The Egg

I've been extremely busy this weekend and haven't had time to prepare my weekly babbling of pseudo-existential bullshit. Instead, I will provide you with this short story, brought to my attention by my dear friend Kim. It resonates with me. It's called "The Egg" by Andy Weir.

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You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

Out of Carrots. Out of Sticks.

Gambit is the most high-maintenance, and for lack of a better term, "emo" dog that I've ever dealt with. He has very severe separation anxiety. When my roommate's out, he is a complete emotional wreck. Every single time. He has no interest in food or treats. He has very limited interest in playing. He just mopes around the house, and he cries and whines at the door and at the windows, waiting for her to come home. Even if he's sitting right next to me or on my lap, all he does is whine and whine. He's started doing this thing where he "howls" at night if he has to sleep in my room. He doesn't sleep, he just cries all night. If I leave him out of the crate, he scratches at the door, or puts his face next to my bed and cries. I got 3 hours of sleep last night because he won't leave me alone unless I crate him, and even crated he doesn't stop.

During the day he's rarely more than a foot away. I tend to pace around the house when I'm on the phone with somebody, and even if I'm having an hour-long conversation where I'm slowly going in circles the whole time, he's still right next to me EVERY step of the way. If the dog and I are home alone, and I have to take the trash out, I may be gone for 1 minute tops. But when I come back inside, Gambit acts as though he hasn't seen me in a million years. He jumps from the floor up to shoulder level over and over and over. If I'm carrying things, he knocks them out of my hands. If I ignore him he starts whining loudly or standing right in my path or running between my legs, which is going to trip me someday. It's not just "I'm excited to see you!" It's more like "I thought I'd never see you again!"

This morning, I woke up to a note that Lia was calling in sick and that she just wants to sleep. I realized that I had to leash him and take him outside as soon as he left the crate, otherwise he'd cause a fuss. In the ten seconds it took me to walk from my room to grab the leash and come back, he started barking loudly at 6:30 in the morning, so I had to quick run back in so he would settle down. I took him out and then when I brought him in I realized I couldn't let him off the leash because he'd be loud and whimpery like he always is, and probably start whining outside her door and she'd wake up and I'd get yelled at. I also couldn't crate him because apparently he feels like barking today. So when I prepared his food, I had to hold him with me on the leash. When he was eating, I had to stand there with him leashed while he ate. When I showered, I had to bring him in the bathroom and tie him to the door knob (where he promptly started crying again.) Then I had to immediately bring him back into my room and crate him so I could go to work. He wouldn't get in of course, because he knows that the crate means he's going to be alone. So, I had to pick him up and put him in. Which led to more crying. We can't leave him uncrated or he'll destroy or pee on everything and he's not interested in any of his toys or chew things while we're gone because he's too depressed to satisfy his own boredom. This is what most days are like.

I was doing some research. This is the worst kind of separation anxiety, in which we should probably be taking him to the vet because he needs to be on a constant supply of anti-anxiety drugs (and may need to be for months or years.) I'm also learning that the worst thing for a dog like Gambit is to be faced with a full-blown version of what he's distressed about, like for example, every work day where he's alone all day. And from what I've been seeing, the only way that we can treat his problems with training is to do the thing where we gradually leave for longer and longer periods of time, and this process takes WEEKS. But that won't work in this case because every time we are both at work he reverts back to full-blown distress again. I think that's why he's been getting worse these last two weeks. He's even started to become aggressive towards other dogs, especially the landlord's dogs downstairs, and that obviously can't continue. He cannot handle a living in a home situation like this. He needs to be with someone who is ALWAYS home. At least until his problem goes away, which again could take months or years. So unless we find a daily dog-sitter or take him to doggy day-care (I assume that we wouldn't be able to afford either one) we're pretty much screwed.

I suspect that even if I worked with him on this problem every day, that it wouldn't fix it as long as he's still all alone during the work day. I can try to train him to stop jumping, or barking, or being dog aggressive, or "leave it." But those aren't the problems. Those are all symptoms of the separation anxiety and they won't go away until that's fixed. That's something that I can't cure unless one of us is home all day, every day. If a kid was his "dog-years" age and acting this way, he would be in extreme psychological counseling. I love the dog very much, but I don't feel as though we're equipped to handle this.

Cauterizing the Wound

The sky was orange from the far-off city lights. I think that's what I'm going to remember the most. Clouds covered the sky as though they were large splatters of paint on a dark canvas. The two of us stood at the field on the top of the hill, letting the flames at our feet dwindle in the wind.

I suppose it goes without saying that we were both there for different reasons. He stood in silence watching the pages burn one after another, and as each one withered into ash and ember, I think it soothed his pain. But the hurt would stay hidden for the time-being. He was too stoic for that. He stared at the ground, watching the book slowly get eaten away. Instead, I focused on the sky. The clouds, the stars, the breeze, the temperature... It was all so very familiar and it brought me back to summers lost. One in particular.

But I didn't come there for closure or nostalgia. In fact, I didn't come there for me at all. But I realized that 12 AM looked exactly like 11:59 did the minute before. Different days, same moment. As such, the end of summer now looked exactly like the one I remember from years ago. The year may be different, but I was still locked in the same moment. People change. Times change. Friendships come and go. The power of human recognition never fails to amaze me. But standing in that moment again felt like being back in time, watching the future that I've lived in the meantime stretching out before me; except this time if felt like some distant future instead of a memory. It felt like everything between then and now peeled away, and for just a moment, I held a small piece of innocence again. I had been offered a glimpse back to those times when I was filled with youthful exuberance and optimism, believing that years in the future, I will have found my place and my freedom. I felt like I had a destiny, waiting for me out there somewhere.

It's a funny thing to have the weight of your memories crashing upon you all at once. It makes the rest of your life seem trite and inconsequential next to those halcyon days that you'll never truly get to live through again. If I ever had the opportunity to trade in everything I've accomplished to go back to those moments... Well, sometimes I can't promise I wouldn't do it.

He stomped out the last vestiges of the fire below, scattering a thousand tiny remnants into the wind. I took one last look at the world around me; a scene from a memory that I may not ever see again. But it was there, and I had to take stock of it. The cold night crept in again and I began to realize that it truly was turning into autumn, no matter how much I wanted to hang on. We turned and started to descend the hill, and though I came with nothing, I left behind another wasted summer.