“So, tell me, why do you want to live?”
Ro posed this seemingly important question to the incorporeal nothingness that constituted the former corporal Billy Sargent, an entity that had been killed at Bunker Hill seventy years earlier, and one that was hopelessly overwhelmed by emotions that stemmed from postmortem ennui. In despairing tones, fragmented sobs, and the whimpering whines of perpetual petulance, he lamented his death the way a maudlin drunk laments their life. Ro, on the other hand, was a cosmic conglomeration of ethereal fabric. It was also the gate-keeper of existence for wayward souls that wandered the universe trying to determine what they wanted to do with themselves for all-eternity—or at least parts of eternity. It was a function that ought not to exist, but it did, and only Ro knew why.
“I feel—I dunno—unfulfilled or somethin’,” Billy said.
His voice—spoken with the cadence of one suffering from extreme melancholy—was imperceptible to satellites, radio wave detectors, or—to put it succinctly—the living.
He sighed deeply.
“Is death not fulfilling?” Ro asked.
“Well, no, it’s not.” Billy said, matter-of-factly. “When I was alive, I farmed, I hunted—I did things! Up here, it’s all starlight, thinking, and, and, and—and watching!”
“Watching? What’s wrong with watching?” Ro asked, gurteling its bunyeonages.
“Well, nothin’, I guess. It’s just that—“
“—the inaction isn’t enough?”
“Yeah, I suppose.” There was a pause. “It’s borin’!”
Ro yazzled froimingly, his idthupples gesticulating wildly.
“Boring? Boring! Have you been watching anything while you’ve been dead?”
Billy shook his transparent head.
“Ah! Here! Look! Look! Vicksburg! Gettysburg! All these battered American burgs are burning! See? See! Don’t you find that interesting? All those soldiers smote upon that hilltop! The sizzling brains strewn upon the flattened grass? The withering smoke burping from the cannonades? The hot-leaded murder! B’Gerspel! How can you find any of this boring? It’s quite the Show! Quite the Show!”
Billy silently puzzled over Ro’s words as a series of nondescript planets revolved once or twice around their closest star.
Ro thyly heffled its ryzzeyles.
“Ah! Ah-ha! Well! Perhaps you’re still tired of war. I understand, I understand. Yours was a painful death. You’ll come around again. Trust me. Try this. Okay? Try this. Peruse this new script out of Russia: ‘man is predominantly a creating animal doomed to strive consciously towards a goal.’ Woooooo—eeee! I couldn’t have conjured those sentiments in a Borlothiaskian Interlude. Well said! Well said, indeed!”
“Heh?”
“That’s something you find boring, too, I suppose.” Ro sighed.
“Aw, well, nah, not really borin’, no. I jus’ ain’t get much from it, is all.”
Ro rolled its eyes. “So, you’re just heartsick for a heartbeat, is that it?”
“Well, sure, Ro! I mean, heck, I don’t miss the wars or, or, or lengthy words that I can’t make no sense of so much, no. I miss the huntin’. I miss toilin’ away in the dirt. I miss chasin’ ‘round the village maids—” He paused, contemplating some hazy collection of libidinous-fueled memories from the salad days of his most recent past-life. He grinned (which, of course, could not be seen by anyone or anything). “Why, I pestered this one gal, Sarah Adleman—”
“Ah yes, Sarah Adleman of Ipswich, Massachusetts.” Ro said, unenthusiastically, as it conjured the deeds of this particular life from the infinite memory of its intangible hippocampus.
“Hmm, hmm, hmm. Let’s see. Sarah Adleman, née. Later: Sarah Williamson; married Brom Williamson—a prosperous lawyer—in 1784. Resettled in White Plains, New York in 1792. Issued six children, of whom four survived into adulthood, all of whom have since perished. Died in 1805. Tuberculosis outbreak.”
There was a beat in which a trillion lives began and ended across the great expanse of the universe: a nuclear holocaust here, an interspecies genocide there, intergalactic wars, incurable plagues, rampent rapes, planetquakes, exploding stars, bad poetry, intercontinental fires, sporadic infantalism, happy Mondays, corporate takeovers, terrible take-outs, epidemic tooth decays, tension build-ups, neurotic meltdowns, cramped concentration camps, clogged inner ears, detached outter ears, polluted natural airs, rebellious riots, unpopular holidays, gangland violence, bipolar managers, star-crossed lusters, thwarted diets, long-winded fillibusters, and uncreative writing. In short, it was a fucking free-for-all and everything was terrible, even the good stuff.[1]
Billy spent the span of time registering the news of Sarah’s death.
