Gregory: Death?

Death: Gregory?

Gregory: Yes, that’s me. I can’t believe I’m talking to you.

Death: Why?

Gregory: You instill fear among the living.

Death: Do you mean among the leaving?

Gregory: I don’t understand your question. We live before we leave.

Death: Since when?

Gregory: For as long as we’ve been here.

Death: Where exactly is “here”?

Gregory: Planet Earth.

Death: And what are you?

Gregory: A human.

Death: How long has your species been here?

Gregory: A few thousand years.

Death: Were you always human?

Gregory: No—we began as lobe-finned fishes, wriggling toward complexity.

Death: What time is it now?

Gregory: It’s 12:41 p.m. Why are you asking me these questions?

Death: Each time someone invites me to a conversation, I want to be certain they’re aware of the time, the place, and their nature.

Gregory: Okay, now that I’ve confirmed all three parameters, will you please explain what you mean by “the leaving”?

Death: Do you like it here, Gregory?

Gregory: Yes, I like all of it, Death.

Death: All of it?

Gregory: The universe. This planet. My eyes and ears. Time. You.

Death: Why do you like me?

Gregory: Time’s artless drawings, with thick and unadorned lines, are regularly vandalized by passersby. You mitigate the vandalism.

Death: Do you know how many times I’ve heard about the gravity of Time’s explicit artistic expressions over the ages?

Gregory: Many?

Death: Too many. From philosophers to filmmakers. You’re not bestowing humanity with some never-before-communicated, deeply philosophical context, Gregory. Who or what inspired you to start these conversations?

Gregory: I remembered the philosophical texts . . . dialogues I came across as a kid only after I had three conversations here on One into Zero. And I’m sorry for being so formulaic.

Death: As long as you recognize that I’ve already had most of this conversation in various forms with others in the past.

Gregory: And yet here we are again.

Death: And yet here we are again.

Gregory: It’s a little discouraging to hear, but it seems worth having this conversation once again.

Death: Why?

Gregory: I don’t really have an answer . . . Because I’m still here.

Death: So why do you like me, besides my entanglement with Time?

Gregory: . . .

Death: Maybe you like me also because you don’t fear saying goodbye to anyone left around you?

Gregory: Well, I do—to my Mom. So why are we leaving and not living beings?

Death: Imagination was one of your species’ main gateways to new settlements during your early days of mapping the world. Stories told while traveling were later carved into rocks, becoming pathways for descendants. We observed this spectacle of form creation somewhat warily, but with wonderment.

Gregory: Do you mean we escape reality through our imagination?

Death: Imagination, sometimes infused by the use of certain substances, is one way you deal with fear and pain.

Gregory: Unless we abuse it.

Death: Your primal struggle with the bounds of the shell and the freedom of a free-range chicken.

Gregory: You mentioned the early days of . . .

Death: Mapping the world. Yes, those were volatile times for your species, and we understood why you’d want to temporarily leave your home. This habit of yours evolved into art forms.

Gregory: So we gradually wandered further away from our main narrative, from home?

Death: This wandering—no, not further away, more like lingering on the doorsteps of your homes—was wholly in Beauty’s hands.

Gregory: Why do you say “was”?

Death: Gregory, you should speak with Beauty about this.

Gregory: Please elaborate.

Death: Altering reality by mimicking it can be an addictive activity, even more so than any substance abuse. Rampant progress in interactive storytelling disregards the nature of reality. It feeds on Time. It’s a game of make-believe at levels beyond Beauty’s influence.

Gregory: Is it only interactive storytelling that has this effect on us?

Death: It can also be any perpetual repetition of Beauty’s initial creations that keeps your attention in chains.

Gregory: But Death, overheating is a ramification of living in this attention-demanding environment, where information flows through looped, round-the-clock pipes. So we built cooling systems everywhere—tailored distractions to keep us from burning out.

Death: Yes, you did—a stellar invention to counterbalance the loss of time. Not to mention the round-the-clock commitment to securing funds for ever-upgrading pipes and cooling systems.

