On/Off

Iam sat on the bench in the lobby, totally uninterested in the convention going on around him. People in black robes flitted to and fro, never acknowledging his existence, even though he should have been quite conspicuous in his yellow, pink, and green Hawiian shirt. What Iam was really interested in was the cardboard sign stuck carelessly to the nearby office door: “Free Food to All Comers.” The door was closed and locked – he’d checked it a couple of times – so he was forced to sit on the bench with all these depressive Death-Worshipers wandering around him, waiting for his free food to become available.

Somebody opened the door from the inside, and a little knot of black-robed people wandered out, and zig-zagged carelessly down the hallway. Iam made his move, and dashed across the crowded corridor, trotting to get to the food before anybody else.

It wasn’t a bad spread, especially since it had been assembled by a group that was known for habitual depression and disinterest. Iam gleefully reaped the benefits of their work, piling up chicken, potatoes, broccoli, and some sort of fruit custard that he just liked the color of. He then returned to the bench and ate, retaining that childlike smile all the time.

As he started on his second drumstick, a dark shape appeared to his left and plopped down next to him on the bench. His smile dissolved as he realized it was one of the Death-Worshipers, and the instinct to slide away was overpowering. The Worshiper didn’t seem offended, and in fact didn’t even seem to notice Iam sitting there.

For several minutes, they co-inhabited that bench, Iam growing more and more uncomfortable all the time. He discovered that, to his frustration, there was no other seat available in the immediate vicinity, and he was much too hungry and lazy to go searching for one. So, he took refuge in that uniquely human ice-breaker.

“Nice weather we’re having,” he mumbled through a mouthful of potatoes.

“The weather is the weather. It’s not nice or foul. It’s nice for us or foul for us. Your objective labels don’t even make sense to me.” Iam was now willing to reconsider the proposition of transporting his food and himself to a more friendly location.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s the truth, insofar as the truth does exist.” Iam made a face.

“It’s gotta suck to live like that, not believing in anything.”

“It’s honest, at least. Well, not honest on a human level, but honest on a cosmic level, insofar as honesty and levels exist.” Iam craned his neck and searched desperately for a conveniently-located seat. “There aren’t any more benches on this hallway,” said the Death-Worshiper, solemnly. For a second, Iam thought he might have offended the man, but then, he realized that the man, insofar as he existed, probably didn’t care. Still, the Worshiper’s presence made him uncomfortable.

“Why hold these big, expensive conventions every year if you don’t care about anything?”

“To obtain converts.”

“What, converts to a life of misery?” Iam then shoveled some broccoli into his mouth, as if for emphasis.

“Converts to a life of understanding. Showing them the truth, insofar as it exists, is the kind and honest thing to do, insofar as kindness or honesty exists.” Through all his speech, the man hadn’t moved once, and this more than anything else made Iam wish he was somewhere else.

Suddenly, he was relieved, as a trio of his acquaintances passed by, easily identified by their shirts, which were almost as blindingly colorful as Iam’s.

“Hey! Donald!” Iam yelled, standing up and waving. Donald turned, and his group paused, and moved in his direction. They shook hands.

“Hey, Iam, how are you?”

“I’m good, how are you?”

“I’m pretty good. What brings you here?” Iam pointed unashamedly at the “Free Food” sign. Donald chuckled.

“I’m hardly surprised.”

“What have you been up to?”

“Listen, I don’t have a whole lot of time to talk…I’m going to see the Exhibit.”

“The what?”

“Hey, it’s starting in ten minutes, come on!” said one of Donald’s friends, urgently.

“Look, Iam, we’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later!”

“Bye, Don. See you at the Christmas party.” Iam stood there, watching as his friends disappeared into the bowels of the convention center. Then, they were gone, and he was once again trapped on the little bench with the most depressive person he’d ever met. He finished his food in silence, and then thought to ask something.

“What’s the Exhibit?” he said to the black-clothed man, who still hadn’t moved from his solemn station.

“It’s the way we get most of our converts.”

“But what is it?”

“It’s just a sort of demonstration that shows people the truth.”

“Which truth?”

“The only truth, the One Truth, that’s what we call it. The only real thing that we can know, insofar as knowing is possible.” Then, mercifully, the man stood up and wandered off somewhere. Iam dumped his paper plate in a trashcan and headed towards the exit, but then, saw a sign.

