by Daniel Quinn
• The Society of Fools, which describes itself as “The Biggest Traveling Show in the Universe.” Its members are not only entertainers of every type (clowns, comics, jugglers, magicians, dancers, acrobats, singers, and so on) but musicians, librettists, dramatists, acting troupes, poets, painters, storytellers, novelists—indeed practitioners of every art known. It is a heartfelt byword of the Afterlife: “Where would we be without the Fools?”
“The Acropolis” becomes a staging area for players of the Society of Fools as they ready themselves for a traditional January performance of Aristophanes’ The Frogs, this time in modern dress. The Parthenon seen in the background was reconstructed (as a ruin—rather absurdly, in the view of many), at the instigation and under the supervision of Thomas Bruce, 7th earl of Elgin (1766–1841), the very man who in life despoiled the original of its most magnificent sculptural decorations (the so-called Elgin Marbles). (illustration credits 3.1)
1 The contradiction between this observation and the warning in the preceding chapter is more apparent than real. You will find your neighbors to be both intrusive and oblivious—even, sometimes, simultaneously.
2 For example, by A. H. Delver in Demythologies (1957).
3 In Forest of a Thousand Ghosts.
4 Quoted in S. B. Beckett’s The Life of Afterlife.
5 Naturally, the philosopher had to wait until his daughter arrived in the Afterlife to learn what message she had actually received.
CHAPTER 4
THE AFTERLIFE
AS A HABITAT
THE ROAD
The Road, with its various branchings, dominates the geography of the Afterlife, if only because it seems central to all our goings-on. How do I find the Central Registry? you might ask a passerby, and she will inevitably respond, Follow the road and take the third (or fourth or fifth) branching.
When you awake (assuming you are one of those who sometimes sleep, as opposed to the sleepers who sometimes, though not always, wake), you will step out of the alley, bedroom, lean-to, wherever you were reposing, and find yourself, no matter how evocative your dreams were, back on the road.
Think of it how you will—as the route that will take you from place to place in the Afterlife, as the way (i.e., The Way into the next realm, if you believe in such), or as a path through infinity or the road to nowhere—regardless, it is there, this ash-colored line that divides the hamlets, the towns, the cities, the vacant fields where it is edged with shallow ditches. It’s there, so why not use it? You’ll find you have, after all, little choice in the matter.
It is possible to become obsessed with the road. Shades are often seen staring at it from a distance or cursing it or even on their knees praying that it lead them where they wish to go, most often to the end.1 But the road is not a conscious entity, it is a road, nothing more, and will not answer prayers.
In the galleries you may be surprised by the number of paintings that depict the road; it’s not (I think) a disproportionate number when you consider that we see it almost everywhere we turn our eyes. None of our artists, by the way, paint portraits. Abstract paintings, yes, landscapes and abstract landscapes, but no portraits; I’m told a relative newcomer by the name of Barthes has produced a brilliant (though largely unintelligible) study of this curious phenomenon.
Although perhaps not a very graceful metaphor, it can truly be said that the road serves as an anchor in the Afterlife. There are times when our (presumably psycho-reactive) environment flutters and breaks down, our perceptual reality evaporates, as if, to quote Dr. Fat in his Cantata 140, “the mechanism by which the habitat is maintained has clicked to the off position.” The buildings tremble, the “air” shimmers, and everything dissolves to an unfocused pall, leaving nothing of the habitat as we know it except the color of the air and, yes, the road.
The ancients are fond of telling the tale of the road’s origins—how once Nirmanakaya espied a snake and chased it down a road but when he caught up with it, it wasn’t a snake but his mother’s hair, so he bent down to pick up his mother’s beautiful black hair and return it to her, but when he picked it up, it was a crack running across the earth and this crack was the road he was standing on, and before it could swallow him up he tossed it high into the air, so high it went past the moon, so high it went past the stars, so high it left the universe altogether and landed in the Afterlife where ever since it has led pilgrims to its end.
Of course there is no end to the road, or at least no one has given a believable account of it (see footnote I in this chapter). Still, many like to believe in an end, and you will see them walking down it in droves. Juanita Zend2 in her only postmortem work to date posits a circular road so vast in length that to the eye it appears to be straight. In her study she cites the testimony of one hundred road watchers who claim to have seen travelers set off in one direction in search of the road’s end and then reappear centuries later, coming from the opposite direction. As is to be expected, when informed that they were passing the precise spot where their journey had begun so long ago, these travelers universally denied it and continued on their way.
What else can we tell you about the road? Let us simply reiterate that it is there, is hard on the feet and ankles as one walks down it, seems to fade away well before the horizon, and leaves layers of fluffy gray dust on our hands and clothes.
WHERE DOES ALL THIS STUFF COME FROM?
To ask where all this “stuff” comes from—clothing, buildings, streets, indeed even this book—is just like asking, “Where does the Afterlife come from?”
This stuff is the Afterlife.
HOW DOES IT GET PRODUCED?