“Sarah’s dead, too?” he asked.
His voice, which was barely a whisper, seemed to address the polychromatic nebula that was located beneath where his feet would have been had he a body. Meanwhile, on Pikolin III, a newborn frelorf[2] wailed mercilessly through its cleft hurel as its mother, experiencing a sudden feeding frenzy, ate it alive. Despite Ro’s spirited gurgling and phosphorescent flickering, Billy was too self-absorbed to notice, saying only, “That’s jus’ terrible. Jus’ terrible.”
Ro observed the frelorf mother gulp down the last stringy sinew of its child’s dorsal fin in silent delight. It wasn’t until the last dopamine-fueled sparkle emanated shamelessly from its flaccid appendages that it returned to the matter-at-hand: “Don’t worry,” it said, “Sarah’s already committed moricide. Twice, in fact.”
“She did what?”
“Returned to life—er, to Earth.” Ro replied, absent-mindedly. It had begun to observe a rather large civil disruption on Hybron IV in which the proletariat Hybronivites[3] had begun to protest the reduced quality of their healthcare, the increased prices of tanner tutelage, and, not least of all, their vicious enslavement to the Scuvs—the ruling class of their casted society. Peaceful begging hastily devolved into joyous mass murder. All of this was very entertaining, at least to Ro, who perceived that the meaning of life was to entertain the dead and the undead alike.
“So, Sarah’s heavenly soul is—”
“Would you look at that!” Ro exclaimed, “It’s only once in a yellow hypergiant that you see the hoi polloi successfully kill and eat the entire upper class.” It throbbed delightedly, its swaying tendrils, turning several colors at once, gesticulated rapidly toward the direction of the conflicted planet. “I just love when this happens. Eat them! Eat them! EAT THEM!”
Despite his own (relatively) recent struggle with imperialistic tyranny, Billy did not care about the Hybronivites, their cause, or their ritualistic eating habits. Manners had not died with his humanly body, however, and he observed the inconsequential fray behind the mask of engrossed interest, hooting along with Ro as the Scuvs were skinned alive, impaled upon sharpened sticks, and roasted above large bonfires. For the sake of polite conversation, Billy commented on the Hybronivites’s astonishing hybroniship[4] as they processed the skins of their defeated foes into luxurious leather goods, which they proceeded to sell to the Burles of Hybron VII at exorbitant prices, thus balancing their lopsided budget.
“That was a long-time coming, I can assure you,” Ro said after several seasons, “because a society simply cannot subsist on the indebted servitude of its lower class as they eke out meaningless existences in a faltering, tannery-based economy.” It laughed at itself. “‘Meaningless existences.’ Listen to me! I mean, what isn’t, am I right?” Ro zassed, gassily. “Ultimately, none of it matters, as you no doubt understand. In fact, I am meeting with a former Scuv to discuss ips[5] moricidal thoughts as soon as we wrap up our little meeting here.”
“A former Scuv?” Billy repeated.
“Yes, well, I suppose it’s ‘a former Scuv’ in the sense that it—quite like yourself—no longer exists in the corporeal realm,” Ro said, spurgling delightedly. “The remnants of its meats have already been transformed into energy and excretion, its skull presently contains several delicious ounces of Hybezninate wine, and its skins currently comprise the—ahem—sado-masochistic outfit of its Burle rival.”
“None of this makes any sense, Ro,” Billy whined, piteously, “Where is Sarah?”
“Who?”
“Sarah Adelman, the love of my—”
“Please don’t say it,” Ro whispered in an aside.
“—life.”
Ro minelled, its shoms frosthing.
“I already told you, she committed moricide. ‘Twice, in fact.’”
“Committed what?”
“Moricide,” Ro replied, mechanically, “the process by which one’s eternal essence—that which you formerly designated as a ‘heavenly soul’—is temporarily entwined with organic matter. Thusly combined, an entity is recategorized as a living creature and proceeds to engage in a loosely predetermined lifespan.” Ro looked into the void into which Billy non-inhabited. “This act is better known as moricide in the, ah, superterrestrial community, of which I am a member. Does that help to answer your question?”