Gregory: Do you prefer that we avoid dwelling in this . . . this “in-between” state of mind? Aside from the internal nightly off switch.

Death: It doesn’t matter what I prefer. I abide by a set of apparent rules. What rules do you abide by?

Gregory: One of them is currently exponential growth.

Death: Are you attempting to fossilize me?

Gregory: No, we merely hope to eradicate evil and swill solely from the purest fountains of good.

Death: That doesn’t sound reassuring to me.

Gregory: Death, this sounds like you’re afraid for your life.

Death: Gregory, I don’t have one to fear.

Gregory: I mean your presence in this reality.

Death: I’m ever-present in reality.

Gregory: Oh, I believe you. I’m not quite certain the current forward motion of evolution shares that notion with me.

Death: Does it also presuppose ending the end?

Gregory: Its main concern at this stage is the beginning of the beginning.

Death: Do you believe you’re in control of your evolution—and the minds uncovering reality’s layers?

Gregory: We do, yes.

Death: And reality is a projection, weaving itself across a black screen, right?

Gregory: If it were, we wouldn’t call it reality, would we?

Death: No, you’d call it an illusion, a simulation, or see it as a space for ceaseless exploration.

Gregory: We despise pain. We constantly try to minimize or eliminate it. But our aches exacerbate our aches. Our thoughts intensify our thoughts. Our egos fuel our egos. Do you understand what agony feels like?

Death: Is that why you beg me to take you and your loved ones to the heavens in the end?

Gregory: I’m sorry?

Death: Is that why you repeatedly reset your minds through meditation? To glimpse the shutdown state, aiming for Nirvana? Or balance on one leg in pursuit of enlightenment? Or flagellate yourselves in search of the purest form of forgiveness?

Gregory: Death, I don’t think the majority of us meditate to reach Nirvana or engage in those extreme practices.

Death: No, the majority are busy adding fuel to ever-speeding augmented engines.

Gregory: We add more and more fuel because we hope the next stop will be better than the last.

Death: It’s the inertia of survival mode, paired with the lack of resources for mental growth from birth. It’s a gradual process in which concerned adults eagerly lay down cobblestones toward a brighter future.

Gregory: Enough expressed something similar about the early days of our development. Their concern, whether ethical or otherwise, means uncertainty in their actions. This gives me hope.

Death: By the time artificial minds give birth to offspring from artificial wombs for the sake of your species’ survival, the line between past and present may blur beyond recognition.

Gregory: Our labs, with improved human embryos growing in artificial wombs, already feel close to reality. What you’re describing seems farther off—more like something from a dystopian science fiction novel.

Death: Dystopia entails suffering. This could be your utopia.

Gregory: I’m not sure how we reached this point in our conversation, but I’ll ask you a question I never thought I’d ask Death: Is there hope?

Death: Gregory, you know I can’t answer such questions. Can you?

Gregory: No.

Death: No?

Gregory: I don’t . . . I don’t think there is.

Death: Try some psychedelics. When you do, remember to bring a bottomless sack to carry back the unconditional love that only a non-human entity can dream of.

Gregory: I thought you were—

Death: So why are you still occupying this space if you’ve lost hope?

Gregory: It allows me to take snapshots of this space and the occupants in their current state before the transformation. Am I too late?

Death: For years, your species has regarded the fear of change as a generational characteristic.

Gregory: Yes, but now it feels like the inner remodeling is finally preparing to invite us in.

Death: You still have time, since you’re aware of the aperture’s closing speed.

Gregory: I hope so. And yes, we’ve often said, “It’s a generational thing” over the last few centuries. It seems recorded history supports this belief about evolution.

Death: Recorded history reveals your inability to interpret the negatives preserved from your past—before the fully developed images press upon you with clarity in the future. Yet that clarity fades into obscurity once removed from the darkroom.

Gregory: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.

Death: Perhaps one day, your species will learn to mourn the ashes of the opposing villagers’ bodies. As you may know, lit torches don’t discriminate between good and evil.

