The Perpetual Veils of Preposterous Illusion - a meditation on the nature of an infinite reality and nothingness.
From "Remember Me, Nothing" chapter one: "The Perpetual Veils of Preposterous Illusion" - which details a conversation with a shrouded phantom and our first person narrator - who can recall a life where he was once named Bryan. The discussion revolves around a choice presented to this individual - should he remain in this supposedly eternal world? Should he go back to this life he remembers as Bryan? And is there a third option... Nothing?
When I awoke, I noticed the hard velvety cushion beneath my body. The room was shrouded, only an ignited fireplace from a corner provided light, causing flickering shadows to waltz atop the dark wood walls and the dark green carpet. An odd euphoria trickled through emotions like a calm but quick creek. Memories and identity were scrambled inside my skull, but the calming sensation coursing through the bloodstream subsided any confusion or panic that would’ve otherwise gripped me while in a state of such bewilderment.
The ambiance suggested that a tall bookshelf stuffed with thick encyclopedias would be fitting for this space, but the only other furniture that I could see was an odd purple polygon that somewhat resembled a large chair or a small sofa. Upon realizing that this object was practically identical to the surface on which I rested, a tall human form abruptly appeared from out of the darkness behind me.
The fellow was quite lanky, and draped in jet black clothes. His very pale, bald head and skinny hands awkwardly poked out of a turtleneck, starkly contrasted by the surroundings. “Do I remind you of someone?” he asked while sitting down across from me, and briefly adjusting a metal wire that composed the frame of his spectacles.
“Three people, actually.” There was a subtle tremble in my voice.
“Indeed,” the phantom replied in monotone. “Any attempts to perceive my true form typically get warped. Who do I remind you of?”
“One person I can barely remember, but I can recall watching him cover a wall with ink, drawing these magnificent doodles. That feels like it happened in another life, though, or maybe a dream.”
The stranger grinned. “And the other people?”
“The other two I can remember much better,” I answered. “One is my father and the second is my younger brother, Paul.”
He fiddled with his glasses again. “Interesting.”
“And who are you?” I inquired.
“Oh, there are much more pressing matters to trouble your thoughts with. Don’t concern yourself with who or what I am. All you need to focus on, all that matters, is a choice I am obligated to present you with. Whether you choose to believe anything I speak is wholly up to your discretion, but I implore you to trust me when I say that your upcoming decisions will determine the ultimate fate of your spirit’s path.”
A crackle from the burning logs snapped the subsequent silence. At last, I softy asked, “What kind of choice?”
Betwixt dancing shadows, another smile emerged across the phantom’s oddly familiar face. “I suppose first, allow me to explain the nature of the realm we are now occupying.”
I offered no reply, leaving this conversation in a prolonged pause. Within, I felt torn between a pleasing euphoric sensation and a panicked confusion that unsuccessfully tried to persuade my heart to be more alarmed. All the while, noncontextually sporadic memories, from a life where I was named Bryan, randomly bubbled up to the forefront of thought.
Eventually, I gave the opposing stranger a slight nod, allowing him to continue: “This place is where infinite spirits dwell,” he declared. “There are many mortal lives that happen to possess a given soul, obstructing its perspective from its true position intertwined in humankind’s collective psyche. But I assure you, all true selves exist only on this eternal stage. You may have noticed, though, that outside of these castle walls, the landscape is mostly a war-torn mess. That is all thanks to a lot of misguided ghosts and a few power-obsessed Gods, and so it’s no wonder why immortal human spirits prefer to dream up finite lives elsewhere…”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in this building before, and I haven’t found a window to look out of. In fact, I can’t remember where I was before this…”
“Well, it’s bad out there,” he stated bluntly. “And although you may not remember, you were brought to this place from the outside. This is one of several structures known as temples. They’re safe havens from the chaos beyond.”
Struggling to absorb the intruder’s onslaught of information, I was too shocked to talk. Finally, I asked, “Why was I brought here?”
“Good question,” he said. “If by ’here’ you are referring to the infinite realm in the broader sense, then the answer is that you have been here all along, most likely caught up in a delusion, dreaming that you’ve been living life as a human in some far out universe plagued by mortality… As for why or how you managed to shed such a hallucination, I’m unable to say. However, if you are referring to this building when you say ‘here,’ then all I’m able to divulge is that one of our nurses brought you to us. You see, there are nurses and medics, typically feminine spirits that work in pairs, but occasionally alone, and they rescue souls from the wreckage outside. But who they decide to save is their personal decision. Why you were so lucky is anyone’s guess. Regardless, your spirit was awakened and delivered here by a nurse named Diana. Our personnel proceeded to record your memories and restore your vitality, which is standard procedure should a recuperated spirit be revivable. Such is not always the case, I assure you.”
“Diana is my mother’s name,” I said.
“Ah, some of your memory is resurfacing, that’s terrific.”
“How could I forget my mom’s name?” My body lunged forward from its previous lounging position atop the purple cushion. “What do you mean you recorded my memories?”