“I dunno,” Billy said, “I guess. I just wanna live again.”
“Yes,” Ro replied slowly, deliberately, “You want to live-yourself. So did ‘Sarah.’ We’re essentially saying the same thing here.”
“Alright.”
“So, you understand now, Billy?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
There was another beat in which all of the aforementioned activities occurred again and again, on and on, repeatedly, incessantly, over and over, ad nauseam, etc., etc., . . .
Billy would have stroked his chin in earnest concentration, if he were able.
“Okay,” he began, “but just tell me one thing, to help clear this up because, truth be told, I am still a bit confused.”
Ro bidroppled, rolling its eerfs in a deliberate show of annoyance.
“Yes?” it said.
“Where is Sarah now? Where is her heavenly soul—or whatever? You said she returned to Earth, yes?”
Ro (simply) sighed.
“Sarah Adelman died of tuberculosis in 1805. Like you, she found the limitless erudition of death to be a bit lackluster. It would appear that, for some entities, having the answer key inhibits the joy of the test. Or something. As a consequence of those feelings, she spoke to Pherus, an associate of mine, and committed moricide in 1806. She—and please understand that I am utilizing that particular gender-based pronoun for the sake of your understanding, as Mifro, ‘Sarah’s’ eternal essence, is, of course, genderless—anyway, ‘she’ died during childhood the first time that she committed moricide, following her fifty-one year tenure on Earth being and de-being Sarah Adelman. That occurred in 1808. Her death was particularly unfortunate in that instance as she had been born as one Elizabeth Alexandrovna.”
Ro paused for effect, of which there was none, for Billy, whether living or dead, neither cared for nor embraced the events concerning the births and deaths of royal progeny. In fact, he had been quite opposed to such feelings while most recently living. Moreover, Billy’s confusion regarding the life, death, and resurrection of the former Sarah Adelman was exacerbated by the entwined feelings of overwhelming wretchedness that he currently experienced. In simple terms, it was all a bit too much for him, and he hovered there, crestfallen and morose, seeking the words to continue.
“S-s-so, what became of her then?”
“She spoke with Pherus again, during the latter half of the 1820’s, and committed moricide once more.”
“And?”
“And she wandered North America in the guise of a distinctly grouchy snow goose called Peckers. Her life, though short, was an enjoyable one.” Ro paused again. “She was particularly fond of the breeding ground along the mouth of the Firth River, beside the Beaufort Sea.”
“Yes? And then what became of her?”
“She was eaten on Christmas morning, 1831!” Ro sbooled, “Apparently, she was ‘mighty scrumptious!’”
“No, not her, erm, goose-self!” Billy groaned. “H-h-her—what happened to her heavenly soul, her essence, or whatever you said this is?”
Billy gestured toward himself for emphasis. However, being—or, rather, not being—has its disadvantages, particularly its lack of effectiveness in regards to demonstrative gestures. Consequently, Ro remained ignorant of Billy’s imperceptibly conspicuous gesticulation, but answered his question, nonetheless.
“She has transitioned back into the Collective Comprehension and is currently wandering Bode’s Galaxy. She is quite tired of living, thankfully.”
“But she was so beautiful and smart!”
“Yes, I suppose that she was beautiful,” Ro conceded, “for a bipedal beast. Unless you were referring to her ‘goose-self?’”
Billy ignored Ro. “Can I speak with her?”
“Mifro can see, hear, touch, feel, express, and understand everything that occurs in the universe because it is part of the Collective Comprehension. It is not tied to its former identities—unlike some of us. It knows that you are here, pining over it, and yet it prefers the company of nothing and no one. It no doubt understands that you are clinging to your previous identity for warmth and comfort in the cold, unfeeling universal death in which we inhabit—odd though that phrasing may seem to you.” Ro hurmphed, adding, “At this precise moment, however, Mifro is riveted—absolutely riveted! — by the winsome creativity of the inhabitants of Xexeophexis Ub. They are an eccentric collection of triple-tailed, non-aquatic cephalopods who exist solely to produce poetry.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Ro?”
“Xexeophexis Ub? It’s an exoplanet in the—”
“No, not goddamn Xexeophexis Oob!”
