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ABSTRACT

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.

SHIBANI SHANKAR RAY

PART-1

The Day I Died

I think I'm still in transition, since I'm receiving email as well as all my porn feeds. But the amount of
spam is increasing beyond belief, I guess more people want to enlarge stuff before landing in heaven for an eternity, and then again money isn't really such a dear thing anymore. Though a few restrictions are already in place on us (yeah I've got friends moving with me here - a chronically sighing elephant, a depressingly maniacal bee, and a rather e cited printer!. "estrictions like, you can't say #ell, you'll have to replace it with #all whenever you mean it. Though you can still type it, without getting slapped by the fat pink lady and getting muted for half an hour. $uted for real, mind you, like no voice comes out and shit. But its really not fair, since the printer's not getting slapped.

The fat pink lady (%he is pink, mind you, not her dress! &ust announced that she thinks we're gonna land in another few moments of Time (she thinks!, that she thinks will pass soon. If you ask me, I think we're already there and she's &ust fooling with us. 'ust hasn't got her fill of the slaps I suspect. %he mentioned something like orientation or some programme and bullshit that's going to start once we get there. (od will apparently come and lecture us newbie deads. )nd then there'll be a compulsory )rt of *iving workshop to attend, though I wonder what's the point of that now anyway. Traditions are &ust hard to break I guess.

#ere comes she charging in from the door of light. +ou won't believe what she's got tattooed on the palms of her hands, -Talk to me.- on the left one, and -#ere I come.- on the right one. /ery ironic, I would say. I think somebody said #ell or some shit, and is going to get a good long indifferent slapping now. 0hat, why's she turning to me1 #ell, why's she accelerating. 0hat did I say I'm &ust typing away in peace, o' hel- (slap!.

PART-2

The Day Of The Sermon

Holy %hit. (od is a (iant Tortoise.


Today was the first day of my afterlife, and (od entered the stage, while we sat in anticipation. #is si2e made it really hard for the organi2ers to carry him on to the stage, and he seemed pretty amused by this fact. 3ept making inaudible &okes I couldn't hear from here, but most of them ended with a butt-slap as the punchline.

)nd then he spoke.

-4ongratulations, *oodlings. +ou are in #eaven.

(0aits for )pplause!

(%macks a disappointed lip!

Impressive. But I should still warn you about a few things. +ou're in heaven, and you'll always be. +ou &ust &umped from the frying pan onto the kitchen floor. +ou'll feel liberated initially. )s if you know higher dimensions to reality now, something more than &ust getting fried in the pan. +ou'll roam about the place e citedly, looking for secrets and hidden doors, spend time skating in the %ink, and in general feel &ealous (of the very, very, much kind! of the terrorist lot. But once you've been through the negligible, e actly 2ero, percentage of your eternal afterlife here in #eaven, you'll soon reali2e5 that the place is small, that all the hidden doors open into a wall (trust me, I made them!, that the %ink is actually one-dimensional (and you were a douche to ever en&oy it in the first place!, and that you can't get laid here. There are only 67 virgins we've got, and they're all reserved, sorry.

Infinities suck, and you have no idea because you didn't have to deal with them. 8ow you will, deal with an eternal afterlife I dare you. +our death is gone and done with, there is no escape anymore, and there is nothing even to escape from. *ife's hard, but )fterlife's infinitely boring. I'll appreciate recreational ideas here to fill up this stupid infinite time, though there's really no point trying to do that of course, mathematically or otherwise. )nd then, your recreational ideas will all probably involve retarded ways to avoid the heat of the frying pan. 9lease don't bother me with them, or anything else at all. I created you guys so I could see retarded creatures &umping on a fuckin' hot frying pan and trying to make themselves feel life's good. But it's getting boring of late, I think I'll &ust increase the temperature a bit. )nyway I'm sure that'll be boring too, and I'll still be left with an infinity to spend.

#mmm. I wonder what's the point of my e istence. %igh.-

PART-3

The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This

The :rientation 9rogramme got over with the stupid )rt of *iving workshop by 'esus.
0e told him dude we know your stuff already, you have no idea how big you are in the ;rying 9an, but that only charged him up more. %till hasn't forgotten the high of being the %on of (od. The workshop ended and with it pretty much everything. 8ow there was nothing to do. <ver. Time, people don't reali2e, is <vil. )nd if too much of it makes you a devil's workshop, an infinity of it makes you attempt to kill yourself an infinite number of times, but you don't die. +ou can't die. )nd you're looking for the son of a =>?@A whose fault it all is. :ne such time when I was really angry, I saw (od himself slouching at a distance, and doing something very intently. It made me angrier, and I wanted to barrage him with Buestions and accusations and all the new creative e pletives I had made up in my e istential outrages. )nd so I went to him. I stood in front of him, with my hands folded and my eyes peeling his hard skin off in my mind. )nd the Tortoise turned his eyes to me slowly. #e took millenia to do this. )nd looked at me straight, his eyes had the frustrated skin-peeling Buality too, but as if they were shut inside a serene glass wall. 8ow when I had his attention, I actually looked at what it was that he was doing. #e was playing dice. )nd by playing dice, I only mean throwing dice, picking them up, and repeating. )d infinitum. I was somewhat shocked by this, truth be told, that here was (od himself, and all he had with him to do is play dice1 )nd then (od, as if he really was the omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient thing that he is made out to be, or maybe he &ust saw in my eyes what countless others must've approached him with before, slowly with great effort said to me, -)nd I even know what's going to turn up in the dice. <very. %ingle. Time.-

That was all. That was all I needed to hear, I had my enlightenment then and there. I know because my ears twitched, and they never do. $y enlightenment, the knowledge that brought me to peace for a long long time to come, was simply that, -(od had it worse-.