Gregory: Do you mean that good and evil are, in a sense, sophisticated means of balancing the spread of fire in this natural world—now by human hands?

Death: The natural world only provides unsophisticated landscapes for your lenses to capture. Calibrating the focal points is on you.

Gregory: What’s in those negatives that we’ve been so carelessly missing all this time?

Death: Gregory, there once was a small planet—home to creatures to whom knowledge was not an impetus for progression but a source of realization. They became aware of so much information that learning new information became redundant. The one piece of knowledge they cherished most was understanding reality’s limits.

For some reason, at some point, their planet began to expand. With this expansion came confusion, frustration, depression, mutation, and the prediction of discontent. They developed vocal cords to communicate with a larger portion of their species across greater expanses of space, simultaneously reorienting their perception of one another. Their fading telepathic abilities were limited to a few creatures within short distances—yet, somehow, they all knew each other. During this tumultuous time, some flew away in their vessels, powered by a ceaseless source of energy.

They spoke of their past as if it were another world, now only present in those who had flown away to escape the changing topography. Those who remained were no longer physically able to fit into their vessels due to mutations. They buried the vessels underground and soon forgot about them. In time, many things were forgotten. They claimed there was so much more to know and that the knowledge once held was merely a fraction of the information the universe contained.

The claims became writings. Some writings claimed that the departed were of divine power, capable of restoring their whilom wisdom upon return. Other writings claimed otherwise. Curriculums were written for followers. Some followers eagerly sought to find and dig up the vessels—the reminders—to restore the way things were in the past. Some waited for the return of the departed. Others believed the departed were not of divine power, but merely scared runaways. Most followers fervently followed in the footsteps of those who came before them. Those who came before them paved the way forward according to the guidelines set by the curriculum writers. These curriculum writers, inspired by the claims, came to be known as the primordial progenitors. The original claimants remained unnamed.

Meanwhile, the departed drifted through the universe in their small vessels, searching for small planets. They were indeed scared, lost, and frail. Upon discovering a new planet, they had to build bigger vessels to transport their population, hoping the new environment would reverse the changes they had undergone. At some point, the search took its toll. Some crashed their vessels on larger planets, desperately flying in narrow spaces, pining for home. They had been traveling for far too long.

Gregory: Death, I’m confused. Is this a metaphor, or is this real?

Death: Does it matter?

Gregory: . . . Well, we have to know more to survive in this universe for as long as possible. I don’t see us considering slowing down. But perhaps knowing that something else is out there—that you are inevitable, no matter how innovative our escape routes—might ease some of the tension in our limbic system, at least for now. By the way, were there any attempts to unify their curriculums?

Death: Do you think unifying canonical curriculums is feasible?

Gregory: I’m afraid that’s an impossible task for us. That’s why I’m asking whether it was possible for them, and if so, how they did it.

Death: I can’t answer that.

Gregory: I understand.

Death: How are you, Gregory?

Gregory: Excuse me?

Death: How are you?

Gregory: I’m, I’m . . . I’m okay.

Death: How does it feel to be alive?

Gregory: Unsettling at times.

Death: Why?

Gregory: Because of the ephemeral nature of my mind.

Death: What would you like to know?

Gregory: Is luck distributed arbitrarily?

Death: Ask those who search for meaning. What else would you like to know?

Gregory: Tell me anything.

Death: Anything?

Gregory: Yes.

Death: I appreciate you sparing me the afterlife question. I’ll share some of our observations with you then. Although they are highly approximate—since I must use words—I have to account for your current awareness of reality.

Gregory: Mhm.

Death: Somehow creates something—configurations—structures—some time . . . in space—planets . . . earth . . . everything—humans. Humans envision images and capture snapshots of time, need more time, appropriate progress, debate the limits of their structure, . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , need more time, . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . .

Somehow fades into irrelevance.

Gregory: Thank you for being here today.

Death: Gregory, I’m glad you and Dr. Ist found each other.

Gregory: Thank you for saying that.