"On What Is True," part 12

Our true story continues, with negligible inaccuracies. The dead man saw no way for things to get worse. If only he had looked inside himself to see what he could not imagine. The winds hit his lifeless corpse and began ripping off his skin. Worms spilled out, and nests of various insects scattered about simultaneously. The little bits that were left inside him were toxic, and the parasites learned not to poison themselves on them. “These parts,” said the man, “are the little that I was, and all the rest was my funeral dressing. Why did I fool myself and others with this costume now disassembled before me? Of all my truly unforgivable and unholy failures, my failure to destroy this only real part of me, poisonous as it is, is my greatest failure of all. How did I fail to destroy myself when nothing about me was worth saving?” The storm’s rain flooded his hollow corpse, and in that puddle of decay he saw a murky vision. He saw one Eye of God. It was solid blue with no iris. It looked not out at him but inward to his hollow. At that moment, two tiny travelers began on either side of his hollow, walking toward one another. When they met in the pit of his corpse, God’s Eye became luminous bright. “20 footsteps each,” God called out, with a Mouth out of view. At that moment the man’s toxic parts started growing. They were awful cancers composed of knotted discolored tissues and slimy leaching fluids. The cancers slowly and gradually filled up his hollow as the water with God’s Eye became displaced. Then the insects from before swarmed upon him, collectively placing his skin over his new insides and chewing together the seams. Yes, the nightmare must now begin. Death was an insufficient punishment. The deadly man leaned up then rose to his feet. A crowd had gathered in horror and disgust. His inner cancers began spreading across his skin. “Don’t help me,” he said, “don’t look, don’t remember.” He felt his inner cancers rustle in agitation. They compose him now and propel him forward. As we know from our teachings, this is the one thing most true of all.

"On What Is True," part 11

As you know, it is all still true that on this day, at this very moment, the greatest storm arrived. It was the final or greatest consequence of the man's divine incompetence. The storm had no purpose. It simply had to come. It was hell on earth. The winds blew so hard they knocked the tree over and uprooted the dead man buried beneath. For a second the electrical energy and kinetic ferocity of the storm brought a glimmer of inner life into the dead man. He saw his storm in that brief but for his dead soul eternal instant. "MY STORM," he thought, "my storm, you come for me, no death can escape you, and here I am at your complete mercy, lifeless and dead all I am; you rip at me and I have no animation to resist. I am your meaningless puppet, not worthy of pity but only disgust. How long will you rage? Why can't I die? Why is pain no different from me?" The storm, not one to stay silent replied, "your storm is inside you. You are the storm. Your rage of pain is your undivine eternal damnation. You are worthy not even to enter hell. This is you. And it gets worse." How I wish this were untrue, how I wish and wish and wish. But it's so very, very true, is it not, my friend? Is it not?

"On What Is True," part 10

Have no doubts. After the disinterested attendees filed out of the funeral, the man was left with the first real laborious task of his life, to bury himself. Looking at his corpse, he was unenthusiastic about needing to carry it. The body the man left himself was not very strong anymore, and he knew that carrying his body would be tiresome. He took his corpse from his coffin and dragged it out the front door. It was not his concern really where he buried himself, so he just found a nearby shaded place under a tree. He began digging and while appreciating the shade he realized that his work was made more difficult by the root system he needed to cut through. As he dug, he occasionally glanced to his corpse and was ashamed to be seen with it in public. After getting almost deep enough, he stopped caring about digging, and he rolled his body into the pit. Seeing his body collapsed and lifeless at the bottom made him feel empty inside. "Why did God have to make me be the one to bear that man? And why was he so unable to follow the Will and Grace of God? All he had to do was have faith in God and do God's Will." The man continued burying himself and when all the dirt and severed root were tossed back to the hole, he felt weary and headed to the man's home. "It is time now to dismantle his life, piece by piece. It is cursed through and through." This I regret to confirm is true, and as dark as it may seem, the nightmare to follow had not yet even begun.

"On What Is True," part 9

Regretfully I must remind us not to forget the following. After killing himself, the man was assigned his greatest shame, far greater than the one that caused his suicide. He was to be the sole eulogizer at his funeral. Those who attended did so very regretfully, forgetting that the normal social expectations of paying respect should not apply to the man. The man stepped before his corpse and said to the regretful attendees: "As you are all disinterested in the man, his life, and his death, and rightfully so, I will speak directly to him and not to you." "You were a burden to the world, to God, and to yourself. We are glad you ended your life. God opened to you the doors of paradise twice, and both times you failed to enter. God regrets giving you that second chance after your first failure. Like the world and God, I must bear the consequences of your failure, even though you are gone. But to have left us, God, and yourself was necessary, and we are all grateful that necessity prevails." Sadly this is all entirely true.

"On What Is True," part 8

Unfortunately, the following is (not) true. The man did not jump on a block. The man walked against reality, and protected himself by walking against himself too. His motivation was simple: change as little as possible. Freeze yourself, but pretend to change. But curiously this fear of death placed him very often wanting to die, which in fact resulted involuntarily and at the least convenient times.

"On What Is True," part 7

It is not yet false that the man had jumped on a block. Three witnesses corroborate this account, with very little discrepancy between them: The man landed, then fell to the ground below him. He jumped again to the block, but forces pulled him back down. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stay on the block above. But neither the man nor the witnesses believe this to be true. They only know that this was the lie that made all the other stories become true.

"On What Is True," part 6

Yes, the man jumped on a block and wrote his book, "On the True, the False, and What is Really the Case." He wrote it with his left hand, thinking it had something unexpected to say. He had no way to know for sure, so he trusted its originality. The final sentence it wrote was, "To be broken, to be humble, to kill, to die, all these we rejoice in. But to be the case is the saddest, saddest...." This all can be verified.