Cntil now I was only frustrated about how there was nothing to do, and even if there was, it wouldn't be able to, any amount of it, fill up the infinity I had in my hands. )nd that made me more frustrated. But (od broke this chain. 8ow I was actually looking for things to do. 8ow I shut my mind to the endless, and concentrated on the moment at hand. )nd started doing something, anything, however trivial, and it never felt bad because (od had it worse.

I think I spent a year trying to twitch my ears consciously, like they did on the Day of <nlightenment. I couldn't. It really was enlightenment, then.

PART-4 The Day God Had A Plan

I soon graduated to better things to do. I would turn a tap on and wait for the water to finish so there
would be no water left and all heaven would break loose. I would wait for endless units of time with an evil grin on my curled lips but something even more e citing would usually catch my attention and I would leave, the tap on. $y sheep count was now a EF digit prime number, but I liked the number so much that I stopped counting further. I had already made brilliantly detailed graffiti on all the walls behind the secretive hidden doors all about the place. It was mostly reproductive organs. The depressingly maniacal bee wasn't so depressing anymore. It was e citing to watch it sit unmoving on the same precise spot for a span of FG years, or some such big number. The spell was broken when the elephant had to go to pee, &ust for fun really, no necessity, maybe check if it still worked, and he was about to step right on the bee and then sigh, but the bee somehow managed to step aside, for it was painful to get hurt and not die. The elephant sighed anyway and went on. I saw him come back when the bee had already broken her previous sitting-still record.

<ven through these hectic times, I did keep a check on the tap. It kept running. <verything is infinite here. <ven the pages of the printer. It keeps spewing out something or the other, all the time. <ven empty pages when it has nothing to say really.

Though my afterlife had many twists and turns, wars and victories, battles of the mind, and epic tales of love, passion and revenge, I still felt something was missing. %omething important. *ike the whole point of it, somehow. %o I decided I would go talk to someone about this. (od, I figured, would be the most appropriate choice to start with, apart from the fact that his misery always upped my spirits.

(od, this time round, seemed actually to be en&oying himself in whatever he was busy with. Disappointed, I asked him what he was doing. #e said, -%hhh-. I thought about it for a while and decided he was &ust bullshitting me, so I asked him again. #e replied, -;ine. I'm thinking of salvation. %uicide, practically. )nd I am preparing the reBuired apparatus.-%uicide1. But what will happen to all of life. )ll of living beings, animal life, humanity, printers, christians, all the people..-They'll keep &umping in the frying pan for all I care. I doubt if anybody will even notice.-But how will you die1 +ou can't die. 4an you really kill yourself1 +ou could, all this while1-8o.-9hew. Thank (od. $y whole afterlife was &ust going to be rendered pointless.-It is.-

-I know but, you know, you're worse right.-+eah.-%o what are you planning then, there's no escape man. I've tried everything already, even boredom. It doesn't kill.-%hhh.-:k I'll ask again. %o what are you planning then, there's no escape man. I've tried everything already, even boredom. It doesn't kill.-

(od didn't reply. #e wasn't bullshitting. #e &ust kept at it, some big levers and ropes it seemed.

Denouement
The Day I (ot ;rustrated 0ith Death, The Cniverse and <verything

Now, (od is a huge being. Its been what, some countless years since he stood on that stage and told us
newly deads about the infinities of boredom and pointlessness. #e was growing, atleast physically. Infact, #e was now too big for anybody, or any combination of them thereof, to lift up or transport anymore. )ll #e did, hence, was sit in seclusion, working and toiling away at his -salvation apparatusin secret.

It was curious. <verything and everybody in all of heaven was curious. )bout the )pparatus. )bout what (od was upto suddenly after millennia of sitting around being a beacon of optimism, reverse pessimism to be precise, to all of dead ones. But (od did not let a sigh out of his mouth that would betray his intentions. There was no blueprint, no written plan or specification that he was working with, and no rest either. But still, at the end of it, in their heart of hearts, people knew one thing. There was one thing they held on to their chests with tight clenched fists. The knowledge that there was no escape. That however what may happen, you can't die again, and while you e ist, you'll always have to think about and somehow spend the ne t moment, ad infinitum.

+ears passed, and a violent sound struck the air one day. 4ontinued churning of something heavy and clunky. I shut my ears with my hands but the sounds only increased. The bee broke its motionlessness. The elephant sighed. )nd then the elephant sighed again. ) crowd formed and walked towards the sound, I &oined them. The printer got e cited and behaved like a T/ news reporter, and gurgled out garbage. There were murmurs flying back and forth, against the background of the clanks and clatter from the direction of the sound.

) gasp escaped the open mouths of all e cept (od and the printer. ;or (od it was, that (reat (argantuan Tortoise, the $assive Titanic Turtle, who was up there standing at a slant on #is hind-legs and about to be toppled by the machine, the %alvation )pparatus that #e built himself. ) silence ensued when (od moved, through the air, in slow motion, with dumbfounded eyes watching, and racing hearts and motionless tongues, through the silent unsaid gasp that hung in the air, and toppled. #e toppled. )nd rocked.

:n that semicircular, hard shell of #is, smooth like $otion itself, (od slept rocking like a baby on its swing, peaceful and idle. %miling imperceptibly. %leeping. 4ocooned in the comfort,that nothing could change now. There would not be another decision to make. 8o options to choose from. ;or once and for final, he was really free from thinking. 8othing can matter anymore. ;or nothing can bring him back on his feet, nothing can undo this final surrender. 4omplete bondage, captivity that can never be undid, brought him his freedom. %alvation.

)nd I stood watching. $esmeri2ed. 0ishing with all my being. 0ishing with every bit of my whole being, that I were a Turtle too. The best days of my afterlife were over.

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