The stranger nodded. “Now that actually brings us to the very dire choice you must make whenever you choose to leave this room. One path, you see, leads to an office where you can review the parchment on which all of your recollections are written. You’ll be able to remember all of the things that your jumbled mind cannot presently conjure. Or, on the other hand, you can decide to stay in the more amnesic state you inhibit now, keeping just the shattered pieces of memory that are accessible and still intact. So, the reason we’ve transcribed your consciousness revolves around the fact that you may wish to review it, should that be the path you take. Regarding how we’re able to produce such a metaphysical transcription… well, I’m sorry to say that there just isn’t enough time on the imaginary clock to dive into those technicalities.”
“Why wouldn’t I want my memories back?”
“Another good question. You’re following along splendidly,” the intruder commented. “Should you decide not to read the parchment, and to stay in your current mindset, you will as well be able to return to whatever life you dreamt of previously. Your consciousness will regress back to your base-level existence, which most likely will be wherever you last underwent the traumatic experience of birth. Most of what you’ve witnessed since escaping that fraudulent universe will seem as illusive and preposterous as a simple nightmare upon returning.”
The burning lumber in the fireplace popped again, disbursing a flitter of embers. I then wondered, “And if I review the parchment instead? What happens then?”
The man adjusted his glasses once more. “Your soul’s remembrances will be restored and your awareness will remain in this realm of the Gods forever. Now, you may have to provide the occasional service on behalf of the deities. In fact, that is exactly what I am doing now. This may sound unappealing, but there are delectable rewards given in exchange. And although the battlefields smothering the scenery outside of the temple are unfortunate, the benefits to existing inside are quite heavenly.” At this, he stalled in anticipation of a response from my end, and soon prodded, “Any more questions?”
Although my panic had subsided, it had only been replaced by an odd nihilism. “Can’t I choose nothing?”
“Nothing?” he echoed.
“What if I remain in this room forever? Won’t it eventually deteriorate until diminishing into nothingness, myself included?”
The intruder exposed a stern expression. “You’re still struggling to grasp this idea of eternity, aren’t you?” He released a loud, frustrated sigh. “Nothingness, huh? I sympathize with the notion, I do. Alas, it is a necessary rule in all universes that there can never be nothing, truly. If any universe could reach absolute emptiness, then such a void would’ve swallowed all the other universes already. For, through the fact that there is something at all, and not nothingness, is evidence that there always must be… something. Anything.
“Even in hypothetical scenarios where all energy is sucked out of a universe, dark energy is unaffected. The expansion of spacetime itself persists. It would take infinite energy to achieve absolute zero, thus preventing any possible attainment of nothingness. Not even when a universe in which all the enclosed energy has succumbed to total entropy can nothingness be attained, because I’ve found in the event of such a cosmic heat death, the universe just reverses its course in time, traveling backwards until it starts back over as a singularity again.”
My eyebrows scrunched, molding thick wrinkles along the forehead. “This universe to where I’d return… am I not there now?”
Growing more impatient, the thin stranger readjusted his posture. “No. You are in the only real universe now, an infinite vacuum of never-ending causality amidst a hyperplane held together loosely, but securely, by eleven dimensions. Finite universes are but simple dreams. Human perceptions bound by spacetime might think such worlds are real, but when compared to the eternal realm, I disagree. Nonetheless, each of these universes has arisen, and will inevitably rise again from a singularity, and then return to a seed just to sprout yet another cosmos.”
“The way you talk about the other universes, though, you make them sound so tangible. Whatever I am, how is it able to be transposed in and out of a colossal closed system, like a universe?”
“Your mind might be too sharp for your own good, boy.” A befuddled smile crawled along the shadows that danced atop his pale cheeks. “Paradoxically, every universe to ever exist does so simultaneously, despite that when viewed from a four-dimensional perspective, it looks like all the universes to ever exist do so sequentially, in order, one after the other. But what looks like a straight line when displayed in the dimension of time reveals itself to be but a segment that eventually curves, part of a giant spiral of infinite loops within loops stretching throughout eternity, endlessly and always cycling through each iteration of the finite cosmos. And the majority of these various universes contain vast galactic filaments, resembling the roots and branches of a tree. In a similar fashion, the branches grow leaves, known as dark matter. These bristles extending from the stems allow interactions between the multitude of universes.”
“Including this one? Then I don’t understand how it can be more real than the others.”
“Because it is infinite. While every possible finite cosmos might exist, all except this one end. There is no final death in this place. After every single possible universe has been cycled through, the exact same universes get recycled through again and again. Except this one. It is timeless. All other realities exist within it as nothing more than miniscule screws in a much a larger machine.” The phantom’s voice became gradually hotter. “Beyond the finite landscapes, here in eternity, all mortal universes appear to be but perpetual veils of preposterous illusion, blinding and consuming spirits, preventing them from becoming wholly realized, infinite beings…”
“So that’s what I get for staying here?” My weight dropped back to a more relaxed pose. “I can become a holy infinite bean?”
“I’ve already disclosed too much.”
Written by BW Derge, All Rights Reserved 2024
© USA
This was an excerpt from "Remember Me, Nothing" - Chapter 1: The Perpetual Veils of Preposterous Illusion - to be published in 2025!
