Given that they may have actually, really, honestly, sincerely found the fabled lost city of Atlantis, according to a story on cnn.com, it made me re-evaluate my idea of the perfect afterlife.
Not that I'm sure that there IS an afterlife, of course, but there may be one waiting for me, and I know what I want to see.
Forget the angels. Put down those harps. Lock the pearly gates. (And what does that mean, anyways? 'Pearly' gates? Are they draped in jewelry or something?)
When I kick the bucket, what I want to see is a clean, well-lit display room. The kind you might see in a used-car dealership, for example, or better yet, at the Art Gallery of Ontario. High ceilings. Bright lights. Perhaps a uniformed guard standing in the corner, looking bored.
And what is exactly in this room?
Nothing much. Just pictures on the wall, that's all. Beneath the pictures will be a one or two paragraph caption. Clean, bold type. Easy to read.
Yeah, yeah, yeah -- but the content, right? What's it all about, Alfie?
Again, nothing much. Just the mysteries of the universe finally, unquestionably explained.
After all, I'd be dead, right? If you can't find out the answers when you're dead, then what's the point of it all?
So, this is what I'd like to see:
A picture of Dealey Plaza, Dallas Texas, November 22, 1963. The death of J.F.K., if you haven't guessed it already. And then beneath the picture would be an explanation of what really happened. Oswald did it. Oswald didn't do it. Oswald did it, but others did too. Whatever. I just want the truth. And, contrary to what Jack Nicholson may believe, I think I could handle it, being dead and all. Let me have it.
Then I move on, wandering through this lovely room, listening to the soothing, pleasantly bland muzak that drifts along with me.
I come to a picture of stars. Not 'stars' as in Pauly Shore and Don Knotts, but 'stars' as in 'celestial wonders of light'. Beneath the stars, two words, in bold: 'Big bang'. Followed by an explanation I can understand.
You getting the drift? It's simple, really. Show me the pyramids -- then explain how they were built. The Loch Ness monster? Why not; I've always wondered about that mythical (?) beast. How about ghosts? Are they real or not? I just want to know, is all.
Others may want to spend eternity in God's loving embrace. Good for them. Myself, I think that could get stifling after awhile. He's got a hell of a grip, God does. (Maybe He could be waiting in the room after the display room?) I just want to know what it's all about. I want all the mysteries of life solved, explained, put to bed.
At least, that's what I thought.
But then I saw that article about the finding of Atlantis, and something just felt...wrong.
Atlantis is not supposed to be found.
Charlie Brown is not supposed to kick the football.
The Red Sox are not supposed to win the World Series.
If Atlantis is found, and the Loch Ness Monster is found, then they're real, and if they're real, then they're not mythical anymore.
And when you take away the mythical, then you take away that wonderful, golden layer of life that elevates us.
(Then again, I'll be dead when I'm finding all of this stuff out, right? So maybe it won't matter much. Maybe, being dead, I'll want all the answers I can get. Because eternity sounds really, really long to me, and I'll need something to think about.)
But I ain't dead yet.
So maybe Oswald did it, and maybe he didn't (and I have a theory, of course, but that's for another, later, epic-length entry), and maybe the Bermuda triangle really is out there, and ghosts do actually exist, but if you happen to find out any of these answers, do me a favor, okay?
Don't let me know.
