Pretend that your life is over a few years ago, you have been living in some kind of pleasant afterlife. You have no real problem. No pressure, no war, no worries, no shame.
If you call it that, the only downside is that you no longer live in the world. Despite all the troubles in secular life, most of your afterlife peers feel a little nostalgic about being “in a thick position again.”
In addition to other activities, the Afterlife community holds a raffle. The award is private – only the winners know what it is and they must sign a non-public agreement.
One week, you win and accept the prize. The administrator congratulates you, you signed the document and he strokes you on his arm.
Change your surroundings immediately.
You are at Costco, cart. You have a vague feeling, this is the moment you just arrived here from other places, but you don’t remember where.
Everything is confusing and familiar at the same time. The hustle and bustle of a busy supermarket. Polished concrete floor and soaring orange pallet racks. In the colorful packaging, there is a great wealth of food and retail goods. And people everywhere.
You feel like a fish that has just been poured into the water, or maybe it’s the first time you notice the water.
You can go in any direction. You will feel overwhelming about the possibilities of bottomlessness around you – not only in Costco, but in the world around you.
Each action creates a new experience. The manipulation of laying around the cart with a chrome frozen cheese stick is like all the math that works, and it feels completely correct. There are many things you can do here. After that, there are more. It just expands and expands.
You will also feel role and responsibility. You have a watch and a phone. Time seems to matter. Your list shows paper napkins, burger pie, bread, cheese, pastel, coke. Oh, right- there was a barbecue later. Linda’s birthday, in the park. It feels good to have something to do.
When you envision an upcoming event, I think of familiar faces, adding another layer to this rich feeling. You have something to do and People can see it. How has this been there? You check out and walk through the cart corral at the entrance.
All you know is that you are crossing the parking lot under some cloudy skies and doing so will make you feel very lucky.
Despite this rich feeling, not all pleasure or frictionless. In the parking lot, when you exit, someone tweets and swears. Maybe you did something wrong.
Also, occasionally, I’ll be shocked by the idea of it. When you exit a lot of stuff, there is a worry bubble in your stomach: maybe you forget what you should buy. If so, some people in the park will be disappointed.
Some of you wise parts kicked here. You recall the past worries that have died. pile. Millions of people may still be stuck in two or three problems. Those will also die and lose experience, just like the Coke display you cannot see when you exit the parking lot.
Drive continues to enhance this bottomless richness and resignation feel. From the streets you pass, each place is where you can go, and everyone has their own unique feeling, just like a row of paintings in a gallery. Every face you see has this effect too – you’ve seen a lot, but if you really look at it, every face is new. Does life always contain an infinite parade of characters and actors?
Cars crawl along the curved ramps of the highway, and every driver and every passenger do something somewhere. The buildings extend to the horizon, filling up with more people, doing things. Besides this, rural life and wilderness. There is infinite things happening and you’ll be embedded in it. As far as you know, this is true in every direction. You have nowhere to go, it is not as dense as it has details and meaning.
You come home, an old duplex apartment, in a community where thorn trees were planted a few years ago. No one else is here. You unload these things onto the counter and place the pie in the refrigerator. There is a note. Carol will come to you after he finishes his work. Paul may have arrived at that time, and he is not sure.
Uncertainty emerges again, what will happen later. Again, you let it rise and retreat. This is the latest of millions of endless troubles. Indeed, the only problem is to stay aware of this.
You have time to do some work on your computer. Monday will be very busy and you want to be ready. This work is not fun, but fundamentally there are a lot to do and some things to do. You love having all these tools and having some space to do your job.
You hear the keys in the back door and feel the richness again – you can see a person and you don’t know which one. A whole afternoon is about to unfold, thousands. (Is this true?
You get up and as you pave the way down the corridor, everything goes away. You return to the calm and problem-free atmosphere of the afterlife, understanding what the prize is for the first time.
“Do you like folding hours?” the administrator asked.
“Oh, yes,” you said, still feeling the ghost of duplex around you. “Really. More than ever.”
***
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