We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
   Haida Proverb

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 The Clearness and The Impenetrability

by

Boris Glikman

My companions and I realise suddenly that we are actually in the world of the dead.

We walk towards an open-air market that has many different stalls and see a newspaper headline about a boy from Titanic telling his story of what it was like to go under. This newspaper also features letters from road-kill animals relating their experiences of the last moments of life and the first moments of death.

I go to the CD stall first. It is selling music that musicians have composed since their deaths. I am particularly excited about finding John Lennon’s and Jimi Hendrix's new post-death albums. I also purchase Beethoven's 11th and 12th symphonies, Haydn’s 200th Symphony and the completed version of Mozart's Requiem. Poor Mozart never did finish it during his lifetime, but thankfully in this dead world he has had plenty of time to work on it.

Next to the CD stall is a bookstall. I browse through books that tell of the experiences of dead people, how they met their end, what their deaths felt like and what existence has been like for them since then.

Those who are concerned that death would bring an end to their personal hatreds and conflicts can be reassured that in this world they will be able to resume with renewed energy and the kind benefit of limitless time all of their old animosities and feuds.

Indeed, many wars that those in the living world think have ended with signed peace treaties are still raging in full force and with unabated ferocity and rage in this world, with slain soldiers picking up their weapons and resuming their formations.

The Hundred-Year War has now become the Six Hundred-Year War and First and Second World Wars have amalgamated into one conflict, with Kaiser Wilhelm II and Hitler assuming joint direction of the German armed forces and the Allies being commanded by leaders from both the First and Second World Wars. Japan is in a deep conundrum, not knowing which side to take, having fought for the Allies in the First World War and for the Axis in the Second World War. 

There is a whole paranormal section devoted to such esoteric, mystical subjects as Near Life Experiences (NLE) and making contact with the living world, which here has the appellation of “The Impenetrability” due to its characteristic feature of being composed of dense substance and because of its cryptic nature. 

As the properties of the dead world are directly opposite to that of “The Impenetrability”, its denizens call it  “The Clear World” or “The Clearness” and refer to themselves as the clear beings.

I pick up a book that addresses the NLE phenomenon. It describes how during NLE there is the sensation of drifting through a tunnel, away from a dazzlingly bright, warmly comforting light towards darkness and of accompanying feelings of great agitation, anxiety and confusion.

Consequently people in The Clear World dread the NLE and do all they can to avoid exposing themselves to circumstances that could make them leave The Clearness and return to the world of The Impenetrability.

Indeed so great and all-pervading is the fear of the NLE in the Clear World, that it is considered to be an imperative civic duty on the part of any citizen of this world to help those beings who are undergoing or are in danger of undergoing the NLE. All citizens are required to learn to recognise the symptoms and signs of NLE, and to know the First Aid procedures for preventing a clear being from returning back to The Impenetrability. 

Sometimes overenthusiastic citizens take the symptoms of NLE too literally and one sees a person, his loud protests ignored, being dragged out by his legs from a tunnel just in case that unfortunate fellow could be experiencing the NLE.   

Another book deals with the society structure and daily existence of the Clear Beings. It turns out that the epitaph “R.I.P.“ that the grieving relatives affix to the tombstone could not be more misjudged and incongruous, for a person’s existence only really begins when they die and become a Clear Being. No, there is no time in The Clearness to read a book, let alone rest in peace, so rich and vibrant is life in this world.
 
Possessing an unlimited life span, the clear beings are free from the many life-sapping insecurities and anxieties that stem from the ever-present threat of death and that plague the people in The Impenetrability. The only fear that blights the joyous existence of the clear beings is the possibility of returning to the land of the living. Consequently, in the wars that still rage in The Clearness the objective is to make the enemy alive again.

 And so we have this paradoxical situation in which the impenetrable beings are tormented by the fact that their lives have to end in death and the clear beings are tormented by the fact that they might possibly become alive again.

As with all human communities The Clear World has its hierarchy. One often sees a particular citizen surrounded by hysterical groups, which vary in size from just one or two to hundreds and thousands, showering flowers on that citizen and begging to be set any task so that they can experience the ecstasy of fulfilling the desire of their idols.

A particularly curious sight is of certain beings that have no devotional groups accompanying them and yet they still throw flowers on themselves as they make their way along the street.

I was mystified as to how these particular citizens gained such fame, devotion and fanatical following, why they were always followed by the same unchanging group of devotees and why some groups were quite small while others consisted of hundreds upon hundreds of followers.

