Friends and Readers,
This story is a selection from Parables from the Grave. I’m sharing it with you now because it’s a subject that is much on my mind at the moment, because I’m not quite up to writing a new essay yet, and because I think it is true. Not necessarily the whole truth, but at least a good part of it . . .
There had been an irritating glare on her computer screen for more than an hour, but Dahlia was too deeply absorbed in her research to notice—consciously, anyway.
She was typing a sentence that she thought she would probably end up using, word for word, in her paper:
“It is a well-known principal of ethnosemantics that the meaning of a word is its relationship to other words.”
Something dimmed the glare, and she became aware of a presence behind her.
She tried to make it out, focusing on the reflection in the screen, but she couldn’t.
Finally, she gave up and spun her chair round to face it.
There was no one there.
At least, that’s how it seemed at first.
But then she became dimly aware of a shape—a shadow standing between her and the window, where the glare had come from.
It was vague. Transparent and elusive. She could just make it out.
She realized that she should have been scared, and almost simultaneously realized that she wasn’t. Not the least bit.
“What do you want?” she asked the shadow, and then, “Who are you?”
The voice which answered, she was fairly sure, was only in her head.
“You could call me an angel.”
She laughed, a little sarcastically.
“A messenger, yeah? From God?”
“A messenger. Yes. You could also call me a hallucination, or part of your subconscious. We should have been better acquainted before this.”
“So, Messenger. What’s the message?”
“You are about to die.”
She waited for the adrenaline rush—the wave of terror. It didn’t come.
“When?”
“Look at the clock.”
“So it’s quarter after seven. I don’t see... Oh.”
The second hand wasn’t moving.
Dahlia squinted at the shadow-figure.
“How?”
“Does it really matter?”
“I suppose not. That’s the message, then, is it?”
“You know better, just as you knew a moment ago that I was not from God.”
She smiled.
“Because there isn’t any God.”
“Not in the sense you used the word.”
“Or life after death?”
“That you do not already know—at least not consciously. It is why I am here.”
Dahlia leaned back in her chair.
“So you’re avoiding contractions on purpose, or what?”
“Contractions? I do not understand.”
“Contractions. You ever say ‘don’t,’ or ‘isn’t’? Why is it always ‘I do not,’ and ‘It is not’?”
The figure was silent.
Dahlia sighed.
“Sorry. I’m about to die, or I already have, and you’re here to tell me about the afterlife.”
“Yes.”
“So where do we go from here?”
The figure was silent again.
Dahlia sighed once more.
“Okay, sorry. Not funny, I suppose. What I meant was, what happens to me now I’ve kicked the bucket?”
Silence.
“Oh come on! That wasn’t even a joke. What happens when I die?”
“You do not die.”
“But you just said...”
“You do not cease to be.”
“So what? Heaven?”
“No.”
“Hell?”
“No.”
“A ghost? I’m running out of ideas here.”
“First you must understand what you are.”
“I’m a healthy female mammal, of the homo sapiens persuasion. Well, apparently not so healthy...”
“What you have described is your body. You are another matter.”
“Another matter? As in ectoplasm? Who’s making puns now?”
“You are. I did not intend...”
“No matter. Go on.”
“Matter—your body—is, in a sense, hardware. Souls are software.”
“I’m a program?”
“It is only an analogy. You are accustomed to think of yourself as existing within your body, as a part of it.”
“Except when I’m on certain drugs.”
“An excellent example. Have you ever used drugs around your sister?”
“Are you kidding? Oh yeah, that’s right—you don’t kid. She’d freak out.”
“That is part of the reason, but is it the whole reason? Do you want to use drugs when you are around her?”
“Actually, I never think of it. Around my roommate, yeah. And she’d freak out even more. But around Sis I don’t even want to. It’s like, it’s like I’m a different person around her.”
“And do you like this different person? Do you feel you are being yourself when you are around her?”
“Oh, yeah. Sis and I, we’re great pals. Always have been.”
“And what about your boy friend?”
“Clayton? Oh, I’m high around him all the time. Drugs or no drugs.”
“And yet you are still yourself?”
“Yeah. Clayton’s cool. But in a different way. There are things I can tell him that Sis would never get. I even have a different sense of humor around him. Different kinds of jokes. Come to think of it, there are jokes Sis would get that he wouldn’t.”
“So you are a quite different person around Clayton than you are around your sister?”
“Yeah. But I’m still me.”
“Exactly. The you that you are when you are around Clayton is your side of your relationship with Clayton. The you that you are when you are around your sister is your side of your relationship with your sister.”
“So you’re saying that I’m just the sum total of all my relationships?”
“The word ‘just’ is almost always misleading.”
“So you’re saying... This is cool. You’re saying that soul is made out of relationships.”
“What you call your self is not your body, but the relationships you have with others. Yes.”
“And when I die...”
“Your grandmother died.”
“Oh, years ago. But I still can feel her, sometimes. Nothing spooky. I just still...”
“You still have the relationship.”
“Yes. In fact, right now...”
“Your grandfather felt the same way, after she died. And her best friend. And your mother.”
“So we just... dis-assemble? Into all our different relationships? We just come apart?”
“Think of each relationship as a circle, and of your self as a pile of circles, some large, some small, all overlapping.”
“And each relationship stays with the person it belongs to. But what happens when they die?”
“What attracted you to Clayton?”
“Oh, a lot of things. He’s good-looking, and funny, like my dad, and he has something of Grandma’s sense of humor, and... So it never stops?”
“Never. But it is always new, as well. You are part of everyone you care about. Everyone who cares about you.”
“I think I feel okay about this.”
“You will be part of Clayton, and all of his relationships. And, because you are part of him, your grandmother will be, as well. You will be part of your sister, and all of her relationships.”
“Even with her geeky boyfriend?”
“That’s right.”
“Yeah. Thanks. I’m glad you—Hey! A contraction!”
“You’re part of everyone who cares about you.”
Definitely thought provoking.
Thank you!