On the 14th day of Antiochus’ teaching in Rome

he was approached by a young boy

who had long scars on his face and neck

like serpents intertwined, they held him

they stroked his face and chin, like a mother they comforted him

and his voice was low and dark

like the earth, a grating sound

and all the men grew silent

though they were learned

and knew many philosophies

and knew of that which is not what it is

and of the aethers and the elements

and let the boy speak

regardless of his clothes, which were torn

to show him their generous spirits

“All these questions you ask”

the child began

“are only comments, they dance around the problem

with fine words and delicate manners they approach you

but you circle your real desire, arms locked at your sides

as children circle in our games

hands over eyes in giddy enjoyment

you do not wish to find

that which is obscured

you wish to not find it.”

At this, Antiochus closed his eyes

and rolled back his head

as if looking upon something both high and within

and withdrew his arms into his cloak.

Cassius, the doctor

who tended to those with sores

and lesions and poured into their wounds

foul salts

grew angry and replied with a harsh voice

“We seek Truth

only that we seek, and we spend our lives in searching

with words we reveal that which is covered

we root out that which is false

those whose falseness is discovered in the contradictions of their language

there are none here who avoid truth

we are honest men, all

all that we wished to ask we have asked.”

And some of the men muttered, and nodded

but many more rested their eyes on the boy

on his scars, on his deformity

and they were uneasy.

the child spoke

“Then why has no one asked the question?

Why has no one said the words that we all long to hear

Why have I not heard those words on your lips, that you whisper in your sleep

when you are restless and your heart cannot stop pounding

inside your chest to be set free of its relentless tasks

of the prison that is your life, to which you enslave all the parts of your

body?”

Cassius began to sweat,

and was angry,

and said

“You are only a crippled child,

what question could you ask

that I could not?”

And Antiochus spoke.

His voice was a cold breeze

and quickly silenced the assembly,

and they pressed their hands to their stomachs

and quickly drew their robes around them

and shuddered

as if they knew not where they were or where they were going

and were lost on a foreign road with no stars to guide them

all stars dead in the ground

“He wants to know,”

Antiochus said,

“what happens when we die.”

And he said, then:

the universe is dark around us

a mass of stars and air

but as thick as the wood of the trees

and it is into it that we go

when our bodies are killed

and we are only killed

only killed

killed by time and killed by life

i promise you, i promise you this!

that there is no such thing as a natural death

and being born is a sentence of death

and giving birth is an act of murder

every one of you have murdered your sons

you have murdered all of them.

and that is what being human means

and it is the physical shock of this

being born as what you are

the unbearable trauma

that forces the soul from its shell

as a man who clings desperately

to the edge of a cliff

may be made to release his hands

by a fierce wind.

There have been many that have said

that death is like a deep sleep

but it is not peaceful and it is not restful

and the ones that have told you this

seek only to make themselves feel better

better about what life is

but I do not care for your feelings

because your feelings are meaningless, completely

and utterly

meaningless

weightless.

Death is a great horror:

immediately upon leaving the body

the deceased human being becomes the sole spectator

of a marvelous panorama of hallucinatory visions

all things became the cloudless sky

and a mountain of clearest glass

opens up from the blackness

and punctuates the air above it with it’s fingers

and causes pure death to rain towards him

and there are no words to describe

what it is truly like

you cannot know it

it as if god himself

had bled out onto the ground

and everywhere, everywhere

is the stain of it

we are soaked in it

and it all smells of copper

but this is false!

it is a spectre

it is a phantom

anguish of a writhing spirit

reflected against the purest backdrop of nothingness

because, oh, the death of a god! the pain of his blood!

that would give meaning.

But there is no god in death!

you will not see him, you will not find him.

god is deathless.

what use does god have for death?

that father of all things

what use has he for a broken toy? what use has he for the shattered vase,

the broken vessel?

what use has god for death?

and what use has god for the dead?

when you die you pass out of god’s realm.

you pass from his sight.

and the spirit stays

cocooned in the glass mountain

wrapped in those beautiful un-lights

until, whispered into his ear

those cold, nothing words

shudder downwards in a spiral

and, like earth spinning into water

broken apart into pieces unlimited in number

their very force causes deep lines of fracture

to appear in the very face of the mountain

those awe sounds and radiances

first pitch upwards

rising screams and calls

and then finally cease altogether

the silence echoing everywhere

lingering in space

and through every time

and the visions of the Afterdeath stop

and in one clean perfect moment

of absolute, impenetrable nothingness

everything simply

stops.

But in grief we do not claw our chests

we do not tear our clothes

we do not gnash our teeth, for though it lasts as long as it possibly can

there is no suffering

and there is no lack of suffering.

No joy

no lack of joy

there is no cause

and no cause of causes.

God, the Great Pitier,

is not present to keep the tally or to write your name.

There is no death.

Because there is no life.

This is the question

and this is the answer.

We are all trapped together

we are all piled together,

with no order

just a pile of limbs and faces and legs and fingers

and you may cry out

please, please, please release me

please let me breathe

please let me stand

but there will never be any reply

as there was never any cry to reply to.

Once you have the answer

your life is over

all of you here

if you have heard my voice then

your life is over

your life is over.

Because you sought truth

and now you have it.

Death is Truth

and Truth is Death.