Divergent Biographies
Allen was not a man who fainted in life. Fainting was for those of a more feminine deposition. All his life he had avoided fainting and thought himself superior for it.
When you die you no longer have a head. Nor blood. Fainting is caused by a sudden drop in blood flow to the brain.
Despite these facts, Allen (or rather Allen’s disembodied soul) fainted for the first time shortly after his death.
Shortly before fainting he said simply two words. (1)
“A… a.. rug?”
One might wonder what thoughts were going through Allen's consciousness as he vocalized this phrase. But, in fact, Allen tried to think so many thoughts at the same time that none of them ended up being thought at all. The gears inside his head had grinded to complete stop. Then they shattered. (2) Then Allen's ghost fainted.
- Only one of them really counts though, the other is an indefinite article to specify the more important noun.
- Really beautifully too. Like gears made of tempered glass.
Jen died young. Her car got hit by another, faster-moving car and she ended up in the afterlife. Just like Allen, she was shown the meaning of life. Ten minutes later and she was in an argument with god.
“I don’t see why you can’t call it a tapestry. Or a quilt, or something more appealing.”
Humans, collectively, have spent billions of hours thinking about the meaning of life. One would think when they are finally shown the meaning of life and cumulation of every human life they would be pleased. Or at least admire the beauty. One would be wrong.
It is hard for many of them to fathom that the meaning of life is a rug.
Some had come close to this conclusion; the Hopi tribe of Native Americans for one. Their creation myth included a spider grandmother weaving the world into existence.
The Greeks had a myth even closer: three fates that spun, measured, and cut strings for every human life. They just needed to weave these strings together into an ornate rug.
Perhaps the person who came closest was a writer in 2009 when she published these images.
The blogger, by total accident, illustrated the way the rug of human existence is woven in a two-dimensional manner. The rug itself is a four-dimensional weave full of braids, loops, and knots. Each consciousness is a thread, weaving in and out, closer and farther from others. Not based on physical distance, but emotional.
Lovers’ threads braid together, diverging when they break up. Friend groups weave together in tight configurations. Families form their own patterns. Strings span multiple braids and twist around into beautifully complex patterns. Communities of love are illustrated by the rug.
The rug contains a biography of closeness for every human life and every emotional connection they had. Spun together it tells the story of the entire human race and all the love souls shared. All in one rug.
This story was originally written as a 24-hour challenge with a friend from the prompt “Divergent Biographies”.