Again, this is just like asking, “How does the Afterlife get produced?” This is not to imply that the question is a foolish one. Far from it. Thinkers of every kind have struggled for countless generations to account for what we all know occurs here: Things get produced and they get produced in a way that to a greater or lesser degree suits the needs and desires of the deceased.
The “ground” is firm under our feet. How? Why? In ages past, people liked to answer this question by saying that God makes it so. Nowadays the prevailing answer is that we inhabit a sort of shared hallucination; in this hallucination, we “agree” that having firm ground under our feet is desirable. Traveling elsewhere, we may encounter another sort of people who collectively prefer another sort of footing, and if so we shall have to accommodate ourselves to a spongy or marshy or perhaps even liquid surface.
Desert dwellers produce a desert habitat for themselves in the Afterlife—a sort of generalized desert habitat. The same can be said of every sort of distinct people. Country folk produce a country habitat. Urbanites produce an urban habitat.
Whatever the habitat, its most important feature (for us as individuals) is that it accommodates itself to individual needs locally. For example, think back to the way in which The Little Book came into your hands soon after your appearance in the Afterlife. It wasn’t handed to you as you passed through some “pearly gate” of legend. You arrived; you looked around, puzzled, seeking guidance. Perhaps you soon found yourself passing a news kiosk or a bookstore, and there it was. Perhaps you sat down on a park bench, and there it was sitting on the bench beside you. Perhaps it fell out of the pocket of someone passing by. Or perhaps someone handed it to you and said, “Here, you dropped this.” Whatever the case, there was a need in your locale, and this need was filled by the apparently “natural” appearance of a copy of The Little Book. (You probably thought it was a lucky event, but in fact this “luck” didn’t happen just in your case; it happens in everyone’s case.)
But, you may ask, how was this need met before. The Little Book came into existence? The answer is simple: It was met in other ways, most often simply by the appearance of a helpful stranger. Once The Little Book became available, the “helpful stranger” was less often needed.
PRACTICALLY SPEAKING, HOW DO I GET THINGS I NEED OR WANT?
Let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that
you were a fine artist in life. If you decide to pursue this occupation in the Afterlife, you will naturally need certain supplies. There are no directories like the Yellow Pages that you can consult; where then are you to get the things you need? The problem is easily solved: Start looking for an art supply store, and one will be found somewhere nearby; this is an example of the habitat accommodating itself to a localized need.
Do I mean that the store appears in a place where there was no store before? Yes … possibly. Or possibly not. After all, there are many artists in the Afterlife, and it’s not unthinkable that you have simply stumbled upon a store that has been there for decades or centuries. Practically speaking, of course, the question is moot.
The store will probably be unattended; most stores are. Simply go in and take what you want. How does it happen that the store is stocked with the things you need? Again, you may as well ask, “How does it happen that the Afterlife itself is stocked with the things we need?” The modern presumption is, as I say, that the habitat is responding locally to your needs. When you later return for more supplies, more will be there for the taking. Perhaps by that time someone will be “manning” the store, simply as a pastime. Perhaps by that time other artists will be patronizing the store. Perhaps you and your newfound friends will want to open a cooperative gallery. If so, you will doubtless require special lighting fixtures; if you look around, you will soon find a store in the neighborhood that handles the sort you need.
DOES THIS MEAN I CAN HAVE ANYTHING I WANT?
Unfortunately, no. There are principles involved that are only partly understood but that can be applied with fair reliability. For example (to continue our fine-art theme), let’s say that you wanted a painting by Rembrandt to hang in your living room. You might well find an art gallery in your neighborhood, but it’s very, very unlikely that you’ll find a painting by Rembrandt in its stock; it’s impossible to say with certainty why this is so. Is it because no one actually needs a Rembrandt to hang in the living room? Is it because a Rembrandt painting is too specific an object? Is it because such a work would be “beyond the powers” of the habitat to produce?
Note that I call finding a Rembrandt in your local gallery “very, very unlikely”—not “impossible.” In death, as in life, anything can happen.
Some people believe the habitat acts in accordance with rules of its own. They would say, for example, that we are “not allowed” to have automobiles or guns. The more common (and perhaps more enlightened view) is that the habitat responds to the ambient needs of the community as well as to individual needs. People on the whole would react negatively to the appearance of cars or guns in their midst, and this theoretically “overrules” any individual’s desire for these things.
It is the general experience that trivial, absurd, or fleeting whims are rarely fulfilled in the Afterlife. For example, to refer to a question in an earlier section, someone with a yen to produce a new version of Ben-Hur would probably not come across an entire film studio equipped to realize this extravagant goal. The habitat seems to be governed by a sense of proportion that probably corresponds to the sense of proportion of the general populace. If people had long yearned to see a new version of Ben-Hur, and a film director appeared in their midst with just such a project in mind, who knows?
On the other hand, if one were seized by a desire to take up filmmaking as a hobby in the Afterlife, this person’s habitat would undoubtedly soon provide the means to do so.
With experience, people soon develop a sense of what they can and can’t expect in the Afterlife. For example, anyone who knows the ropes will tell you that, if it is your consuming passion to while away eternity in an edifice like the Taj Mahal, don’t expect the Afterlife to provide it ready-made. If you’d like to build such an edifice for yourself, however, the materials will certainly be provided.