At first, I was of the opinion that these beings made an exceptional contribution to the welfare and happiness of humanity back in The Impenetrability and that their devotees consisted of all those people whose lives were saved or improved by their work. My reasoning, however, was woefully off target.

Given that the overriding and most powerful factor that animates the existence of the clear beings is their fear and hatred of the Impenetrability, the citizens who are the object of such fanatical celebration are those that back in The Impenetrability were called murderers and their devotional group consists of all their victims.

The murderers of young impenetrable beings are held in an especially high regard for having given a child a way to partake in the glory of the existence in the Clear World.        

A uniquely intimate and extremely loving relationship exists between the killer and his every victim. The victim is forever in debt and devoted for all eternity to his killer for having had the courage and wisdom to overcome the ridiculously misguided taboo against murder that exists in The Impenetrability and enabling the victim to escape the dreary clutches of the living world.

As suicide victims are their own murderers, they throw flowers on themselves as they walk, making certain that others know that they too possessed the bravery and intelligence to escape the living world.    

Young clear beings, in particular, love their killers with the intensity that never even existed between them and their parents back in The Impenetrable World. Sometimes their unflagging devotion and endless expressions of gratitude wears out even the most patient of killers.

There are also books speculating about the possibility that people exist in the world of Impenetrability before they are actually clear, a world wildly different from The Clearness.

According to these books, in The Impenetrability all people come into existence at the same age and form, namely at the age of zero in the form of a tiny, helpless being. The inhabitants of The Impenetrability are apparently all composed of solid, crudely wrought material that deteriorates over time. Their bodies, this book claims, are incapable of such simple actions as penetrating physical objects, making themselves invisible to sight and overcoming the tyrannies of gravity and time to move freely in all the four dimensions.

The purported existence of The Impenetrability is a hotly disputed subject in The Clear World and is the cause of an ancient and deep rift in its population, contributing directly to major conflicts and catastrophes throughout its history.

For The Believers the existence of Impenetrability is a fundamental and crucial plank in the foundation of their world-view and is of inestimable significance to their spiritual and emotional wellbeing. The Believers are of the firm opinion that human beings undergo a period of growth and development in The Impenetrability that prepares them for their real existence in The Clear World. Our characters and our destinies in The Clearness, according to their sacred tomes, are shaped and determined by our experiences and our lives in The Impenetrability.

The Unbelievers reject any claim of person’s existence prior to The Clearness. They cling strongly to the view that it is beyond the scope of human knowledge and reason to comprehend what occurs prior to a person coming into being in The Clear World and therefore all such discussions are just empty words. According to their creed, the clear beings come to exist in The Clear World already possessing, ready-made, all of their attributes, abilities and imperfections and that the destiny of a clear being is of his making only.

A favourite way of passing the time for The Unbelievers is to mock mercilessly, to the point of tears, The Believers for their blind, unquestioning faith in some imaginary world, asking them to point to where they think this world is situated.

Partly as a way of countering these attacks upon what they hold most dear, a sizeable proportion of the Believers has formed a splinter movement that goes by the name of The Believing Believers.

For this schismatic group the act of believing has become more important than the issue of what it is that they actually believe in, namely the existence of The Impenetrability. In effect, belief has disassociated itself from what it was based upon in the first place, and it is this pure mental state of faith, in and of itself, that has now become an object of veneration and a source of spiritual and emotional nourishment.

Indeed a vast majority of The Believing Believers no longer remember what it is that they believe in, only knowing that it is their faith that distinguishes them from The Unbelievers and gives them the identity and the security that they so cherish.

Recently, there have been unmistakable signs of rising levels of tension and antagonism between The Believers and The Believing Believers, with The Believing Believers accusing The Believers of undermining the whole movement. The Believing Believers are of the opinion that by obstinately holding on to the belief in some conjectural world of The Impenetrability, The Believers infect their sublimely pure faith with an imperfect and uncertain element as well as making themselves vulnerable to the attacks from the Unbelievers. 

Those who have studied the past events of this world and are now studying the present state of affairs are predicting that in the future eras, there will be cataclysmic conflicts the likes of which this place has never seen.

These conflicts will no longer be between The Unbelievers and The Believers, but rather between The Believers and The Believing Believers, given how vociferous and zealous The Believing Believers are in proclaiming that their faith should not be sullied with any alien ingredients and how ignorant they are of where their faith came from in the first place.

Another splinter group that has garnered wide recognition is the Clear-Again Believers. This movement puts great stress on the significance of the Near Life Experience that I have mentioned previously. The rising popularity of this movement is a clear indication of the extent to which the phenomenon of NLE has impressed itself upon the Collective Consciousness of the populace of this world. 

