Death and the Meaning of Life

A satirical look on the afterlife.

     Death and the Meaning of Life  
               (So to Speak)

“He looked into her brown eyes and stared at them until his crossed and hers became clear. She looked back at him, studying his pupils and admiring the beautiful turquoise color that seemed to change with the cloud movement. As they sat there on the grass the breeze blew and rustled his hair into his eyes. He could see how her love was growing inside of her even then as she was gazing into his. He felt nothing.” 

I’m sorry, but before I go any further, allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Elijah Farrow. Before I get too far ahead, I need to point out something that may be of some discomfort to you:

I am dead. 

Take a couple of seconds to just mull that around in that grey matter of yours before you continue, otherwise you may have problems fathoming what it is I am about to tell you. So, take about 10 seconds and try and grasp the fact that I am no longer of this world.

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Now that you have properly considered this outrageous statement and understood it to the best of your ability, I will tell you some things about myself. 
As I said before, I am dead.
Not from old age, not by someone else’s hand, and no, not by sickness or disease.
No, I’m afraid that I have killed myself, done myself in, so to speak. (Now, before you get all up in arms about that previous statement, I want to state, for the record, that I do not abide suicide, nor do I condone it for anybody, no matter what you’re problems are, or how tumultuous your life may be. It is the most selfish act a human being can perform.) My exact moment of death was November 19, 2009 at 9:42:32 p.m.
It was a Wednesday.


One thing that I have learned from my ‘time’ in the land of the dead, or spirit world, if you will, is this: People have these phrases like, ‘He/she left before his time’, or ‘He/she died too young.’ Both of these statements, and others like them are completely impossible, and are 100% false. You see, once you cross over from the realm of the living, there is no time. Time is essentially a frivolous, and underdeveloped measurement designed by whatever being or accident created human kind. (FYI, I have come across no answers to either the former nor the latter of these options concerning creation, which I must admit, is very disillusioning.)
So, time’s reasoning being stated, I was quite surprised to discover, that immediately after one’s last breath has been breathed, ‘time’ stops completely, and the mysteries of the fourth dimension are all immediately satiated. 
But, the point that I am getting at here is this: Time, as the living know it, is one of the biggest mysteries to mankind’s brain. It never stops; there is no way of traveling back and forth through it, there is absolutely no way of understanding it, or no way of actually pointing to one specific thing that makes or runs time. There is no way of seeing what is going to happen, not even 4 seconds from wherever you happen to be standing in the midst of time’s grip of uncertainty. 
When one dies, time changes into paths, each path starting at the moment of conception and ending at the moment of death. (Note: The ever-debated loss of 21 grams from the total body weight of the deceased at the very second of death is indeed, the soul. Now stop arguing.)
As I said previously, one’s soul is a four-dimensional being; so I can now basically be absolutely anywhere at any time. As you read this, I am watching you, I am looking at the top of Mount Everest, and I am reading over the shoulder of a certain businessman named Carl Stevens who is flying to Denver, CO from Scranton, PA. (Who, incidentally, sells firewall protection to large, important companies). I am also watching you tomorrow, I am watching you grow up and I am watching you die. (I wont divulge the last of these facts, as for not to ruin the surprise for you.)
So, as you can see, I am now omnipresent.
I can even see my own ‘life-path’: the day I was born, the day I kissed the girl next-door in my tree house when I was 9, my first day of school, and my death day. (I put Sigur Ros on repeat, lit candles, burned incense and slit my wrists in the bathtub. Quite serene, actually.)
This death day is where my ‘life-path’ ends abruptly. 
Everybody’s ‘life-path’ ends, no matter what, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to change this. If someone dies at 34, that was all that was planned for them. The same goes for stillbirths, someone who dies at age 2, or someone that dies at age 100, for that matter. 
What I am trying to put across is: that was their time.
There is no ‘before their time’ about it.
No ‘too young’.
That is it, nothing else. 


One more bothersome piece of information I will let you in on is this: There are absolutely no diversions in these ‘life-paths’. The choices that one makes throughout his/her life are pre-planned. There are no real choices.
There are only situations that make humans think that they are capable of such control, but alas, it is merely a rouse, a red herring making them think they have the capability of making choices, especially choices dealing directly with the well being of the particular human being. 


I really do apologize for breaking your bubble about these things, but it needs to be understood that life is meaningless.
The only real reason, or point to life is to get to the next life, the four dimensional, spirit life. 

