Gregory: Death?

Death: Gregory?

Gregory: Yes, that’s me. I can’t believe I’m talking to you.

Death: Why?

Gregory: You instill fear among the living.

Death: Do you mean among the leaving?

Gregory: I don’t understand your question. We live before we leave.

Death: Since when?

Gregory: For as long as we’ve been here.

Death: Where exactly is “here”?

Gregory: Planet Earth.

Death: And what are you?

Gregory: A human.

Death: How long has your species been here?

Gregory: A few thousand years.

Death: Were you always human?

Gregory: No; once upon a time, we were lobe-finned fishes.

Death: What time is it now?

Gregory: It’s 12:41 p.m. Why are you asking me these questions?

Death: Each time someone invites me to a conversation, I want to be certain they’re aware of the time, the place, and their nature.

Gregory: Okay, now that I have confirmed all three parameters, will you please explain what you mean by “the leaving”?

Death: Do you like it here, Gregory?

Gregory: Yes, I like all of it, Death.

Death: All of it?

Gregory: The universe. This planet. My eyes and ears. Time. You.

Death: Why do you like me?

Gregory: Time’s artless drawings, with thick and unadorned lines, seem regularly vandalized by passersby. You mitigate the vandalism.

Death: Do you know how many times I’ve heard about the gravity of Time’s explicit artistic expressions over the ages?

Gregory: Many?

Death: Too many. From philosophers to filmmakers. You’re not bestowing humanity with some never-before communicated, deeply philosophical context, Gregory. Who or what inspired you to start these conversations?

Gregory: I remembered the philosophical texts . . . dialogues I came across as a kid after I had three conversations here on Marginalia. And I’m sorry for being so formulaic.

Death: As long as you recognize that I’ve already had most of this conversation in varied compositions with others in the past.

Gregory: And yet here we are again.

Death: And yet here we are again.

Gregory: It’s a little discouraging to hear, but it seems worth having this conversation one more time.

Death: Why?

Gregory: I don’t really have an answer . . . Because I’m still here.

Death: So why do you like me, other than for my entanglement with Time?

Gregory: . . .

Death: Maybe you like me also because you don’t fear saying goodbye to anyone left around you?

Gregory: Well I do fear saying goodbye to Mom. But otherwise, yes. So why are we leaving and not living beings?

Death: Imagination was one of your species’ main gateways to new settlements during your early, unsettled phases. Stories told while passing under the arches of the gateway were later carved into rocks, becoming pathways for the descendants. We were observing this spectacle of form creation somewhat warily, but with wonderment.

Gregory: Do you mean we escape reality through our imagination?

Death: Imagination, sometimes infused by the use of certain substances, is one way you deal with fear and pain.

Gregory: Unless we abuse it.

Death: Your primal struggle with the bounds of the shell and the freedom of a free-range chicken.

Gregory: You mentioned the early, unsettled phases.

Death: Yes, those were volatile times for your species, and we understood why you’d want to temporarily leave your home. This habit of yours turned into art forms.

Gregory: So we’d gradually wander further away from our main narrative, from home?

Death: This wandering—no, not further away, more like lingering on the rooftops of your homes—was wholly in the hands of Beauty. One of my oldest friends.

Gregory: Enough mentioned the unattainable nature of Beauty for some in our conversation. But why do you say “was”?

Death: Gregory, you shall speak with Beauty about this.

Gregory: Please elaborate.

Death: Altering your reality by mimicking it can be an addictive activity, more so than any substance abuse. Rampant progress in interactive storytelling has no regard for the nature of your reality. It’s a game of make-believe at levels beyond Beauty’s capacity. It feeds on Time. It disgorges you back to your physicality to exhale and inhale again. Hang in there for just a bit longer and you’ll have a singularly intelligent assistant helping you breathe without your body needing to regulate it.

Gregory: Is it only interactive storytelling that has this effect on us?

Death: It can also be any perpetual repetition of Beauty’s initial creations that keeps your attention in chains.

Gregory: Death, overheating is one ramification of living in this attention-demanding environment where information flows in looped, round-the-clock pipes. As a countermeasure, we had to put a myriad of cooling systems in every household.

Death: Yes, you did. What a stellar invention to counterbalance the loss of time. Doesn’t it require a round-the-clock commitment to acquiring funds, so you can afford rapidly updating cooling systems?

Gregory: So do you prefer us not to dwell in this . . . this “in-between” state of mind then? Besides the internal nightly off switch.