A key feature of the Clear-Again movement is the initiation rite that is centred upon the re-enactment of NLE, of experiencing the dread that it provokes and the feelings of relief and ecstasy that arise in one after escaping its clutches and becoming clear again. Hence the name of this group, which, incidentally, in our old parlance would be known as the dead-again movement. 

To make the NLE re-enactment as close as possible to the real thing, very narrow, dead-end tunnels are constructed, with bright, shiny lights being put up at their entry points. 

The Going In part of the rite is conducted in absolute silence and consists of crawling through the tunnel and never looking back. The director of the ceremony decides when they have gone far enough, and proven their courage of staring The Impenetrability in the face.
 
In the Coming Out part of the ceremony, the director commands a member to pull the crawler out by his legs and this is accompanied by shouts of great jubilation coming from the participants surrounding the tunnel. The new member has officially become clear again and now can bear the title of a Clear-Again Believer.

This simulated acting-out of the near-life experience is considered by some rather reckless members of the movement to be but a mere shadow of the real deal. They flaunt their bravura and daring by deliberately subjecting themselves to situations that they know will bring them close to the edge of life.

These foolhardy clear beings then take great pride in describing in detail their exploits, of how they feel their bodies acquiring a solid and unwieldy form, of sensing some intractable, unyielding power emanating from the ground and cancelling out their free movement capabilities, and of the astonishingly intense feelings of impending doom.   
  
I tire of reading all this esoteric stuff and continue my promenade through the market.
There are flower stalls selling wilted flowers, fruit stalls selling dried up, rotten fruit but otherwise everything is exactly the same as in the living world.

All of a sudden, an astonishing insight strikes me. I clearly see a way to resolve the endless conflicts between the factions and make this world one again. It now becomes my duty and my mission to spread my revolutionary, world-changing solution to the whole population of The Clearness.

I gather around me my first group of disciples and impart to them my Two Worlds Are One Gospel:

" Given that there are no differences between the dead world and the living world, except in the names that we designate them by, how can we prove that this is not the real living world after all? Given that we cannot even remember any differences between this world and the real world, how can we then tell that the real world even existed in the first place?”

I employ a mathematical argument to embed my solution in a firm, scientific soil.

“Suppose there exist two worlds, the real world and the dead world. Designate the real world by X and the dead world by -X. But on the other hand the 2 worlds are identical and therefore it must be that: X = -X. Solving this equation we find that X = 0, and if X is zero then so is -X.

So we get this absurd result that neither world exists. It then follows that our initial assumptions were incorrect and that there can only be one world. We can call it either the living world or the dead world. It is just a name and it makes no difference in the end."

 Three Wise Boxes

by

Julie Ann Shapiro

Three boxes sat on the kitchen table draped in sunlight. One said “happiness”, another “tranquility”, and the third posed a question, “what makes a rabbit’s whiskers’ twitch.”

Carol reached for happiness first and tore open the green ribbon so fast it cut her fingers. “Some happiness,” she groaned. Inside the box contained air. She inhaled and felt nothing just the emptiness of the box.

Not wanting to take a chance on disappointment she chose tranquility and sat all day meditating in front of the box. When the sun fell from the sky and bathed everything in a pinkish orange she retrieved the box asking about a rabbit’s whiskers.

Carol bit her lips, crossed and uncrossed her arms and opened the box, inside it contained one word, “Fear.”  She held it in her hands and twirled around the room. Carol knew this fear well. It’d been a constant presence one that kept her up at night with worry and doubt and in the day caused the familiar tightness in her throat and chest. But not now, she danced a bit with it and felt a whole open breath move from chest to stomach as the sky turned blue and twinkling stars beckoned her to look outside. She opened the window, inhaled the cold night air and watched as fear went sailing away.

With only one box remaining she lit a vanilla candle, inhaled the sweet sent and weaved back and forth with the flames. Drifting from side to side she felt the earth rotating, vibrating within her and she began to hum, the rhythm she felt from limb to limb as her whole body danced feeling one with the earth. Soon the candle flickered with a strong gust of wind and Carol too wavered in her moves and bounced from side to side. She bowed, blew out the candle, picked up the box and placed it on the top of her closet shelf and closed the door slightly, just so she could get a glimpse of tranquility whenever she wanted.

          With The Boy With The Golden Ring

by

Tom Sheehan

The boy’s name was John. He was twelve years old and a street person. You could tell by the clothes he wore. They were old and worn and torn, and dirty looking. One pocket of his thin jacket was missing, his pants were short, his socks did not match, and he had no hat on his head. His hair was very dark and he was standing in front of the Sligo Bakery near the big cathedral. A tall man in worn clothes was standing with him, and they were looking at food in the bakery window. Around them swirled the cold wind and the snow of a storm on a late December evening.