“Ub,” Ro corrected, “Exexeophexis Oob is a whole other story.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Ro?!”

“I’m still talking about the non-pretentious poetry of Execeophexis Ub. They have a poet named Wau-Wau Weelowe who writes these incredibly moving Hgoffloesian Sonnets. He never bends the rules and he recites his sonnets through digestive elocution. It’s marvelous!”
Ro proceeded to describe the rhyme scheme of Hgoffloesian Sonnets, which alternated between trochaic octameters and dactylic lateremeters and ended in an Uhyuerlian Couplet, thus appearing in the following format:
AAAAAAAAA
BBBBBBBBBB
DDDDDDDDD
CCCCCCCCCC
KSKSJKSJKSJK
AA.
Billy interrupted Ro as he began to recite Weelowe’s classic Fup Ballard, Sperm Yogurt. “Where is Sarah Adelman?” he asked.
“I told you. All that remains of the former ‘Sarah Williamson, née Adleman’ is a bleached skeleton in an extraordinarily unfashionable dress.” Ro chuckled, adding, “The prosperity of the Williamson brood petered out around the turn of the century, I’m afraid.”
“Not her corpse!” Billy said, combatively. “Where is her, erm—”
“‘Heavenly soul?’”
“YES!”
“I told you. Mifro is—”
“Who the hell is Mifro?”
Ro mursed with an expressive sigh. “Billy, perhaps we ought to meet at another time. You seem to be taking this all a little too, uh, ‘personally.’ Not to mention that we are keeping my Scuv friend waiting.”
Ro’s glassy tendrils gestured toward an emptiness surrounding a nearby planet, from which protruded the nasally voice of Gruk the Scuv.
“No, no, you’re good, Ro, you’re good.” Gruk said, “I’m, uh, gonna go check out the Fut tournament on Hioloiy II. Shall we reschedule?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, Gruk,” Ro replied with a tone that expressed familiarity as well as tenderness, “I’ve got a bit of an emergency on my fruys here. How about linking up with me in a Grtyvothier minute?”
“That sounds perfect and, really, it’s no problem,” Gruk said, reassuringly. “I’m in no real rush to get skinned-alive again! Har-har! I’ll see you soon. Good luck with, erm, everything!”
“Thanks!”
Had Gruk been visible, it would have appeared as though it had disappeared instantly from their vicinity. For the sake of clarity, however, let us just say that Gruk left as fast as the laws of the universe would allow it to leave. Ro, capitalizing on the interruption from his abutting appointment, saw an opportunity to spurz the floundering wonkletonk.
“Let’s put all this unsavory business behind us and get back to the matter at hand.”
“Alright.”
“You feel as though you’re wasting your death, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You want a purpose, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You want to understand the whys, whats, whos, won’ts, wheres, whens, wills, hows, cans, can’ts, ifs, ises, coulds, couldn’ts, woulds, wouldn’ts, haves, haven’ts, dids, didn’ts, dos, don’ts, ares, aren’ts, and all of the others in-between, yeah? You’re Faust in the flesh, eh?”
“Yes. Wait, no. I dunno!” Billy said. “And I dunno who Faust is.”
“Well, what do you want, then, from dear, sweet Mephistopheles, if not all the questions and all of the answers?”
“I don’t know. What does anyone want?”
“Well, for starters, they sometimes want all the questions and all of the answers.”
“What else do they want?”
“From life?”
“No, from death.”
“Well, they seldom want a purpose in death, Bill, because, when you’re dead, you come to understand that there aren’t any purposes, in life or in death. It’s a made up concept. You create purpose and meaning as you create names, identities, laws, morals, or other constructs.”
“You seem to know everything except what I want,” Billy said, “which seems like a contraception.”
“Ah, no, that is a malapropism, Bill,” Ro chortled. “You meant to say, ‘contradiction.’”
“Are you sure, Ro?”
“Well, no,” Ro conceded, “I suppose I’m not sure because, though I do know mostly everything—for, I, too, am part of the Collective Consciousness—I do not know everything—everything. For example, I do not have the ability to know what you are thinking and, therefore, that which you intended to speak. Consciousness is the boundary of all entities, cosmic or otherwise.”
“Why?”
“I dunno.”
Billy sighed. “None of this makes any sense.”