Here in my realm, humans are entertainment for those of us who have ‘passed on’. 
You see, if I so desire, I can come down to your level and follow you on your everyday routines.
I can walk step by step through every second that you have lived and every second you ever will live, fast-forwarding through the boring parts like watching a DVD. So there are literally billions and billions of movies I can watch, including my own. (I have watched JFK’s life a few times, and believe me, it is very tense/steamy [I also know how really killed him, but if I spoil too much for you people, life would be oh so boring]. It happens to be one of my personal favorites, aside from various porn stars lives from the portion of time in which I spent my formative years, but those are mostly pathetic and sort of sad. I fast forward a lot.)


As for the blurb at the opening of this piece, I put it there as an example of what I do while watching people’s lives. (I am watching these two people as I write this.) The next time you ask a girl/guy on a date, or propose, or lose a loved one, or dream about the heart that you broke, I may be right there, over your shoulder, turning your life into a drama, or a comedy, or a romance. I create dialogue not unlike a narration. I know your movements before you do, so I am never off cue. 
Which brings me to my next topic: dreams.
Dreams are stories that your mind creates during the ‘idle’ state of the human brain. A dream occurs when the chemicals in your brain that contain memories, which are held back by biological inhibiters, are released. The result is flooding, jumbled memories, with absolutely no rhyme or reason, matching and pairing and mixing with each other, creating stories and characters, also not unlike movies. (If said inhibiters were not in place, or malfunctioned, a person would have memories so vivid and so abundant that they would flood the vision of the victim incessantly with their images and the victim would essentially become instantly insane. These inhibiters only release during the dormant state, explaining the phenomena wherein, waking from a dream the images of aforementioned dream are still somewhat discernible to the groggy human)
So, I have no control over dreams, but my friends, I can watch them.
Every single murder dream you have, every single night terror, all the wet dreams and each and every single dream that you can’t remember, or don’t even know you had, I can see (It makes for great footnotes on your life, insomuch as I don’t have to read your thoughts, which can normally be really boring [but every once in a while surprisingly satisfying]).
Dreams are the closest thing that the living will ever come to experiencing what I am experiencing at this very moment, aside from, of course, movies. (The surreal feeling of dreams is more on par with the afterlife though, at least when one first dies, due to a real sense of confusion, which happens frequently in dreams. The only other thing I can liken death to is smoking hash or opium and listening to ambient music in a completely dark room with your eyes closed. It is so close sometimes that I can seriously almost hear Brian Eno or Aphex Twin on occasion.) 
(Auth. Note: This is completely off of the previous subject, but I would like to take some time to point out something that struck me suddenly whilst writing the last section. Aside from the obvious pain that death inflicts upon those left in the physical world, one of the most hurtful things that I have noticed are people bothered by is the fact that the deceased myspace and facebook [and the like] pages stay up on the internet and are subsequently never touched again. [That is, of course, unless one of the remaining people have the deceased’s password.] When I died, I did not have one of these, so my friends and family were spared having to look at my face and my life every time they logged into their respective pages.)


