Post by morcac on Jan 13, 2012 1:53:31 GMT -5
There were three of us, not one knowing the name of the others. The odd bit was that we ate peanuts. I like peanuts. Strangely I liked them less and less the more we ate. That confused me. The salt started to get to my taste buds. I drank some water. I felt better, and the peanuts tasted good again. What a strange phenomenon, I thought. Once again the peanuts had become too much, so I drank more water. Eventually, no matter how much I drank, the peanuts just weren't the same. It was a dislike that only time could heal. Peanuts last 1/10000000000th of the time it take for a Twinkie to decompose. That gave us quite a while. The next day they were good again, but once again I tired to the point where no water could give me a taste for them again. That, however, is not what I a came here to tell you about. I came to tell about a specific stretch of time with my fellow men who also ate peanuts. The stretch to which I am referring is actually only a fraction of a second (an improper one that happened to span several hours). So there we sat upon the couch on that particular day, staring at the black coffee table supporting a small bowl of peanuts. And that was it. The world seemed to be nothing else. That was fine though, the couch was comfortable and the peanuts of the highest quality. The water was only there when I was thirsty... Maybe it was always there, and I just took no notice. It is hard to picture that place in retrospect. I only remember what I was interested in at any particular moment. Well, I guess I'm still in this place, but it is different now. That will be explained later. So I sat on an end of the couch. I liked to lean on the arm. I was considering the particularly interesting melange of flavors within a single salted peanut when the men to the far left (from my point of view rather than that of an onlooker) spoke.
"Where"
At this moment time for me paused. I noticed him fully for the first time in the days... months... Maybe years we had been there. He had the bristle that showed he had recently shaved, and his hair was short and neatly cut. His eyes had marks where rectangular glasses had been worn. I wondered why he was not wearing them now. As far as I remember he wasn't wearing anything... And yet he was surely not naked. It was just as if my mind had dismissed his cloths, and omitted them from my memory.
"Are we?" He spoke the last of his sentence, time resumed.
That was a question I had never considered. We were just there. Always had been maybe. This brought light to exciting new questions. How did I know when a day had passed? DId days ever pass? WHy was the peanut bowl always at least half full? Or was it half empty? All of these thoughts flooded into my head as my brain rebooted. I was awake. Presently the man in the middle was speaking:
"Well isn't it patently obvious?"
He was overweight. Not extremely, but a bit. His face was sort of rectangular, and he also had glasses marks. From the way they spoke they seemed to be geeks. The kind that you only see in movies but never meet in real life. Just so stereotypical. I had always wanted stereotypical geek friends. And that thought echoed through my mind. WHen was always. I had faint recollections of being somewhere else, in a different life.
"We're dead." Continued the man "THis is the afterlife."
That made sense. This was nothing like anything he had ever seen, and yet... it was bliss. It was perfection. My brain being back up, the cynical side responded with 'Do you normally consider being with two other guys on a couch perfection?' 'So what if I do' I shot back. Meanwhile the man to the far left was speaking again.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that, I think we're probably just in an alternate dimension."
"What If dying takes you to an alternate dimension?"
It was a rhetorical, 'food for thought' question. I was surprised at the sound of my voice, and the insight that came from it. I wondered if I has been smart when I was alive. It is so hard to remember. We sat in silence for a while. Every once in a while one of us would grab a few peanuts from the bowl.It was I who broke the silence, the sound of my voice still startled me, and the words that left my mouth were strange. It was as if I had once again spent an eternity in silence.
"Just a thought, why are the peanuts and the couch here?" I knew the answer though before I finished asking the question "Because we want them to be here!"
They were both looking at me now, and I was beginning to feel self-conscious, when suddenly I was proven correct. I could see the room we were in presently, it being largish and made of wood. A television sat a little beyond the table. We were in a house. We were roommates. We were friends. I had always wanted a couple of stereotypical geek roommates. And so I had them. Life could not have been better. We went to work every day to pay the rent. I suppose we didn't have to. Everything we wanted was there. This was surely not heaven though... It was like having an easy life back on earth. And I was fine with that. I was happy so long as I still had my two geeky roommates. They were my friends, and that just goes to show that in the end (in a more literal sense), friends are more important than everything else.
"Where"
At this moment time for me paused. I noticed him fully for the first time in the days... months... Maybe years we had been there. He had the bristle that showed he had recently shaved, and his hair was short and neatly cut. His eyes had marks where rectangular glasses had been worn. I wondered why he was not wearing them now. As far as I remember he wasn't wearing anything... And yet he was surely not naked. It was just as if my mind had dismissed his cloths, and omitted them from my memory.
"Are we?" He spoke the last of his sentence, time resumed.
That was a question I had never considered. We were just there. Always had been maybe. This brought light to exciting new questions. How did I know when a day had passed? DId days ever pass? WHy was the peanut bowl always at least half full? Or was it half empty? All of these thoughts flooded into my head as my brain rebooted. I was awake. Presently the man in the middle was speaking:
"Well isn't it patently obvious?"
He was overweight. Not extremely, but a bit. His face was sort of rectangular, and he also had glasses marks. From the way they spoke they seemed to be geeks. The kind that you only see in movies but never meet in real life. Just so stereotypical. I had always wanted stereotypical geek friends. And that thought echoed through my mind. WHen was always. I had faint recollections of being somewhere else, in a different life.
"We're dead." Continued the man "THis is the afterlife."
That made sense. This was nothing like anything he had ever seen, and yet... it was bliss. It was perfection. My brain being back up, the cynical side responded with 'Do you normally consider being with two other guys on a couch perfection?' 'So what if I do' I shot back. Meanwhile the man to the far left was speaking again.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that, I think we're probably just in an alternate dimension."
"What If dying takes you to an alternate dimension?"
It was a rhetorical, 'food for thought' question. I was surprised at the sound of my voice, and the insight that came from it. I wondered if I has been smart when I was alive. It is so hard to remember. We sat in silence for a while. Every once in a while one of us would grab a few peanuts from the bowl.It was I who broke the silence, the sound of my voice still startled me, and the words that left my mouth were strange. It was as if I had once again spent an eternity in silence.
"Just a thought, why are the peanuts and the couch here?" I knew the answer though before I finished asking the question "Because we want them to be here!"
They were both looking at me now, and I was beginning to feel self-conscious, when suddenly I was proven correct. I could see the room we were in presently, it being largish and made of wood. A television sat a little beyond the table. We were in a house. We were roommates. We were friends. I had always wanted a couple of stereotypical geek roommates. And so I had them. Life could not have been better. We went to work every day to pay the rent. I suppose we didn't have to. Everything we wanted was there. This was surely not heaven though... It was like having an easy life back on earth. And I was fine with that. I was happy so long as I still had my two geeky roommates. They were my friends, and that just goes to show that in the end (in a more literal sense), friends are more important than everything else.