“No, perhaps it doesn’t, leastwise not to you. But it could if you would just forgo committing moricide again. There’s always time for life, Bill. I mean, think about it; you’re going to be dead for a lot longer than you’ll ever be alive. It’s simple mathematics. So, why don’t you stop thinking about what you want to do with your future incarnate self, huh? Stay dead a little!”
“There’s nothin’ for me here, Ro. I just wanna live-myself.”
“You’re not making any sense, Billy-Boy,” Ro said, “and that is truly unfortunate because while you are over here contemplating moricide—”
A rather sudden series of large explosions erupted from the grouping of aforementioned rebellious planets.
“Oh, look! The Burles have invaded Hybron IV.” Ro sibbed. “It never ends, eh?”
Billy murmured in agreement. It did seem to go on and on and on and on, he thought. One war led to another, one life was saved here, one wasted there, one death avenged here, one civilization conquered there. Sometimes the righteous were right, other times they were imposters virtue signalling either for the sake of appearances (i.e. conforming) or in an effort to gain power by appealing to the status quo. All in all, it was nothing new; the weak crumble and die, or muster their strength in stoic silence, biding their time to devour the temporarily strong, thusly becoming the temporarily strong and dooming themselves to the fate of all revolutions. That’s the problem with circular things, he thought—they go round and round.
Another beat occurred, somewhat shorter than the last two, in which triple the tragedies occurred universally. Ro orgasmed loudly. As Billy’s stream of consciousness spewed out his pathetic excuse for a philosophical rant, the literal smoke on Hybron IV cleared.
“Well, that was a waste of their time.” Ro said. “The Burles were repulsed. Repulsed! I certainly did not expect that to happen—to even be possible.”
Indeed, Billy had observed the Battle of Thresdronth, an interesting engagement in which the Hybronivites had outwitted the Burles by utilizing scorched Hyrbron tactics, demolishing gulfro farms and tanneries as they retreated in a seemingly disorganized manner toward their capital nesting zone. Billy couldn’t resist feeling something akin to happiness as the Hybronivites cruelly enslaved the vanquished Burle warriors, executed their generals, and sold their skins to the Huyles of Hybron II (at exorbitant prices—as you may have surmised).
Thusly it went, on and on, over and over, again and again, repeatedly, ad nauseam, etc., etc., . . .
Billy interrupted the cosmic horror, to which Ro was eternally fascinated.
“How do I commit moricide?”
Ro gygygygygygygygygyged, floridly, then answered:
“Well, before we truly begin, are you sure you remember what it was really like? You know, ‘down there?’”
Ro thuylalled, which is similar to pointing. So, Ro pointed.
Billy paused pensively for several decades to consider Ro’s question, during which time countless disembodied voices tremulously entered and exited the celestial void—birthed, perished, and reborn—a stream of light perpetually reflected between two mirrors.
“I dunno, Ro.” Billy replied between the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Berlin.
“Then why do you want to live? Seems to me you’ve got nothing to live for. ”
“I guess that, well— I dunno. I’ve just got nothin’ to gain bein’ dead.”
“Nothing to gain from death, you mean?”
“No. Uh, I mean, yes.”
Ro marshoulled—the celestial equivalent of clicking one’s tongue. It looked on disinterestedly as Adolf Hitler’s wailing essence hurtled past them in a translucent flicker of malicious lambency. The haziness of the Oort Cloud momentarily concealed him, but he became visible again as he swung around Canis Major, gyrated beside Monoceros, and, finally, pirouetted back to Earth in a sputter of reinvigorated ire. He arrived sometime on June 14th, 1946 in the form of a perpetually petulant child.[6] The rest of the universe looked on with intrigued indifference—which is what it always did. Ro pulsated rhythmically, warmed by a star that no one on your planet has ever seen.
“Let me ask you something, Bill,” Ro began, inhaling a solar system and exhaling black matter back out into the frigid vacuum of space, “do you remember pants?”
“Pants?”
“Yes! Pants!” Ro exclaimed, a little too excitedly. “Pants, Billy, pants!”
“Do you mean breeches?”
“Breeches, britches, pants, pantaloons, kilts, culottes, trousers!”
“I, erm, remember breeches, Ro,” Billy said, nonplussed.
“Well, what about stockings? Felt caps, uniforms, dresses—”
“Dresses?”
