No particularly fancy effects occur but suddenly, I have sensory input again. Trees. Light. Water. Wind. I'm near a large pond in a wooded area. I think I finally have the time to process what just happened.
What the heck...was that. If I interpreted that correctly, I died, then met what could reasonably be called God, then got shunted into another universe entirely. And to top it off, I've learned that the meaning of life is basically to make raw data for God.
Life! You know, the only thing you actually have? Just data. An end result.
What… what am I supposed to do with this information? What is the point if, in the end, everything just amounts to flavor text for that impatient twit to glance over?
I pick up a nearby rock and study it. It's smooth and flat. There are small imperfections and textures on the surface. It looks like a normal rock, similar to but clearly different from every other rock around it. Data. This thing is data. This thing is older than I am. It probably came to be after a huge initial time in a volcano or something and an eon's worth of erosion, but it's just data. Everything is data.
"Damn it!" I throw the rock into the pond.
Tschh BOOM! The rock skips off the surface once and punches through a tree on the opposite bank. I'm pretty sure the hole on the tree is higher than head height, but it's hard to tell from here. The upper part of the tree slowly topples over.
"Holy…..."
...okay. I am...really dangerous. Like, that definitely would have killed someone. Unbelievable. Clearly, being physical right now would be massively destructive.
"....RAAHHHHHHH! AHHHHH! AH! AHHHHHHHHH!..."
So now I'm screaming.
-
I'm not sure how long it's been now, but the sun is setting. I'm also not sure what I've been doing during this time. I mean, I'm certain I've alternated between wild activity and being dazed, but right now I'm skipping stones and have definitely been skipping stones for a while and I don't know when I started.
Blup bum bum bum
Blup blup bum bum
Blup bum bum bum bum
...
Blup bum BLOOP!
With natural grace, a fish jumps out of the pond and intercepts a pebble. Its scales glitter in the sepia color of the dying light as it traces a beautiful arc through the air and plunges back into the water without a mark. An ephemeral and flawless performance that my words can do no justice to. This fish needed to be incredibly lucky, analytic, and skillful. But still, all that to end up eating a rock. Truly transcendent execution, but…
Hmm. Oh. Really, a fish just ate a rock. But calling that the story is missing the beautiful part, huh. The process is the amazing part and the result is mundane. The value of the event can't really be explained by a report.
…
Extrapolating, it occurs to me that even if the purpose of everything is data, my experiences will still be enviable, and real, and valid. Like, uh…
Like a car, I guess. The purpose of a car is transportation and yet it is the setting of and participant in real human life stories on the side. Even once it's built up all these stories, a car's purpose is still to transport, which is why you still keep driving it and why you'd get rid of it if it broke completely, but even if it's not the point, the auxiliary role a car plays in its stories are still of worth. I guess this is what people implicitly acknowledge to be the case when they refer to "sentimental value." Also like sentimental value, even if you explain the stories to someone else, it won't mean anything if the other person doesn't care. And that guy up there definitely wouldn't. I bet he wouldn't get it.
Yes. This is acceptable. Despite everything, what I have is still real and valuable and mine. Yup. Mhm...
Oh, it's gotten dark now. Wow.
-
It has been five sunrises since I first appeared here. Despite feeling a bit better, the recent past has still basically been a blur. I've discovered that apparently I do not require food or drink (maybe I do, but I have yet to feel hungry, thirsty, weak, tired, or anything of the sort), nor shelter, and it seems like I do not suffer major consequences from having no sleep. After looking more closely at my reflection in the pond and making a comparison to a tree (not a precise measurement), I think I look young, a bit younger than a 10 year old child. The speed at which a stone falls does not strike me as particularly different. I think that there is only one sun, and the length of a day does not make me feel cheated. In other words, this world seems a lot like Earth. If I knew a thing or two about astronomy, I'd check the stars, but sadly I know nothing about that topic. I also know nothing about survival, so it's fortunate that I can live on basically nothing.
"I've probably dodged the topic long enough."
So, uh, what am I going to do now? This question is kind of important. I'm ostensibly a dead guy, one who has already lived a life. Now, I don't even need to worry about living. Hmm.
Well. I basically decided earlier that the valuable part of life comes naturally while living, so...no matter how I look at it, the obvious answer is to just screw around for now. My idea of screwing around isn't pursuing whatever gives the most raw pleasure, though, or using my strength to bully others. Neither of these paths is likely to have a beauty or appeal beyond words, and indeed both paths can be adequately described with just the handful of words I've already used. I wish instead to watch people live. Though I suppose if I find a better goal I'll follow that.
It's time for me to leave this forest.
**
AN: Alrighty. Here we go. Now he's suddenly the guy with the power to make decisions and impose them on other people, but also a trauma from exactly that.