Four Chapters

I find myself in the world; I don’t know how or why I got here. After allowing some years to pass, I reflect that certain events turn out the way that I wanted them to go; whereas other events turn out in a way that displeases me. Does some force dictate the flow of reality; and, if so, can I harness that force and ride it around like a camel? 

I’m aware of the various religions: I can understand why someone would conclude that other thinking creatures pooled their efforts long ago and figured out the identity of the force that controls reality; but I shy back from accepting other terrestrial beings’ claims about transcendence — I prefer to think things thru for myself: 

Even if others are acting honestly when they try to teach what they know of the Beyond, I still worry that they might have made a mistake; for we’re all prone to err. So I end up saying “No, thank you,” to all offers of group membership; and I live in the desert, in a very small hut, and I’m the president of my own country: it has a population of one.

I’m not even sure what exactly I am — I mean, I call myself human, but is that really all that there is to me? I’m made of bone, flesh, and blood; and these ingredients were arranged in a particular way, which was conceived in a moment of spacetime and shall eventually fizzle out. 

Am I no more than a bookended thing, then? The present configuration of my materials had a beginning and will presumably someday end; but did I myself have a beginning, and will I end? 

I call myself “I” — is there truly an “I” hiding within all this matter? What is the significance, either way?

Maybe asking these questions is the point of existence: maybe this was the goal all along. Atoms swarmed together and said “Let’s form an amoeba, and then, over eons, evolve into an ape, so that we can sit underneath a palm tree inscribing introspections on stone tablets. It’ll be worthwhile, for, when we finish our composition, we can then use our legs to walk down the mountain and view our fellow beings having a fine time. At that point, we can destroy our life’s work in a jealous rage.” And the primitive atoms all put this to a vote, and the motion carried unanimously. — It seemed like a good idea, at the time.

Now I wonder: Is it better to be alive or dead? I remember the verse from the biblical book of Ecclesiastes (9:4) which I’ve repeatedly quoted: 

“...a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing…” 

But is this the final word? First of all, ignorance is bliss; so aren’t the dead pleased? Second of all, how do we even know that the… 

I was going to say something more specific, but it seems even better now to say: How do we even know ANYTHING? — And what is “knowing”? 

I’ll take a stab at it: Knowing is what happens when one adds perception-level confidence to an imagination. 

Chapter Two

I love knowing, but I also love not-knowing. Who would ever want to know the things about which one instinctively blurts out “Yuck! I wish I could unknow that.”

Forgive and forget. When a man wrongs you, you forgive him. When truth harms you, forget it. (Am I winning you over? Why are you shoplifting from me, as I pontificate?)

I’ve never liked existing. I could go so far as to say that I’ve hated every moment of my existence. Or if I’ve ever felt existence to be tolerable, then I’ve forgotten this lone instance — I forgive it for besmirching my perfect record… But, other people seem to enjoy existence in general; here’s an example:

Our next-door neighbors are currently on vacation in Florida. When leaving, they alerted me to the fact that their daughter, who lives nearby in Minnesota, will be coming by periodically to check on their house. So, yesterday, while reading THE UNFORTUNATE TRAVELLER by Thomas Nashe, I looked up and saw this daughter of my neighbors taking envelopes out of their mailbox. I could tell by the way that she moved that she was happy. I muttered to myself “I’ve never been happy a single day in my life.”

So a living human is like a membrane between two worlds — an inner and an outer — and these worlds collide and cause one to feel agitation. If one is an obedient slave, one translates these annoyances into literature.

Chapter Three 

Yet why do I like cops so much? I think it’s because they sport badges on their uniforms and wear holsters that contain loaded firearms. 

Why wouldn’t you want to go for a ride in a patrol cruiser and talk to new people every day? Doesn’t everyone desire to gain more friends? — And, when people are in need, one can lend them a helping hand. 