“—cuirasses, hats, helmets, eye-patches, jockstraps—”
“Jockstraps?”
“—bandoliers, boots, leather pocketbooks, unhemmed riboen-skin sneshes?”
“Sneshes?”[7]
“Wait, scratch that last one. Humans don’t have wings.”
“Right,” Billy replied, “Uh, yeah, I remember clothing. Do you mean clothes?”
“Clothes!” Ro thundered,[8] thereby sending scintillating light careening across the universe at the incredible speed of itself. “Yes! I knew there was a word for those things. There’s almost always a word for things, especially on Earth!”
“Yeah, I remember clothes,” Billy repeated, skeptical of Ro’s seeming loss of knowledge regarding human raiment. “I mean, it’s been a while, but I remember them.”
He inhaled pensively. Well, he did the intangible equivalent of inhaling pensively. There’s no word for it, on Earth or elsewhere in the universe, so let’s just call it swarlattling. Yes. Billy swarlattled, B’Gerspel, and he swarlattled loudly. Then he said:
“I don’t think pocketbooks are clothes, Ro. Actually, now that I think about it, I dunno how I even know what pocketbooks are. Or jockstraps, for that matter. They weren’t around when I last was, I don’t think.”
“Probably osmosis,” Ro replied, “Have you been listening in on them?”
“From time to time,” Billy admitted. “Bein’ dead is wondrously dull.”
“Wondrously dull?!” Ro hooted, “Look around! The universe is a marvelous place! Have you checked out the fucking multiverse? All knowledge is, quite literally, at your fingertips. Well, not literally, you know, not anymore.” Ro furdled. “You are clinging uselessly to existence—to life, Billy—an almost purposeless state of being!”
“Almost?”
“Yes!” Ro said, “Almost! You are so very verklempt—verklempt!—by a mawkish attachment to animate objects. Ugh, organic matter. Disgusting. Not to mention that you weave between this yokel identity—Billy—and your true, cosmic self, Garmar. It comes across like an amateur writer misunderstanding how to implement dialect into dialogue.”
“Whatcannisay, Ro? I’m just very unhappy.”
“‘If you want to be happy, be.’” Ro muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, nothing, never mind. Anyway, back to clothes.”
“Yeah, clothes,” Billy said, “minus pocketbooks, jockstraps, and Sneshes.”
“Yes, well, do you remember wearing them?”
Billy thought for about a decade, chiming in sometime after the death of Stalin but before the Little Rock Nine.
“Not at the beginning, no,” he replied, “or at the end, actually.[9] But in the middle, yes.”
Ro guffawed. “And you miss that?”
“I wouldn’t say that I miss it, exactly,” Billy replied, “I just wanna live-myself. I dunno why, really. I can’t say.”
Ro sighed again.
“Is it truly as simple a case as a non-existential crisis—that you feel as though you haven’t a purpose in non-existence?”
“I don’t really feel anything, anymore,” Billy conceded, “I guess that’s the point.”
Ro bugyiilieed, sparkling fulgurant tones of yellow and pink.
“You have so much to non-exist for, Billy!” Ro said. “Just look around with your discarnate self!”
Billy considered the universe for a few years. Kennedy came sputtering past, so did Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, some heroin-addled hippies, soldiers from multiple nations, a few babies, an ortzle, another Kennedy, as well as millions of others in between and afterwards, each teetering between being renowned, unknown, and notorious in life (and death). Some circled back to Earth, others set off for other life-producing planets and solar systems, while others simply transformed into the Collective Comprehension. Billy, himself, began to enjoy the latter. He became momentarily[10] absorbed by the beatific wonderment of cured ignorance. In this state of absorption, he allowed knowledge of a most profound and ubiquitous nature to invade every transparent molecule of his inorganic encephalon. He was no longer solely the essence of Billy Sargent but the pure entity that had always been: Garmar, it/its/it’s. It was pure knowledge entwined with all of the memories of its previous identities: Billy Sargent, a female Turkish van, Bình Ngô, a nameless stillborn, John E. Cooper, a fee-bee singing black-capped chickadee, Francis d’Allaire, a mayfly, Geoffrey Chaucer, a North American grizzly bear, Ooth the Hezroder, Egil Byström, Ceolmund of Hereford, a South Frezonian Tri-horned Shurzle, Qin Shihuangdi, etc., etc., ad nauseam.