The baker Connaughton looked out the window at them. A strange glow was fuzzy around the boy’s head. Connaughton was drawn to him. He had been pulled from the back of the bakery when he saw the boy standing at the window looking so hungry. In Connaughton’s blood raced a new sensation. He could feel it coursing. It was the same feeling he had when the anthem was played.  When he heard a beautiful psalm it came to him, or when a far and lovely voice at nightfall sang an old song he had nearly forgotten, the special way it came out of the past bringing all kinds of delightful company with it, like a Percy French song echoing from the Cliffs of Mohr. Oh, he thought, the deliriums of joy.

Connaughton waved them into the shop, in from the cold and the swirling snow. The tall man shook his head and pointed to the boy. Even in his shabby clothes the man bore to Connaughton a sense of regality and pride, yet he had a kindly presence about him. The man refused a second invitation and again pointed to the boy. As bidden the boy entered the bakery and Connaughton put six rolls and a cup of coffee in a bag. The boy looked back at the man standing outside the window.

“My father says you are a good man,” the boy said to Connaughton, “but he’s not hungry right now.” The baker and the boy turned and the man was gone. The boy ran outside and the man was gone. The snow was worsening and it was colder. The boy cried, “My father has left me. My father has gone.” He looked at Connaughton and said again, in the saddest voice Connaughton had ever heard, “My father has left me.”

Connaughton did not know what to do. His job he could not leave, and there was no place to take the boy. Then he saw a street person he recognized, a good man by the name of Samuel Haggard. He called him over to the bakery. 

“Samuel,” he said, “this boy’s name is John and his father has left him. I’m afraid of what will happen to him in the night. Can you take care of him?”

Samuel looked at the boy John and saw the golden light that was like a faint glow around the boy’s head. When he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder he was warmed by the touch. “I know a place where he can sleep,” he said. It’s only a closet, but there’s lots of paper and cardboard and he will not freeze.”

Connaughton gave them more rolls and coffee and went back to work. Only when he was inside did he realize that he had not been cold at all when he had gone outside in the bitter night to talk to Samuel. He waved at the boy John and Samuel as they walked off into the darkness.

As they walked Samuel said he was sorry that the boy’s father was gone.

The boy John said, “Do not feel sorry for me, Samuel. My father loves me. Some time he will come back for me.” The golden glow was stronger around the boy’s head.

Other street people that knew Samuel came up to him as they walked. “Who is this boy, Samuel?” they said. They stared at the boy John. Many street people stared and asked the same question. Many of them had seen the glow around the boy’s head, though some had not seen it. They did not know what to make of their old friend Samuel and the strange new boy who looked so much like they did. His clothes were like their clothes. He looked as lonely as they looked. He had no real place of his own to go to on a cold December night, no real place to put down his head for the night; no fire, no blanket, no cradling arms.

Samuel said to the boy John, “Would you like to go to the cathedral to warm up before we go to a place to sleep?”

“The boy John said, “Don’t you go to the cathedral to pray, Samuel?” The glow was more golden and brighter and made Samuel uneasy, not sure of what it was. He just knew that here was something different around the boy and around his own person.

In the cathedral a crowd of street people had gathered. Word had spread quickly in the alleys and the lanes and the byways about the boy with a golden ring about his head. Most of the people agreed it was a ring. Not one of them had called it a halo.

In the subway stations, also, people spoke about him. Word spread up and down the Green Line and the Red Line and the Orange Line. On the back sides of chimneys, and tight against warm walls, and on warm exhaust grates, the street people talked about the boy. There was a buzz and a hum about him. The word carried far and wide. It rippled and ran with the wind.

The people who came to the cathedral at first were seedy looking. Their clothes were in tatters. Some of them wore rolls of cloth around their feet and about their waists. Some wore old sneakers or thin worn shoes. Few of them had good jackets or coats or scarves or warm gloves for their tortured hands. They came to look at the boy with a golden ring about his head and who had no place to go to call his own, the boy who was so much like them.

The next night Samuel took the boy John back to the cathedral. Now hundreds of people were there. Some of them laughed and scoffed and said they could not see any light at all, never mind a golden ring. Many new arrivals wore nice clothes and heavy coats and thickly padded jackets against the cold. High boots many of them wore and scarves and great warm gloves on their hands. Indeed, some of them did not laugh for they believed they saw the golden light.