The next topic I will only like to graze over, due to not only the almost laughable content, but also just the sheer absurdity of both of the next pieces of information.
The reason so many people believe in ‘aliens’ and ‘ghosts’ is because of the spirits in my realm. ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Extraterrestrial’ sightings and encounters can both be explained away as the deceased ‘f*****g’ with the living.
So, in a sense, ‘ghosts’ do exist, but not in the romantic way that humans like to believe that they do. There is no ‘searching the world for their lost lover’, or ‘doomed to walk the face of the earth until his/her business is finished’ type of fluff.
We (yr. auth. not included, I have no reason to bother you poor people), on occasion can ‘manifest’ ourselves, if you will, and easily toy around with the living, due to the extremely limited brain capacity. The ‘Extraterrestrial’ sightings and abductions are nothing more than this same action, but a bit more hostile or harsh. 
(I should point out though, that the notion of a spirit not being satisfied with their physical life is not completely unheard of here. Hence some people being ‘fucked’ with, it is sort of an anger-therapy/management, especially if the ‘F**k-ee’ had something to do with the demise of the particular ‘F**k-er’ in question. The ‘F**k-ers’ just do it from their comfortably omnipresent state, instead of being stuck to the earthly realm for all eternity or whatever foolishness the living assign to said ‘F**k-er’.)
So, in conclusion to that hopefully eye-opening bit, if you or anyone you may know has ever ‘encountered’ any type of these situations, remember this: you/they probably did something to someone somewhere in time and are subsequently being punished. You are nothing special; you are merely a ‘F**k-ee’, don’t blow it out of proportion, you are not any more ‘open-minded’ than anyone else.
(Auth. Note #2: Psychics and mediators are full of s**t, end of story)
Are you following so far? I hope I am not going too fast, overloading your mammalian circuitry. If this is the case, by all means, take a break. Go outside or smoke a cigarette or something. Or just stop reading this altogether (although I hope you choose one of the former and not the latter). I will insert another blurb about the people I am watching to break it up for you a bit:
He looked at her with a smile, “I just like the immense wave of pseudo-individualism that I get upon entering a Starbucks. It’s like being in a little club: the liberalist, laptop-typing, pea coat-wearing, readers who drink their lattes and discuss things like Armani vs. Marc Jacobs or the European economic position vs. the Peoples Republic of China's fallacies as the proverbial 'economically challenged'. It's nice, warm, you know?” She nodded in agreement.
Ok, so after reading that over a few times, I am starting to think that that maybe wasn’t the best choice, especially inserted so out of context, but I really enjoy that quote. (I also enjoyed Starbucks when I was alive. Certainly one of the finer things, I must admit, also one of the things that I quite miss. Oh yes, we miss things, did I mention that? I don’t believe so. At any rate, there are things that all of us miss, ignorance being one of the big ones, because, as they say, ignorance is bliss. Never has that phrase held more meaning than in the afterlife. Sex, love and food are a few others, but are not limited to these certain selections, these are merely personal longings.)
‘Extraterrestrial’ brings me to the next point: The universe.
Living scientists are under the impression that the universe essentially goes on forever and has boundless, unused ‘space’ if you will (no pun intended). I concur that the universe is huge, especially to human standards, but unfortunately is not, again like the ‘ghosts’ and ‘aliens’, as romantic as the living make it out to be. The only way to describe how the universe is formed without actually seeing it is likening it to the original Donkey Kong video game from the eighties. If you remember back to the game (childish and unorthodox, I know, but there is no other description that I can think of in lay terms), when you made the main character go out of the screen on one side or the other, he would reemerge on the opposite side just as he had left on the previous. Almost teleported, if you will. That is the general set up of the universe. So, if a ship, or space debris or something of that nature is flying on a straight, unwavering course toward one of the sides of the universe (the universe itself is spherical) eventually it will hit one of these sides and be immediately ‘transported’ back to the exactly opposite side, still heading on the same course it originally started out on. This action/reaction is true for 100% of the boundaries of said universe. So, therefore, light, being a physical entity constantly emitted from it’s originating point in a 360 degree direction at all times, is essentially ‘bounced’ in every direction from every originating point. From this you can easily conclude that even one star or planet, depending on which way one views it, can and will be seen hundreds if not thousands of times over from different angles, a result of the light from said planet or star being shot to the sides of the universe and subsequently ‘transported’ back to the opposite side of the point in which it originally started, creating the illusion of ‘infinite stars’ in the universe, all shapes and sizes, depending on the locations of the sources and taking into account light refraction and similar contortions of view.
Outside of the spherical universe is nothing. White nothing (if it can even be described as ‘white’. If you can possibly imagine ‘nothing’, as in absolute zero by way of even molecules or atoms, that’s what it looks like). If there is an infinite mind or creator, I would imagine that the ‘White Nothing’ is it (although I have ventured out toward those realms a handful of times and each time I am let down by the actual nothingness of it all. It essentially proves, in my mind, that there is no God). 
I sometimes feel as if I may be God (I apologize to any religious folk that may be reading this, I mean no harm to you or your beliefs. Write it off as merely a God-complex. If any of you happen to save lives for a living, or know someone who does, you will understand what I mean, but only on an entry level; wait until you die, then we’ll talk. The same goes to you religious fanatics).
My last rant actually brings to mind another fact about which you may be wondering: Do we dead communicate to one another? The answer is, yes, we communicate, but not in the way you would to one of your earthly companions. Our speech is more along the lines of advanced telepathy. We are made up of pure energy (though inverted, so more like anti-energy) so here in the land of the dead, we have no form, no names and no one place of residency. So, being the anti-energy nomad hobos that we are, we ‘talk’ through thoughts, but these thoughts are more akin to speech bubbles like in comic strips and are normally not really directed toward any one entity in particular, i.e. intercepted at will by passersby or just lost in ‘space’, eventually making their way to the ‘White Nothing’ (where, I’m sure they are either obliterated or collected by some unseen force for later blackmailing purposes or the like, I have never attempted to find out). When I first died, not only was I confused about where I was and what was happening, but was also deluged by an avalanche of thought bubbles passing through my thoughts, it was…frightening, truth be told.
Eventually one learns to block them out or just ignore them entirely (the aforementioned angry souls who are constantly ‘f*****g’ with living people are normally the ones who block out all communication from the rest of us. I almost feel bad for them, because I reckon that nothing will ever fill that void that they have, they will never be satiated. Poor b******s).
So, companionship is not really an option, although we are certainly not alone. Every once in a while we do group activities such as maybe a few of us will watch one of your ‘life-tracks’, or we will sometimes gather a group and take turns going through various black holes (strange, I know, but black holes are anti-matter and we are anti-energy. These two anomalies forced together can potentially have quite the electrifying results. This is the closest a spirit can come to the feeling of orgasm. It goes without saying that I watch porn star’s ‘life-tracks’ whilst entering black holes. [I do apologize if some of this comes off as distasteful, but I feel that full disclosure is always the best policy]).
Back to my original point, the only other form of ‘communication’ (I use the term loosely in this context) is feeling, or emotion if you will.
Emotion is one thing that never changes, even after death.
Essentially if you were a miserable b*****d in life, you will be a miserable b*****d in death.
I say that emotion is a communication form, because we have the ability to attach a feeling to one of our talk bubbles at will.
So, if there is some sort of point that one of us is trying to put across, we can fill it right to the brim with whatever emotion we want to accompany it.
We can also send out strictly the emotion, but this is not widely practiced.
Sort of an unspoken rule, mostly for the rookies just arriving, as they have a hard enough time with the talk bubbles and the just-woke-up-in-a-strange-room (times 1000) feeling, we don’t need to be flooding them with sadness, hate, pain, suffering and sexual arousal. (However entertaining it may be so catch all of the communication bubble that are bursting with confusion and fear, all of us have been there and know how horrible it is. You should thank us, because you're going to be there too someday).


