Two Dead Men Dream of Death

Arthur

“I keep having this damned dream,” I tell Merlin over breakfast.

“Eh? A dream?” Merlin gives me a disinterested look. His pinky juts out below the handle of his teacup. The ancient shapeshifter has assumed his final form: that of a civilized old fairy.

“No, not a dream exactly. More of a … fantasy? Before I truly fall asleep. Do you have these habitual thoughts that you use to … Hell, I’m not sure how to describe it. You know how, the night before a battle, some soldiers will count sheep?”

“Of course. We all cope with insomnia in our own idiosyncratic way. I, for one, conjure up memories of my sexual conquests. I often think about your sister. It’s a natural psychological process, the background noise of a healthy mind rising to the surface. I wouldn’t worry.”

“Yes, but this seems less … benign. The whole thing centers around my sword.”

“Oh, Excalibur, you mean?”

“No, the other one. The one I pulled out of that rock. It’s right there, in front me. Only it’s stuck in the stone again. I’ve got my hands around the hilt and I’m yanking at the damn thing and—””

“Ah. Have you read Sigmund Freud? I know you’re not an admirer of the modernists, but perhaps you might find he has some pertinent insights in this case. You can’t deny the psychosexual undertones—”

“No, no, no. Let me finish, please. The thing is … What bothers me is … my plan … in this fantasy … if I can get the sword loose … is to run myself through with it. I have this desperate, irrational need to disembowel myself, to just twist the bastard in my guts and bleed out.”

“In the orient, they call it seppuku,” Merlin offers, worthlessly.

“What? Listen, I’m not sure I’m expressing myself clearly … I’m standing there, pulling on it and pulling on it, thinking about nothing but the sight of my own gore dripping from the end of the blade, just consumed by the most ghastly fantasies … And it will not budge. Do you remember how easy it was for me the first time?  It was effortless. And all those exhausted men, standing around, stewing in their sweat and fatigue, applauding with envious admiration … That’s how it was, right? I’m not misremembering, am I? … But now somehow I cannot replicate the feat in my own imagination. And we are talking about my imagination here. I’m not completely asleep. I’m still in control of my own mind, so … Why can’t I do it? My power should be absolute.”

“Impotence. Erectile dysfunction. It’s nothing shameful. I’ve been there myself, occasionally. Perhaps I could mix up a potion for you.”

“But then, in the morning, the desire is completely gone.” I continue, ignoring Merlin’s interjection.  “I’d never think of hurting myself now. Not with that or any sword. Not even with this butter knife. The whole thing would be shameful if it didn’t feel significant. Like a prophecy, or a dark omen.”

“But how could it possibly foretell anything at all?” Merlin shrugs. “This is Avalon. There is no difference between waking and dreaming here.”

Thích Quảng Đức

Alabaster gates. Cotton clouds. Seraphim plucking harps. It all looks like something out of a slapstick American cartoon. This is the place where hungry cats and sly mice go when their juggling match with a lit stick of dynamite ends in a draw.

The smiling man at the gate is neatly dressed in a tan suit, and hands out porcelain rocks to the new arrivals. He looks through his bag for a knick-knack with my name on it. “Not your old name,” he softly rebuffs me when I try to tell him who I am, hoping to make the process easier for him. “You have a name that even you do not know, yet.” 

After a time spent searching that would have seemed unbearably long, were we not in a kingdom beyond time, and had I not spent decades training my consciousness to recognize time as an illusion, the tan-suited man realizes a mistake has been made. I do not belong here. There is no white stone for me, no new name. He tells me I cannot come inside, but he’s too polite to order me to leave entirely. Too polite to insist on whatever the alternative is. So I loiter.

A gargantuan ringed binder leans against Heaven’s outer walls. Each of its pages is a sheet of purest gold. It looks tacky, but I don’t dare share that thought with my heavenly hosts. The gold pages are engraved with words written in an alphabet I’ve never seen before. As I look more closely, I notice that letters rarely repeat. I can’t discern any rhythm or pattern to their arrangement. If this language has punctuation or grammar, they’re invisible to me. Frankly, it all looks very fake, but here I am, intact and unburnt. How can I deny the truth of that?

An eternity passes. Or doesn’t. Below, I imagine, the earth persists in a state of eternal war. My anxieties, which I toiled so hard to exile in life, tell me there is no way for me to intercede now. But I have not given up the hope of reincarnation, or of passing beyond knowing and desire into absolute peace.

Somehow I find a gas station and fill a plastic jug. Heaven is inexplicably full of automobiles. Every one of them an American make, a classic model. As I douse myself, I notice that the gasoline has a licorice odor. I’ve forgotten how it’s supposed to smell.

I ask the man at the gate for a light. He shakes his head. No one smokes here.