Samuel brought the boy John back to the cathedral each night. It was getting close to Christmas and the crowds grew and the bishop called for police help with the crowds along the cluttered streets. All kinds of people from all over were coming to the cathedral to see the boy. You could tell by the clothes they wore, or what kind of vehicle brought them to the great church.

Samuel warmed up in the cathedral each time and the boy John prayed for his father to come back. He kept telling Samuel that his father loved him and would come back for him. Samuel did not know what to believe. He just knew he had to bring the boy back each night in spite of the crowd’s gawking at him. The snickers and the scoffing bothered Samuel. At times he grew impatient with people he had known for a long time.

“He’s just a boy whose father left him,” explained Samuel as often as he could. But he did not believe what he was saying. The light was getting too bright for him to handle. He asked a friend to bring the boy John to the cathedral the next night. It would be Christmas Eve.

All day the snow fell. The temperature also fell with the late hours. The darker it got, the colder it got.

But a greater crowd than ever before came on Christmas Eve. They packed the old cathedral. Every seat was taken. The aisles were full. People stood all around looking at the boy John down in the front row. Some saw the light. Some did not. But none of them left the cathedral then. Some were afraid to go. Some, indeed, were afraid to stay.

The bishop, at the back of the altar, tried desperately to see the golden glow. He was not sure what he was seeing. A young priest from a nearly forgotten order saw the golden ring around the boy’s head. Clearly he saw it. He spoke to the bishop for a few minutes and came to the front of the congregation.

“We know why some of us have come here tonight. Some have come for the right reason. Some have not. It may be that some will be rewarded and some will not. And that may be as it was meant to be. I will ask the boy John to come up here and talk to us if he feels like it.”

He extended his open hand to the boy John.

The boy John went to the front of the altar. “I am very nervous,” he said.

“Do not be nervous,” the young priest replied. “We are all sorry that your father has left you.”

“Do not be sorry for me. I love my father very much,” the boy John said, “and he loves me. Some time he will come back to get me.”

“Do you want to tell us anything?” the young priest said. He looked directly at the boy John and did not look at the bishop at the back of the altar.

“One night, at a campfire on a cold night, my father took off his coat and gave it to a man who did not have a coat. He said, ‘Now we will both be warm.’”

The young priest did not say anything. The bishop did not say anything. The boy John looked at the huge gathering. No one in the congregation said anything. No one did anything. The huge cathedral was silent, silent in the nave, silent in the apse, and silent in the transept. You could not hear people breathe or cough or blow their noses as you did at other times. Their feet also were still and silent on the floor.

The boy John with the golden glow around his head said, “That’s the beautiful picture I have. It’s the most beautiful picture of all. That each person who has a coat or a heavy jacket would give it to a person who does not have a warm coat or a heavy jacket. Or give a warm hat to someone who has no hat or a scarf to someone who has no scarf or a great pair of gloves to someone whose hands might freeze before this night is over. My father says you will be warmer, and my father loves me very much, and I love my father even though he has gone from me for this while.”

Again, for long minutes, there was silence in the great cathedral. Nothing moved. No one moved. Stillness was sharp as the cold. It was only the wind that was heard, from the belfry and at the windows as if it were trying to get inside.

The boy John looked at the congregation. Now, as if predicted, more people began to see the glow that they had not seen before. Inside them things were working they had no control over. Then, in the midst of the great silence, one man in the fifth row, in a fine and heavy coat, thick and furry, stood up and took the coat off his shoulders and handed it to a man sitting in front of him. That man had no coat but wore a thin and worn sweater atop another thin and worn sweater. No words were exchanged.

Then another man stood in the silence and gave his coat. And another. And another. And a pair of great fleece-lined gloves moved from one pair of hands to another, and a scarf, and more and more, until the sounds of giving swelled throughout the whole insides of the cathedral as if a soft wind was blowing.

And the boy John smiled at all the people and at the young priest and at the bishop. Then he said, loud enough for everybody in the cathedral to hear, “I do not want anyone who gave his coat or hat or gloves to another person to get cold tonight going home. If there is a taxicab driver who can help get those people home, everyone will be warmer.

In the back row a man stood up and said, “I have my cab and I’ll call my friends who have cabs.”

When the people left the cathedral a short time later there were many cabs in the street, their lights glowing golden through the edge of darkness. It looked like a parade of taxicabs.

Samuel Haggard, coming late to the cathedral, saw in the distance, in the swirling snow, in the region past the crowd, the boy John walking off into the endless night with his hand in his father’s hand.

And the glow over his head had faded away.

(previously published in Small Spiral Notebook)