Pastiche
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m honored to introduce you to: The World of Pastiche”!
The crowd applauded.
“Upon entry, you will notice impeccable graphics. Every molecule is detailed and everything is interactive. You worry it will get old? The best part is, everything is randomly generated! Fresh, new, exciting sights, exotic and distinct peoples and cultures, foods made from every resource and every style, we’ve got it all! You can climb mountains, press buttons, read detailed literature, and even wear hats! You can apply deodorant of varying scents to yourself, feel fabrics, floss your teeth, and anything else your heart desires! There is no shortage of things to do, and you are not compelled to do any particular thing either. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the afterlife. How does it work, you may ask? Well, our monitoring system will watch you on your deathbed and at the brink of death, we will extract a small part of your living essence, upload, and replicate it into Pastiche. I know it may be confusing but you pay us to worry about the schematics of it; we have a 100% success rate. Here on planet Aidacra, life has gotten old, and evidently, so have you. We are faced with constant responsibilities and what we thought to be luxury has showed to be another form of suffering. In Pastiche, however, you are lucid! No death, no need for sustenance, no need for anything! You do what you enjoy, when you want to enjoy it! You get to choose just how much random chance you want and the best part is, there is no risk! You have complete control. Now, for you newcomers that may be intimidated upon arrival, we do have parameters you can set in your personal control panel to make things more similar to life here on planet Aidacra, such as enabling mortality, sickness, hunger, and the like. After a cold or two, I’m sure you’ll join the party and never sneeze again. But for those ambitious among us, worry not, mortality features are never enabled by us! Now, I don’t mean to hurry any of you, though you don’t look like you’ve got enough time for deliberation *speaker chuckles*, but who can we sign up today for a one-way ticket to the afterlife?!”
The hospital audience looked of excitement and uncertainty, each patient turning to each other, whispering their hesitations, all with a foot in the grave.
“I’ll do it” said Johann.
The speaker grinned and gestured one of the company men to take Johann and sort out the legal work. As the company man hurried to Johann, and as other company men prepared other customers, the speaker cheerfully pointed at Johann, still grinning. She said, “I’ll see you soon, good sir!”
It was 18:19 (military time) on June 6th when Johann legally died. As promised, the monitoring systems didn’t fail.
There was darkness and approximately 5 minutes later, there was a bright white light. The light faded and Johann found himself standing. He looked down at his body, which was now young and eternally healthy, and yelled in joy. He ran in circles, did push-ups, and jumped up and down, and after about a minute of this, he noticed the speaker from before standing a few feet away, watching him with a smile. He was surprised that they had made such a perfect copy of her to put in Pastiche.
“I’m happy to see that you’re enjoying yourself! I promise I won’t bore you with some long introduction to this place. There are no rule-sets and there is nothing you need to do! I merely came to welcome you. If you ever want anything, just say-so to the sky. We have this place programmed in such a way that you’ll always be answered” she said. Before he could thank her, she vanished in a cloud of smoke. Johann started walking.
1-year passed of exploring randomly generated lands and cultures in complete luxury. Johann was ecstatic. He had sex with the plethora of women that were programmed in, he ate whatever he wanted, and he enjoyed all of the luxuries he could conceivably desire. After 50-years in Pastiche, Johann still felt physically phenomenal and, in that sense, was having the time of his life (or death, depending on how you look at it). There was one issue lingering in the back of his mind though. He noticed that the benefits of having whatever you wanted with no compulsion or attachment to anything was starting to get depressing. He was still jolly but much less than at the start. “Perhaps the remnants of my biology require some responsibility” he thought. “After all, we humans didn’t evolve to take on heaven! I can’t simply move without direction, not forever. It doesn’t need to have a meaning, I can give it a meaning, but I need something, at least for a while. If I will adopt some responsibility then it will be something glorious! How about a Kingdom? Yes, my very own Kingdom! I’ll reign over people and I will be the highest in the land!” Johann called out to the skies for his Kingdom and in a flash of light, he was transported. He found himself in robes and in a castle, and for the seconds it took for this transition to take place, he thought he could faintly see the smile of the speaker in the flash of light.