Death: It doesn’t matter what I prefer. I abide by the rules of Time. What rules do you abide by?

Gregory: One of them is currently exponential growth.

Death: Are you attempting to make me obsolete?

Gregory: No, we’re merely hoping to annihilate evil and swill solely from the fountains of distilled good.

Death: That doesn’t sound reassuring to me.

Gregory: Death, this sounds like you fear for your life.

Death: Gregory, I don’t have one to fear for.

Gregory: I mean your presence in this reality.

Death: I’m ever-present in this reality.

Gregory: Oh, I believe you. I’m not quite certain the current forward motion in evolution shares that notion with me.

Death: Does it also presuppose ending the end?

Gregory: Its main concern at this stage is the beginning of the beginning.

Death: Do you think you’re in control of your evolution and the geniuses unveiling the layers of this reality?

Gregory: We do, yes.

Death: Do you think that true reality is on the other side of this reality?

Gregory: If it were, we wouldn’t call it reality, would we?

Death: No, you’d call it an illusion, a simulation, or see it as a space for ceaseless exploration.

Gregory: We loathe pain. We have to minimize or eliminate it. Our aches exacerbate our aches. Our thoughts exacerbate our thoughts. Our egos exacerbate our egos. Do you know what agony feels like?

Death: Is that why you beg me to take you and your loved ones to the heavens in the end?

Gregory: I’m sorry?

Death: Is that why you’d habitually reboot your brains through meditation? To get a glimpse of the shutdown state with the ultimate goal of reaching Nirvana? Or stand on one leg to reach enlightenment? Or whip yourselves to attain the purest form of forgiveness—

Gregory: Death, I don’t think the majority of us meditate to reach Nirvana or engage in those extreme activities.

Death: No, the majority are busy adding fuel to ever-speeding augmented engines.

Gregory: Are we adding more and more fuel because at each stopover we hope to reach a better one?

Death: It’s the inertia of the survival mode and the lack of resources for the mind’s growth from birth. It’s a gradual process by which concerned adults ecstatically tile cobblestones toward the brightest future.

Gregory: Their concern, ethical or otherwise, means uncertainty in their actions. This makes me hopeful.

Death: It would be difficult to discern the difference between the now and the before by the time the artificial minds give birth to artificial offspring through artificial wombs in the name of your species’ survival.

Gregory: It looks like our labs housing artificial or otherwise modified wombs are closer to becoming a reality than your depiction. It sounds more distant . . . like the plot of a dystopian science fiction novel.

Death: Dystopia entails suffering. This could be your utopia.

Gregory: I’m not sure how we reached this point in our conversation, but I’ll ask you a question I never thought I’d ask Death. Is there hope?

Death: Gregory, you know I can’t answer such questions. Can you?

Gregory: No.

Death: No?

Gregory: I don’t . . . I don’t think there is.

Death: Try some psychedelics. When you do, remember to take a bottomless sack with you to bring back the unconditional love that only a non-human entity can dream of.

Gregory: I thought you were—

Death: So why are you still occupying this space, if you have lost all your hope?

Gregory: It enables me to take snapshots of this space and the occupants in their current state before the transformation. Am I too late?

Death: For many years, your species has considered the fear of change a generational thing.

Gregory: Yes, but now it feels like the inner remodeling is, at last, preparing to invite us in.

Death: You have some time, given that you’re aware of the closing speed of the aperture.

Gregory: I hope I am. And yes, we have often said “It’s a generational thing” over the last few centuries. It seems that recorded history supports this belief about evolution.

Death: Recorded history illuminates your inability to decipher the negatives preserved from your past before the fully developed images confront you with clarity in the future. Except that clarity dissolves into obscurity shortly after being removed from the darkroom.

Gregory: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.

Death: Perhaps one day your species will learn to mourn the ashes of the opposing villagers’ bodies. As you may know, lit torches do not discriminate between good and evil.

Gregory: Do you mean that good and evil are, in a sense, a sophisticated means of balancing the spread of fire in this natural world—now by way of human hands?

Death: The natural world can only provide you with unsophisticated landscapes for your lenses to capture. Processing information is a species’ function.

Gregory: What is in those negatives that we’ve been so carelessly missing all this time?

Death: Gregory, there once was a small planet—home to creatures to whom knowledge was not an impetus for progression but a source of realization. They became aware of so much information that information became redundant. The one piece of knowledge they cherished the most was the understanding of the limits of their reality.