Garmar, an opaque form of an equivalent size and shape as Ro’s, stretched leaoitingly.
“Oooh, yeah! I’m back! How long was I gone for this time, Ro?”
“Including life? Two hundred thirty Earthling years.”
“Ha, ‘earthling.’”
“Ha.”
“What year is it ‘down there?’”
“On Earth?”
“Yes.”
“Western calendar?”
“Yes.”
“1983. No, wait. It’s 1984 now. Apparently, Van Halen has just released a new album.”
“I know.”
“I know you know, Garmar,” Ro chided, “You know everything, except the date, apparently.”
“I was just making conversation.”
“I know.”
“I mean, really, Ro, what else have you got to do up here but chat with wayward ‘souls?’”
“That’s my business,” Ro guffawed, “and you most certainly know that you do not know why that is.”
(Remember? I said that in the beginning of the story. Cool how I brought that back around, eh?)
“Yes,” Garmar replied, “I know everything except the purpose behind your function.”
Ro paused.
“I know you don’t know that—”
“I know you know that I don’t know that—”
“—but you could spend eternity seeking out the answer to death.”
“I could.”
They paused.
“Or I could just live-myself and look to the stars for answers to why I’m alive.”
“Either way, you’ll never know.”
“I know I’ll never know.”
“I know you know you’ll never know.”
They argued in this manner well into the late 1980s.
Ro ferpled his duquilliesois in mock defeat around the time Aerosmith began writing Angel.
“Alright, alright! Enough already!” it said. “Would you like to be a man or a woman?”
“Hmm, let’s go with a woman this time. After all, ‘what is better than wisdom? Woman.’’ Garmar paused. “I said that, you know.”
“Yes,” Ro whoofed, “I know.”
“You can whoof all you’d like,” Garmar spizzled, “because you have never created anything.”
Ro smurled angrily.
“Suppose I send you back to Earth, or Fetchel, or Gisbonary III—if you’re truly bored with non-existence—and you become the next William Shakespeare, or Gggabbabba, or (language not detected), would I not, in part, have helped to have created a sonnet, a huopa, or a (language not detected)?”
“A cause and effect argument? Oh, humble Ro, you cannot be serious?”
“(Language not detected)!”
“Save your pithy statements for first-rounders,” Garmar ghibbouled, “I want to create something. And don’t send me back as some French peasant or Chinese wall-builder this time because—”
“There aren’t any French peasants or Chinese wall-builders anymore, Gar—”
“—I know there aren’t—”
“‘—I know there aren’t any French peasants or Chinese wall-builders—’” Ro imitated Garmar’s seeming childishness in the voice of a million year old universe. “Ah! How’s New England for you?”
“Ooh! Great schools, great art, great literary history!” Garmar yetchelled, “Boston?”
“No, Maine.”
Garmar uppled. “So be it. Maine is nice.”
“Better Maine than New Hampshire.”
“If Massachusetts is unavailable, yes. What year is it now?”
“Late 1987. There’s a couple about to copulate at this precise moment. Are you ready?”
“I was born ready!” Garmar quipped. “Get it? Because—”
“Yes, yes,” Ro replied, “I know everything, too, asshole. See you in a century!”
Ro mursled. Garmar Buoyrthethed. A short moment of genuine happiness was shared between them. From some wayward moon in a nearby system, Ro produced a metallic box the size of a dwarfed exoplanet. He pressed a button labeled “START BUTTON.”
“Hop on in, Gar. Oh! I almost forgot to mention: don’t even contemplate suicide down there; they need workers!”
“And we need Art!”
They laughed, furpebequelousleely.
————–
[1] Cosmically speaking, this is normal.
[2] A selectively bred Gudesvarian omnivore.
[3] Dirt folk.
[4] Craftsmanship
[5] Scuv possessive pronoun for their eighth, and least appreciated, gender.
[6] The typical amount of turnaround-time in the death-to-life resurrection process, give or take a few days or weeks.
[7] Even I don’t know what Sneshes are or do.
[8] A little unconvincingly, in my opinion.
[9] A small detachment of British Grenadiers had, upon discovering the mortally wounded Corporal Billy Sargent atop the palisades on Breed’s Hill, stripped him naked and mercilessly skewered him with their bayonets.
[10] In a galactic sense of the word.