Just like the tension between the inner world of the self and the outer world of shared reality, here’s a tension between the time in which one is writing and the time that shall follow — it’s hard to avoid considering the nuisance of future readers, who will not care one fig about one’s own generation’s problems. Well, listen up, dear future readership: Back when I inscribed my words on this here tablet, there was a rapidly expanding tension between the Civilian Populace and the Officers of the Law. The latter, being mere humanoids (they had not yet been replaced by all-out robots), made the occasional miscalculation in moral judgment, when fighting white-collar crime. Moses, from the book of Exodus (2:11), as usual, set the precedent:

And it came to pass in those days, when Moses joined the police force, that he went out into the city looking for trouble: and he spied a robber smiting a cop, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there were no witnesses, he slew the robber, and hid him in the sand.

Now, you might object: “But the people who were slain by bureaucrats in YOUR time, O dearly deceased author Bryan Ray, were not necessarily robbers caught in the act: I mean, isn’t the death of an innocent man significantly different from this tripe that you are trying to feed us?”

Look, all I want to do is tell you a memory of the first time that I went on a bank-robbing spree with my favorite policeman, Officer Terrence…

Chapter Four

Terrence and I walked into the first of many banks with our swords unsheathed and held in the bolt-upright position. The bank’s manager came out of his office — a smoke-filled room at the rear of the building — and his forehead was sweaty, and he was wearing thick black glasses and smoking a cigar.

“Give us the cash!” I yelled.

The employees of the bank all dutifully sprang into action, filling up money-bag after money-bag.

Terrence and I leapt into our cop car and made our getaway.

Next stop: Las Vegas. Terrence and I entered the Bank of Las Vegas wearing pantyhose over our heads, to obscure our identity. Terrence pointed his shotgun at an automatic teller machine and said “Sayonara, sucker.” Then he fired his weapon and blew the machine’s head off: Banknotes came flying out of the contraption’s air vent, and we kept leaping up and catching these bills as they fluttered to the ground like autumn leaves; and we stuffed them into our army-green duffel sacks.

Back at the hotel, Terrence reclined on his bed and sighed: “Ah, it’s nice working with you, Bry. You’re a good cop, and an even better robber!”

“Thanks,” I said, reclining on my own bed, which was a couple meters away from Officer Terrence’s. “Should we pull the Curtain of Jericho shut between us and call some hookers into our room, so that we can get a little shuteye?”

Terrence smiled and saluted me sincerely. “Yes,” he replied.

So we ordered room-service at the hotel, and they sent us several prostitutes. Then, when the morrow arrived, we woke up early — around 5 a.m. — and hopped into our patrol cruiser.

“Shall we rob another bank?” Terrence said with a smile. “Perhaps one in Tennessee?”

I smiled back: “Tennessee, here we come!”

So we sped out of the parking lot, leaving two streaks of rubber from our car’s tires because we were accelerating faster than is physically possible. The hotel’s staff all came out and gazed at the spectacle of our departure, because they admired us greatly, and we did not pay our bill. The hookers that we had spent the night with emerged from our room and watched us leave, too; and they were all naked and beautiful.

When we got to the Bank of Tennessee, Terrence stopped the vehicle, grabbed his firearm and said: “Are you ready?”

I nodded: “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

So we strolled inside and demanded that they empty their main vault. One of the most lovely female tellers exclaimed as follows, in a voice that made the whole audience fall in love with her: “I’ll enter the combination for the lock; just give me a minute.” Then we saw, in a close-up shot, that she was secretly pressing a red emergency button underneath the countertop as she was delivering this line. 

So the cops came and arrested us at the Bank of Tennessee. That’s as far as we got. “It looks like this is the end of the road, for us,” I remarked to my new best friend, Officer Terrence, who happened to have been born in Nigeria (he disclosed this fact when, one night, I asked him where he was from). — “Don’t be so sure that everything will always turn out bad,” said Terrence while winking, as we both dropped our weapons and the local cops entered the bank and recognized us as their comrades and whispered in our ears that they’ll make sure we end up in heaven after the credits finish scrolling up the screen.