling the victim to escape the dreary clutches of the living world.

Made me squirm, maybe because I am a mother and couldnt bear that thought.............highly intelligible read...........and certainly requires reading more than once just to absorb the whirlwind of information and imagary .
You have an amazing skill and imagination.............can't fault that at all!!
Loved this part:

I go to the CD stall first. It is selling music that musicians have composed since their deaths. I am particularly excited about finding John Lennon�s and Jimi Hendrix's new post-death albums. I also purchase Beethoven's 11th and 12th symphonies, Haydn�s 200th Symphony and the completed version of Mozart's Requiem. Poor Mozart never did finish it during his lifetime, but thankfully in this dead world he has had plenty of time to work on it.