“Now it is time that we were going, I to die and you to live, but which of us has the happier prospect is unknown to anyone but God.”
I thought to use the interesting narrative, The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant, as something of a creative prompt, a model off of which to form a criticism; in general proposing to myself the crafting of my own fiction refuting the argument presented. However, it soon flooded my mind that I had recently read a short story already equipped for this task, and remembering with what difficulty I had already inflicted the world with one attempt at the writing of fables, I repented. Yet, one image, not a whole story, came to me, and that I wish to share.
I stand at the door. Many have gone through; none return. I would the keyhole a window make say that I would then be drawing closer to, pressing my face against, that dread unknown. A hydra beside me argues with itself—how his heads twist about each other in coils no mind may follow unscathed, so strange they should one body share—that fire is hot, wind spreads its heat, water is wet, and wind most liberally douses the world in it. It seemed a great contention, and yet a common sense that anyone who has been in the weather knows that the weather changes. I ask of it, I ask of anyone: what is behind this door? Nothing; everything; pain and torment; goodness and pleasure; that which is here; that which is not here. So, consistent with that serpent’s nature every possible truth is told, and a good many lies, leaving me to glean whatever wisdom I may from its many voices.
Distinct, a new voice tells me to take his hand. Beside me a man stands, and I see myself a child to his stature, that he is the full of what I should grow to be. His hand is offered and taken. He says he’s gone through the door, and with him I might travel too; when called to go he says to take his hand.
So is the confused image I see, but hardly a rebuttal to this fable. There is very little of the video’s content I contend with, it is the content absent which troubled the mind. Death is the dragon which should be conquered, and as the video asserts, either with intent or by accidental adoption of narrative commonalities, it is an intruder which holds tyrannical power over men. But what of its invasion, how so? And why this dichotomy of those who accept death and those who contend with it? Has no serious examination of another, older solution been made? For is Christ not indeed a solution to the problem of death?
A serious examination of the subject should be made on these accounts before a solution is accepted: What is the nature of death, and in what state are those who die? What is the nature of man, what is his good and what is his ill? What solutions already exist?
I fear this fable approaches propaganda, a rallying cry to fund scientific research. No matter, for it is of little import what advertisements are employed to awaken the imagination and loose the purses. I would only wish that it were a more honest thing, that it presented man beyond material and death beyond the mere consumption of our bodies.
“ . . . Athelvok, looking on the wonderful Sea, knew why it was that the dead never return, for there is something that the dead feel and know, and the living would never understand even though the dead should come and speak to them about it.”
As an aside, I fear I’ve allotted too small a time for reflection and deep thought. The above is more of a gut reaction than a well formatted essay. However, I feel I’ve already replied to this topic before in two other works, A Reason, and The Grand Fractal.
Tale Told 