The Unpierced Veil
© 2010 Tim Fort
ALTHOUGH memories of my youth are fading as fast as my tired old brain cells, I vaguely remember that I was just like them, perhaps even more so. Sure, I thought my own beliefs were the One True Way–like everybody else–but it was basically the same crap in a different wrapper. And, like everybody else, I thought that I alone would figure out a way to transcend my little world. I was too young at the time to remember my own birth.. If I had lived before, I have no memories of previous incarnations either. I just simply became aware, one forgotten day long ago, that I existed.
The old world wasn’t really that bad, either. It had it’s flaws of course–everyday tedium, the occasional tragedy, and the ever-present Wall–but it was actually pretty good if one set his or her mind to being happy. The place was quite sunny with lots of bright colors, and the basic necessities of life seemed almost to rain down from above. The real tragedy of the old world was that we all frittered away a large portion of our lifetimes worrying about what lay in the Great Beyond outside of the Wall when we should have concentrated on finding happiness in the world at hand.
While the Wall itself was invisible, we definitely felt its presence. No matter in which direction any of us headed, we would inevitably bump up against it. It was some sort of energy field that stopped us no matter how hard we beat ourselves against it and seemed almost as much a mental barrier as a physical one. It was if a veil of the filmiest but strongest gossamer, invisible to the naked eye, kept us trapped in our world. We could only get blurry, indistinct visions of the Great Beyond–wondrous and colorful things that seemed beyond our comprehension–and that seemed to spur us on in our never-ending task of trying to get there.
Just about all of us were obsessed with finding a way beyond the Wall; if not physically, then at least in spirit. We couldn’t even reach a consensus on what to call what lay beyond the Wall–the Void, the Great Beyond, the Shadowland, Paradise–and the many religious and philosophical schools we created to explain things never agreed on anything. There was considerable debate, too, as to whether or not the Unseen Hand that appeared in our world from time to time was associated with the visions of the Great Beyond; many of us even doubted there was an Unseen Hand to begin with. There seemed to be an absence of hard facts and an abundance of wild speculation; we had no clue as to how futile our pretentious carping was in the end.
The more conventionally-minded among us flocked to orthodox schools of thought that claimed mystical knowledge of what was beyond the Wall. There was the Ichthyan Church which claimed that Wall was mental in nature, caused by living a sinful life, and tried to transcend it by being scrupulously moral. Then there was the Piscine School which taught that the Wall was merely an illusion, and that by meditating on the Void, they could transport themselves in spirit to the other side. Or, the Benthic Abnegationists who literally slammed their heads against the Barrier until they hallucinated that they were in the Great Beyond. These were merely the most popular schools, but there were a few others, equally vain.
I always thought there was something fishy about all those belief systems. The simple fact was that nobody had ever penetrated the Barrier in any real, no-nonsensical way–at least not alive. The only way anybody left this world was when they gave up their ghost and went belly up. Then they would be taken by the Unseen Hand during the night and delivered to the world beyond. Some mystics even claimed that when a person departed from this world, they could hear a celestial whooshing sound as if there were a divine whirlpool which conveyed them into the Afterlife. But nobody ever returned from beyond the Wall and lived to tell about it.
I was going to be different–or so I thought. I would have none of the blind faith in the various other dogmas, but would figure things out scientifically. Stubborn iconoclast that I was, I beat my head long and hard against the Wall mentally and physically, convinced that I was making some sort of progress. However, the longer I beat my head against the Barrier, the more frustrated and trapped I felt, but that seemed to spur me on even further. I was being self-fish, locked in my own little world, and seemed doomed to continue my Sisyphean quest until the day I croaked.
Then, one day, I had a mystical experience that I never really did understand. I was bobbing about, brooding over some obscure metaphysical question, when a face appeared to me out of the Void. It was an unfamiliar face that came up close to the Wall, a blurry image of a human with a goofy grin and a pipe clenched in his teeth. It was the visage of a creature too simple-minded to concern itself with unanswered questions. Then the phantasm swiftly disappeared, and I went slack with shock and awe.
Suddenly it came to me that the Meaning of Life was not to waste my time pondering the Meaning of Life, but to enjoy life itself with a vengeance. During that epiphany–or should I say ‘anti-epiphany’?–it became screamingly obvious that the problem wasn’t supernatural, but simply figuring out how to spend the time between one’s birth and one’s death. So I became an agnostic, gave up my pointless quest, and drifted away from the others. I vowed to live a shallow, carefree existence; to occupy my life with the simple joys of this world, and ignore the deep unanswerable questions.
It soon dawned on me that I possessed much of the treasure of the world to myself since the others were too preoccupied to care. Sure, it was all dross in the end, just gold-colored plastic with a crudely painted skull-and-crossbones on the fake wooden chest, but at least it was pretty to look at. I also became close friends with the scuba diver. He was a shallow character who just sat there blowing bubbles from his regulator, but at least he wasn’t a religious zealot like the others, and he was a good listener. I also spent many pleasurable afternoons playing with the electric-blue gravel, the pink staghorn coral, and the ceramic pirates’ ship. When the Unseen Hand appeared every day and rained down manna from above, I got to eat my fill because the others were too distracted. Life really was a banquet for me.
Ironically, even though I didn’t even bother with any sort of Afterlife Insurance, I outlived them all. Most likely because most of them butted their heads against the Wall so hard and so long that they simply died of exhaustion. It was sad to see them go belly up one by one and get swept up by the Unseen Hand. Finally, they were all gone, and I had my little world all to myself. I was still happy with my food and my toys, but I started to feel a little lonely. The plastic scuba diver was OK as a companion, but I missed being with my kind, even if they were wrong-headed religious zealots.
Then one day, without any warning, the Unseen Hand reached down and plucked me from my world. Suddenly, I found myself in a much smaller world, a cramped one whose barrier was more pliable and rubbery than the old one. The indistinct blur that lay beyond this new barrier had somehow changed. It then occurred to me that I was beyond the Wall! What lay beyond was still indistinct, but it was very psychedelic, with strange new colors that appeared and faded with astonishing rapidity. I stared in wide-eyed awe, bubbles trickling out of my mouth, stunned by the bizarre visions before me.
Then, after a journey of indeterminable duration, the strange plastic world in which I was in suddenly opened up and I found myself in a much larger world. This new universe was far beyond anything I or the gang back at the old world could have ever comprehended. For starters, there’s lots of strange, exotic creatures here that I could have never imagined in the old world, and I seem to meet a couple of new species every day. Sure, some of them are real crabby and a few clam up when I try to initiate conversation, but I’ve also met a lot of friendly, interesting beings who have fascinating stories to tell, even if some of them were pure abalone. Even the coral here comes in many different colors and shapes and is much bigger than that bit of staghorn back in the old world. But, most of all, I can swim freely as far as I want in any direction without bumping up against any sort of invisible Wall.
It is a bit more dangerous here in the new world, but it’s had its compensations. I’ve encountered many more of my own type than I knew back at the old place. I’ve had the good fortune to date a lot of nice babes, too–and I reckon by now that I’ve got to spawn with at least seven of them. If my hatchlings have the piss and vinegar of their Old Man, I’ll bet that hundreds of them will make it to adulthood. I still have no idea as to what Ultimate Reality is, but, all in all, it’s been a fun life and I can’t complain.
The End