AFTER LIFE
AUGUST 3, 2011. Fred passed away at home, at the age of 92.
A moment later, he found himself sitting in a prison cell. The walls were gray stone. He was sitting on a cot. He found himself thinking about his conspiracy library at home, a vast collection of over 5,000 books.
Fred had mastered the knowledge of secrets. During his life, he’d written many articles for small journals and sites about the inner workings of elites on planet Earth.
Fred had also come to know that these elites essentially manufactured reality for the eight billion inhabitants of the world. He understood this, and he also understood that the answer, the response, was to create one’s own reality.
Fred felt very comfortable in his understanding.
But now he was in a cell. He took this to be a station in Limbo.
He waited for some hours, and then a man wearing a gray suit walked up to the bars of the cell. Fred felt something odd. He quickly realized the man was really an android.
“You’re in an in-between place,” the android said.
“You’re manufactured, aren’t you?” Fred said.
The android nodded.
“That’s right. It’s quite a sophisticated process. I’m, you might say, an inch away from being human. But it’s a very important inch. You’re here because you stopped short.”
“Stopped short?” Fred said.
“During your life, you came to a peak of understanding. But you didn’t take the most important step. You didn’t imagine and create your own reality.”
“Well,” Fred said, “I understood that was what was necessary. It was very clear to me.”
“Yes, but you didn’t actually DO it.”
Fred thought about that. Briefly.
“I don’t believe I should be incarcerated for that,” he said. “After all, I grasped the idea of it. Very few people reach that stage.”
The android nodded.
“You’re using comprehension,” he said, “as a substitute for DOING.”
The android stared at Fred.
“I reject that argument,” Fred said.
“You can reject it all you want to. It makes no difference. I’m just telling you why you’re where you are. You have an opportunity that’s closed off to me. I can’t do what you can. And yet you sit there and remain as you are.”
In the next second, Fred saw the walls and bars of the prison cell vanish. He was now sitting alone in a vast studio. Light poured in through high windows. He looked for a door. There was none. But there were hundreds of blank canvases leaning against the walls, and on a very long table lay open boxes containing tubes of paints and brushes.
The android was gone.
Fred sat and paced for hours. He wondered whether anyone lived here, but how could that be? There were no doors.
He stretched out on the floor and tried to sleep, but he couldn’t.
It took him another few hours to realize he was being given the opportunity to paint.
Why should I, he thought. What would that prove? I already know what I know. That’s quite enough.
Fred half-expected those thoughts to trigger a change in the studio, but nothing happened. Nothing at all.
Fred lived in the studio for twelve years.
He didn’t paint. He deeply resented the fact that this choice was being forced on him.
Finally, one afternoon, after a short nap, Fred woke up and saw there was a door in the wall. He stood up and walked over to it. He hesitated for a long time.
He finally opened it. And he saw:
Nothing.
Literally, nothing.
It was a colorless shapeless spaceless nothing.
Well, he thought, I can walk into this…nothing, or I can stay in the studio and paint.
Fred is still standing there. He’s thinking.
No one can predict what will happen.
JON RAPPOPORT