Johann enjoyed the status of being a King for quite a while. He had a sense of personal responsibility for his actions and he loved to see the visible repercussions of his work in this imperfect Kingdom. After many years, though, he found it all to be too much. He thought, “This is too much to handle at once! It is true, I must voluntarily adopt some duties, but how can I try to take on a Kingdom full of people? Plus, I know that this whole Kingdom was ultimately created by me and that if I really wanted to, I wouldn’t have to toil for anything in it. Nothing matters. It is false causality, only a manifestation of my whims. If I relinquish my power, I feel the responsibility may be too much, and if I hold onto it, then there is no valid cause and effect, not when it’s all up to me! All of these luxuries have been spoiled; I am sick of them. They are meaningless and I have come to the conclusion that my desires are insatiable. Deep within myself there is a force pushing for change, never staying fully satisfied. But, this is no bad thing, for how would I have had the fun of my Kingdom had I not been tired of my lack of responsibility? It is a part of my biology to change and move, but perhaps it can be positive and I can use it to my advantage. I must try something new.” Johann meditated on his thoughts for some virtual days. Finally, he thought “I know! I can give up the Kingdom, and just live, like a wealthy citizen, in the world. The only responsibility I will have will be my own and I will still not have to burden myself as I did in the previous life! But…how can that be the case? What am I responsible for? How about for food and drinks? Yes, I will enable hunger and thirst, and at least then I can enjoy my food and drinks as my own, brought to me with purpose!”
Years later, Johann began to feel that same rattling change, as if held over a small fire, reach its eventual boil. He began to dread each day and thought of the changes he could make. He decided to enable the possibility of death. It eased him to think that the system would probably give him a final choice to die, even if he crossed the line and accidentally killed himself, but the uncertainty of this kept him content. He, at least, could now feel physical pain, and he must bear that. This excited Johann.
Many years later, Johann had a great quasi-life happening for him, filled with adventures, and he had come to a base appreciation of what previously seemed to be insignificant. With everything available, it was all equally significant, and he found that everything had a potential depth for appreciation. The angles in which something could be viewed or meditated on, the complexity of the seemingly simple, and material existence in general fascinated him. He remembered the many art pieces that would focus on the simplest of things and he realized that profound art is in motion all around him. He reminded himself, “Let life read you its poetry.”
Time. A lot of time. Countless years passed and Johann felt he had nothing more to experience. He grew resentful of his surroundings and kept himself alive in rebellion to his meaninglessness, as if existence and nothingness had wronged him. Everything was of the same value and with no value-system, everything became nothing. He thought a long while and decided that he should set a death date for himself. On top of that, it must be a date he couldn’t know. He also must forget that he was ever in a system with such powers. Otherwise, his weak biology might persuade him to call out to the sky and continue his “life”, keeping everything just as meaningless as it already is. He wanted to let go of the reigns, to take a hold of himself and not his existence, and at the very least to end his mental suffering. He calls out to the sky and upon his request, just as quickly as he appeared in this world, he forgets he ever met the speaker or that he ever died in the first place. He does leave one message to be engrained in his mind to later remember: it will never be enough. And so, he is born again. He lives out a regular life. He has highs and lows, feels joy and suffers. He even has relationships and jobs, finds fulfillment in the goals he sets and has the occasional episode of existential angst. Without remembering his experiences in what was supposed to be paradise, he feels the full spectrum of human emotion. He lets his fears get the better of him and limits himself with doubt. Overall, he is discontented, if not with his situation, with himself.
Close to his new death he finds himself checked into a hospital. In that hospital, a speaker visits him. She pitches the opportunity to enter a world called Pastiche, which will allow him to live on in what seems to be a heavenly afterlife. Discontented with how he has lived, he jumps at this opportunity. Sure enough, at the moment of this new death, he finds himself transported into Pastiche with a healthy body. He is overjoyed and then notices the speaker from the hospital looking at him, smiling. It is the same speaker who was pitching the program. What a treat! “I’m happy to see that you’re enjoying yourself! I promise I won’t bore you with some long introduction to this place. There are no rule-sets and there is nothing you need to do! I merely came to welcome you. If you ever want anything, just say-so to the sky. We have this place programmed in such a way that you’ll always be answered” she said. Johann quickly extends his hand outward to be shaken, smiling widely. “Thank you!” he exclaims. “Thank you for everything, really. I love that your company gives old folks like me, well, newly physically young folks like me, an opportunity to live the life they’ve always wanted. Before you leave, I don’t think I ever got your name.”
The speaker’s grin lessens. She ignores Johann’s handshake and looks at him with wide eyes and dilated pupils. “Of course. My name is Lucy”. Her grin returns to full length. “Welcome to Hell”. She disappears in a cloud of smoke.
Johann laughs, nervously. He reminds himself that it is quite humorous to tell a man in Heaven that he has just entered Hell. He mustn’t overthink it. First order of business, to attain all the luxuries he’s ever desired. He calls out to the sky.
The End.