For some reason, at some point, their planet began to expand. With this expansion came confusion, frustration, depression, mutation, and the prediction of discontent.

They developed vocal cords to communicate with a larger number of their species through larger areas of space. Unfortunately, their fading telepathic abilities were limited to a few creatures within a short distance. During this tumultuous time, some of them flew away in their vessels, propelled by a ceaseless source of energy.

They talked about their past as if it was another world, now only present in those who flew away to escape the changing topography. Those that remained could no longer fit in their vessels due to mutations. They buried the vessels underground and soon forgot about them. Soon many things were forgotten. They claimed that there was so much more to know and that the knowledge once known was merely a fraction of the information the universe contains.

The claims became writings. Some writings claimed that the departed were of divine power, capable of restoring their whilom wisdom upon return. Other writings claimed otherwise. Curriculums were written for followers. Some followers were eager to find and dig up the vessels—the reminders—to restore the way things were in the past. Some eagerly waited for the return of the departed. And some thought that the departed were not of divine power but scared runaways. Most followers were adamantly following in the footsteps of the previous followers. The previous followers were paving the way forward according to the guidelines of the curriculum writers. The curriculum writers, who had been inspired by the claims, were named the primordial progenitors. The initial claimants remained unnamed.

Meanwhile, the departed were out in the universe in their small vessels, looking for small planets. They were indeed scared, lost, and frail. Upon discovering a new planet, they had to build bigger vessels to move their population from one place to another, hoping that reverse mutations would inevitably occur as an adaptive mechanism in the new environment. At some point, the search took its toll. Some crashed their vessels on bigger planets, despairingly flying in narrow areas, pining for their home. They had been flying in the unending space for far too long.

Gregory: Death, I’m confused. Is this a metaphor, or is this real?

Death: Does it matter?

Gregory: . . . Well, we have to know more to survive in this universe for as long as we can. I don’t see us considering slowing down. But perhaps knowing that there’s something else out there, that you’re inevitable regardless of our innovative escape routes, may release some of the tension in our limbic muscles, at least for the time being. By the way, were there any attempts to unify their curriculums?

Death: Do you think unifying old curriculums is feasible?

Gregory: I’m afraid it’s an impossible task for us. That’s why I’m asking if it was possible for them, and if so, how.

Death: I can’t answer your question.

Gregory: I understand.

Death: How are you, Gregory?

Gregory: Excuse me?

Death: How are you?

Gregory: I’m, I’m . . . I’m okay. Thank you for asking.

Death: How does it feel to be alive?

Gregory: Unsettling at times.

Death: Why?

Gregory: Because of the ephemeral nature of my mind.

Death: Then is it better never to know than to know temporarily?

Gregory: It depends. Sometimes knowing is worse than not knowing.

Death: Some are certainly more ready for me at the end than others.

Gregory: Some have an admittedly good run here, if that’s what you mean. Whether it’s a matter of luck, knowing just enough, or having access to some pages of the treadmill’s manual.

Death: Does it matter?

Gregory: Perhaps meaningless luck distribution only matters to those looking for meaning. Does it matter to you?

Death: Do you think I’m looking for meaning?

Gregory: I don’t know. Do you?

Death: What would you like to know, Gregory?

Gregory: What would I like to know?

Death: Yes.

Gregory: Will you answer any question I ask?

Death: Yes.

Gregory: Tell me anything.

Death: Anything?

Gregory: Yes.

Death: I appreciate you sparing me the afterlife question. I’ll share some of our observations with you then. Although they are highly approximate since I have to use words and consider your current awareness of reality.

Gregory: Mhm.

Death: Somehow creates Something. Something creates configurations. Configurations create structures. Some structures appear with Time. Time leaves an impression on Space. Beauty recognizes Balance. Time becomes irrelevant for a moment. Humans make it relevant again and shortly after, fall in love. That love makes Time irrelevant for a moment. Balance makes Time relevant again. Time recognizes human love, others recognize human love. Humans imagine images and take snapshots of Time. Imbalance is put on trial in the human court of law for making Time relevant. Humans discover progress. Others sometimes supply fuel. Humans debate the limits of their structure. Somehow becomes irrelevant.

Gregory: Thank you for being here today!

Death: Gregory, I’m glad you and Dr. Ist found each other.

Gregory: Thank you for saying that.