“See the amazing Truth Exhibit, and have the One Truth revealed to you. Guaranteed to change your life.” An arrow pointed in the direction in which his friends had departed. He turned around, and headed for the marked door. Then, a crowd of black-cloaked figures appeared and marched chaotically and disinterestedly towards the exit. Their presence put him off somehow, as though The Exhibit might turn him into one of them, and he left, belly full of free food.

 

Iam stood in front of the sign pointing towards The Exhibit. He didn’t know what had compelled him to come back, but he suspected that it was the idea that a single demonstration could convince over three million people to join this strange religion called Death-Worship. He wandered down the hallway, passing a warmly-attired woman sitting on his bench. He’d have to remember to talk to her after he was done.

The hallway curved onwards, dead-ending in a high wall with a gigantic train-station-style clock on it. The Exhibit was going to open in ten minutes. He took his place in line and waited.

After the doors opened, the line began moving eagerly. Iam counted the money in his wallet. He hoped he’d have enough for a ticket. Then, as he approached the ticket-booth, he noticed something peculiar.

“Would you like a ticket?” asked the girl behind the window, who was a Death-Worshiper.

“Uh…yes,” replied the next customer. The counter-girl handed her a ticket with no fuss, and the woman accepted it. Then, she waited. After a while, she asked “How much for the ticket?”

“They’re free.” Iam was thunderstruck. What was it with these Death-Worshipers and all the free giveaways? How could they maintain a working organization if they gave everything away for free. With a sense of dread, he realized that they probably just didn’t care about the money. He suddenly didn’t feel like experiencing The Exhibit any longer, but the line would not let him escape. He took his ticket with shaky, sweating fingers, and followed the throng. The line wandered across the floor of a huge convention floor, which, besides the people, was occupied only by an enormous silver dome in the center. Iam guessed that The Exhibit was housed in that dome. Once again, he felt panicked, and once again, his attempts to leave were foiled by the pressing masses, who were apparently quite a bit more curious than he.

Before he knew it, he reached the door of the dome, a large circular opening. Great, he thought, the one time I want the line to be slow. A Death-Worshiper at the door showed him in.

The dome was divided into a honeycomb of cubicles, each of which housed an apparatus frighteningly similar to a dentist’s chair. He was shown into one of these rooms, and then sat down in the chair. His resolve not to be converted was steadfast, even as the chair flattened out and tilted so that he was pointed at the ceiling of the cubicle.

A projector clicked to life, startling him. The words “The demonstration is about to begin” appeared on the ceiling. Something hard pressed against his forehead.

The image on the ceiling changed to a wiring diagram. A pleasant female voice spoke.

“The device to which you are attached is a transcranial magnetic stimulator,” said the voice. “This technology was developed in the late eighties as a means to study the brain. Scientists discovered that by passing a strong, rapidly-oscillating magnetic field through the skull, they could turn on or turn off various parts of the brain.” The image changed again, this time to a labeled cross-section of the brain. A large red arrow pointed to a little peanut-shaped structure near the front of the cross-section.

“The marked structure is called the ‘bilateral existential cortex,’ and is believed by many scientists to be the source of our feeling of individuality. This is the area that will be deactivated by the transcranial magnetic stimulator.” Iam wanted out, but the Death-Worshiper had strapped his arms and legs to the chair, and locked the cubicle door behind him.

“Those who experience The Demonstration report many things.” A bulleted list appeared on the ceiling. “These include a sense of nothingness, a feeling of vertigo, a loss of spirituality, a oneness with the universe, and, most importantly of all, a revelation of the One Truth. That truth is the irrelevance, and indeed the illusion, of human consciousness, and all the ideas, concepts, words, and thoughts that come with it. The procedure will start in thirty seconds. Please try to relax.” Iam did not relax. Instead, he strained against his straps, bared his teeth, yelled for help, and tried to shift his head so that the hard plate was no longer pressed against it. Thirty seconds after the ceiling went dark, something happened.

Iam lay there. His body was a body. It was just a body. Things happened in the body, and the body did things. Contained inside the body was something called the head, and inside the head was something called the brain. And the brain was an organ, just like the organ called the liver. The brain excreted things called thoughts, just like the liver might excrete bile. These thoughts wandered around the brain for a while, and had contests with other thoughts, but they were no more than little electrical pulses wandering around aimlessly in a three-pound hunk of squishy meat. Iam was not Iam, Iam was a body, a squishy thing that happened to move around and say words and pretend to like situation comedies and pretend to cut his lawn when the neighbors complained.

The next day, Iam left his church, sold his car and his house, bought some black robes, and changed his name to Inot. And so did a lot of other people.