YOU SAID NO ONE “OWNS” ANYTHING IN THE AFTERLIFE. IF I BUILD SOMETHING, DOESN’T IT BELONG TO ME?
In life (at least in modern times) you owned what you could defend, either with your own strength or with the force of law; if someone broke into a house that you “owned,” you could point a gun at him, throw him out, or call the police. None of these options are available to you in the Afterlife, so the question of ownership is ultimately moot.
If you build a house for yourself and a passerby decides he wants to share it with you, there’s not much you can do about this. No one will come and remove him at your command (but see the section “All the Same, There Are Nuisances” in the preceding chapter).
ARTS IN THE AFTERLIFE
Are there concert halls and theaters? Is Mozart still composing? Is Shakespeare still writing plays? Where can I find copies of my favorite books? These are a few of the many questions newcomers ask about the arts.
One of the universal oddities of the Afterlife is that those who were famous in the arts in life seldom pursue them here. Shakespeare has written no new plays (to the gratification of those who still charge that he never wrote any in the first place3). Mozart does not compose (though rumor has it that Salieri still does). Among fine artists, few have ever picked up a brush or chisel in the Afterlife.4
Unlike the majority of artists, who abandon their career in the Afterlife, René Magritte (1898–1967) has continued to paint. Instead of searching for new subjects, however, he executes the same one in each successive work. Without significant variation, Magritte again and again paints a portrait of himself at work, painting—while glancing over his left shoulder, as if to catch himself at work. Asked to explain, the surrealist master replies simply: “I’m smoking.” (illustration credits 4.1)
It appears that those who are most keen for the arts in the Afterlife are those whose artistic ambitions went unfulfilled in life. Since no one needs to “make a living,” there is little sense of “professionalism” in the arts here. Art shows, musical shows, and dramatic shows are put together on an impromptu basis; many are not “put together” in any sense but simply occur spontaneously.
Musical instruments are made by individuals to meet their own needs and are also available in stores, in the ordinary way. Instruments found in stores are invariably “new” and are often of no more than mediocre quality. Naturally, instruments of earlier times were available in the stores, and some of these evidenced a higher degree of quality than corresponding examples of today. For example, stringed instruments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are sought as treasures, though none have ever been found to bear the name of Amati or Stradivari (or indeed any signature at all).
You will never (for some unguessable reason) find the texts of musical or literary works of the past “ready-made” in the stores. Instead, you must look for them in a library.5 The texts found in libraries are reconstructions, assembled by individual readers or committees of readers, from memory. All the sacred texts (the Bible, the Koran, and so on) exist in assuredly complete and accurate editions, and the same can be said of all the major world classics. Lesser works are usually found in fragmentary or conjectural forms, but it is estimated that fewer than one percent of all books published since the advent of movable type have ever been reconstructed in the Afterlife. (I have held in my hands a copy of Thomas Morley’s Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke, set downe in forme of a Dialogue (1597) but have never been able to track down John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (1848) in order to discover why it was thought sufficiently dangerous by the Roman Catholic Church to warrant inclusion in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.)
Specialized libraries, dedicated either to works of a single type or to works by a single artist, can be found in clubs devoted to the reconstruction of such works. These clubs are avid for new members, with fresh memories. Ask around.
This brings us to what has become the Afterlife’s most popular artistic pastime, candid photography. Other arts—painting, sculpting, musical performance, and so on—change little between terrestrial life and the Afterlife, but this is not the case with photogr
aphy. The means of Afterlife photography are distinctly “otherworldly,” which is why it’s considered a separate art form from sublunary photography—and the only art form truly native to the Afterlife. (Some have even gone so far as to give it a name of its own—thoughtography—but this graceless neologism has never caught on.)
Photography in the Afterlife doesn’t require anything like “real” cameras or “real” film. Anything will do that is fundamentally articulated to simulate the camera/film relationship. An ordinary breakfast roll will serve as a camera if you use it as a camera. Shove in a stone (the “roll of film”), point it at your subject, go “click,” and the work is done. Remove the stone, leave it somewhere to be “developed” (almost anywhere will do), then return in a day or two to pick up your “finished prints.”
It works, but how well it works depends on the photographer. Two cameramen standing side by side and clicking at the same subject at the same moment will obtain widely different results. “Good” photographers are essentially “lucky” photographers; they are consistently so, and are lionized for their success (more so, indeed, than artists in any other field). The examples in this edition of The Little Book are drawn from the work of Robert (“Paco”) Culhane.
Afterlife shutterbugs are a breed apart, and it is a byword that, when the excitement of the Afterlife becomes too overwhelming for you, an hour spent in their midst will return you to a state of utterly stultified boredom.
PHANTASMS
Phantasms come into this chapter in much the same way they come into the ontology of the Afterlife: awkwardly. I’ve been told that a book in recent circulation among the living contains these weighty words: “Nothing unreal exists.” Phantasms would seem to contradict this eminently reasonable doctrine.