The very last, and rather disheartening subject I would like to bring to your attention is loved ones.
The Bible, the Koran and any other religious book one can think of makes heaven out to be this huge party in the sky.
Like, after all these years you finally get to see dear old Uncle Joe again.
Absolutely not the case.
This ‘space’ is so hugely expansive, yet so impossibly crowded with spirits that trying to find Mom and Dad is like looking for a contact lens at an arena concert.
I’m not saying there isn’t a chance that you won’t run into them, I am merely stating that the chances are 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Even if you do succeed in running across said loved one, it would be completely coincidental if you learned their past identity, due to the fact that we all are invisible.
If a spirit were to float around constantly sending out talk bubbles stating their past moniker, you may have a chance (I tried this approach once I figured out how to communicate. Nothing.)
So, for future reference; leave it be. Who has the time (pun intended)?

So there it all is.
I could go on for eternity about the things I’ve learned and the things I’ve seen, but I don’t want to kill the experience for you completely.
Don’t be afraid of death; there is a spirit inside of you that is faster, smarter, more agile and completely beyond your comprehension just bursting out of you, waiting to show you all the things I have told and more!
Why wait?
I only kid, please don’t go killing yourself just because I said so. Enjoy your life, discover things, have adventures. Just rest assured that the greatest adventure has yet to come.
I’m going back to the lovers in the park now.
Live well, do good to others and don’t be a miserable b*****d, or you’ll end up like that for eternity.

Oh, and one more thing: animals do not have souls. All Dog’s Go To Heaven is complete bullshit.

Goodnight.

(Auth. Note: You may be wondering how it is that I am writing this, or better yet how the hell you got your hands on a piece of literature written in the afterlife. The answer is simple. You're not, and you didn't. This whole thing is in your mind, and completely nonexistent. How could it be? Think about it; a spirit wrote you an essay describing the afterlife. People with think you're daft. I never wrote anything at all. Although I exist, you are merely creating this whole situation in your imagination. You silly person.)