When we die, what happens?
The ending conversation of 2021 Netflix season “Midnight Mass”, created by Mike Flanagan.
[Riley, played by Zach Gilford] What happens?
[Erin, played by Kate Siegel] What …?
[Riley] When we die, what happens?
[Erin] Yeah, What the f**k happens!?!
[Riley] So what do think happens when we die, Erin?
[Erin] Speaking for my ‘self’!?
[Riley] Speaking for your self
[Erin] Myself, My self …
That’s the problem. That’s the whole problem with the whole thing. That word, “self”. That’s not the word. That’s not right, that isn’t. That isn’t. How did I forget that? When did I forget that?
The body stops a cell at a time, but the brain keeps firing those neurons. Little lightning bolts, like fireworks inside, and I thought I’d despair or feel afraid, but I don’t feel any of that. None of it. Because I’m too busy, I’m too busy in this moment. Remembering. Of course. I remember that every atom in my body was forged in a star. This matter, this body is mostly just empty space after all, and solid matter? It’s just energy vibrating very slowly and there is no me. There never was. The electrons of my body mingle and dance with the electrons of the ground below me and the air I’m no longer breathing. And I remember there is no point where any of that ends and I begin. I remember I am energy. Not memory. Not self. My name, my personality my choices, all came after me. I was before them, and I’ll be after, and everything else is pictures, picked up along the way. Fleeting little dreamlets printed on the tissue of my dying brain. And I am the lightning that jumps between. I am the energy firing the neurons and I’m returning. Just by remembering, I’m returning home. And it’s like a drop of water falling back into the Ocean of which it’s always been a part. All things… a part. All of us… a part. You, me and my little girl, and my mother and my father, everyone who’s ever been, every plant, every animal, every atom, every star, very galaxy, all of it. More galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on the beach. And that’s what we’re talking about when we say “God”. The one. The cosmos and it’s infinite dreams. We are the cosmos dreaming of itself. It’s simply a dream that I think is my life, every time. But I’ll forget this. I always do. I always forget my dreams.
But now, in this split second, in the moment I remember, the instant I remember, I comprehend everything at once. There is no time. There is no death. Life is a dream. It’s a wish. Made again and again and again and again and again and again and on into eternity. And I am all of it. I am everything. I am all. I am that I am.
[inhales]
What does happen when we die? Isn’t that a question everyone has been trying to answer to the best of their knowledge? This article is not a review of the Netflix season, but just to share the ingenuity of the story from my outlook. I would not be covering the part where this account has been “borrowed” from Stephen’s King stories or not. We shall return to that, perhaps at the end of this article.
The arrival of a charismatic young priest brings glorious miracles, ominous mysteries, and renewed religious fervor to a dying town desperate to believe. This is the narrative you have in mind when you start watching this series. The descriptions, trailers, or other gists portrait it as a feel-good story or a story that is full of faith, miracles, or glory. The author has depicted a small remote island with dying beliefs and broken dreams. Every character has a back story of their own but is beautifully interconnected to the others. The story makes several attempts to critique organized religion, yet the impression it leaves is that faith in God, and explicitly Christian faith, in particular, is the ultimate pandemic comfort. Isn’t that what all the religions are doing around us? Whether it is Christianity in America, Hinduism in India or Islam in Afghanistan, and more. I am not here to criticize any religion but to question the very essence of their existence. As a result, one of the main themes of the series is religion — specifically the tenets of the Roman Catholic faith — with episodes full of references to passages and verses in the Bible; some more well-known than others.
The story talks about a character who has a dark past but it turns out that he refuses evil when given a choice. It depicts a saint who thinks he is spreading the gospel, the light of God when in turn he was helping the devil spread darkness. Then there was a narcissistic person who thinks she is above all and God loves her the most. Manipulating other souls for the benefit of one. Finally, there was an evil that was mistaken as the light. This is what we see in the real life. Even in modern society, we find ourselves surrounded by these beings.
- A real evil, which is always mistaken as the messenger/angel of the Gods
- A self-observed person who manipulates everyone for their benefit and making their way to the top
- A holy person, who might be doing things for the welfare of everyone, but in actuality that might be harming others more than saving them
- A common person, who might have the darkest past but like everyone else should always be presented with a second chance; and the choice they make then defines who they are
Does it matter what kind of a person you were in your life? What good or bad did you do? What you achieved or what you failed doing? Shouldn’t it be all the same, when you die, for everyone? Fancy questions, aren’t they!! A lot of philosophy but no clear answers. I guess that is the elucidation of the above conversation. It doesn’t matter where did we belong, everyone has their own beliefs, own faith, own “God”. In reality, we all are the same, we had the same beginning, and the end is going to be the same. It’s the dream which we all live differently, see differently, or appreciate differently. All combined, we make the Cosmos what it is and We are that we are. Flanagan might have tried to portrait a horror story but it certainly had a deeper meaning for everyone to connect with.
As promised — Yet despite their aesthetic loveliness, tonal tenderness, and popularity, Flanagan’s stories often seem to trade narrative precision and craft for emotionality. His gothic-Catholic creation is awash equally in the blood of Christ and the blood of the vampire. An ambitious meditation on grief and faith that is as gorgeous as it is unsettling, Midnight Mass’s slow boil is a triumph of terror that will leave viewers shaking — and thinking — long after the credits roll …
