The Art of Writing Posthumous Papers

O.K. Mantz

In an unlit cave, much resembling Charonium, the scent of ancient familiarity displaced oxygen and strange grey vapours hung like thieves in the air, dangling from stalactites without any ambition to cling to life. The mist swayed back and forth, breathing, as it were, with a ghostly passion that lacked care for the present and only existed with a constant desire for the past or perhaps that which lay ahead. Only by observing the vapours curl and recurl with a constant, yet terribly sedated speed did it become possible to estimate the distance from one end to the other and hypothesize the shape of the otherwise impenetrable cave. Circular and approximately two metres tall, the room felt damp; every exhale echoed through the space and every inhale reverberated through the water droplets and became hushed through the shadows in the room. Only one entrance adorned the outer edge: a doorway only a quarter of the height of the cave and as wide as the humerus of a man. This entrance, however, is not where the vapours arrive from. Nothing enters through, but the vapours hiss and sneak out to run their way from the cave and disperse into the world. For the origin of the mist lies within, is perpetually renewed by the bleak and sombre work of the inhabitants within. If one presses one’s ear tightly against the entrance slit, a muffled chant becomes more clear; a cluster of deep voices rumbles against the rock and makes the stalactites quiver. A song becomes manifest, an elegy that reveals the work of the unseen choir.

Mor … tem … hom … i …. nis …. per

Mor … tem … hom … i … nis … per

Mor … tem … hom … i … nis … per

Mor … tem … lo … quen … di.

But if one presses one’s ear even tighter against the limestone of the cave and clasps one’s eyes so that the surrounding darkness permeates in through the pores and into the very body until finally reaching the soul, the sounds morph and change form to become increasingly more meaningful.

In the womb of death is nature finely dressed;

What souls oft thought, but ne’er so well expressed.

O human race fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?

Only shadows evince truth when projected with light on the wall.

Within the tight space huddled six ghostly pale figures, all of them with extravagantly long, wine coloured robes, the edges lined with gold and silver, and each collar adorned with a precious stone tied to a single worn thread: amethyst, peridot, topaz, sapphire, citrine, and crystal quartz. Every one of them was blind, their eyelids grossly gnarled together, and even if sunlight would ever pierce through the thick cavernous walls, their eyes would not part. But contrary to their sight, the capacity for speech remained with a zealous fervor and their vocal cords vibrated in a perpetual state of chanting. Their hands, in proportion to the rest of their frame, were massive, yet motioned with such peculiarity that they could hold naught but the knife that lay before them. Like flat tables were their laps and they sat in the form of the most perfect circle, touching each other, their “tables” before them as an altar carrying a quill on the far right, a single sheet of paper directly beneath their line of sight, and on the far left a blood stained kukri blade. And in the centre stood a metre tall iron-welded inkwell filled to the brim with jet black ink.

Gradually their chanting amplified and grew almost deafening, but then suddenly stopped altogether. An eerie silence spread thin between the vapours and then in unison the six huddling figures reached for the kukri with their left and pointed the blades straight up into the air. On a sharp vowel cry, they dropped their arms down and plunged the blades into their chests, flinching not as the metal sliced through their flesh and cracked their bones, allowing blood to spurt out in copious heaps. The startled onlooker will witness them remaining seated, hands still on the kukri as though the morning had suddenly and unexpectedly dawned and they had all turned to stone. But then an extraordinary change occurred: the grey vapour in the cave thickened as from within the silhouettes a mist was extricated and swirled along the outer edge. Each vapour that issued from the people had a different shade, a faint hue that matched their respective stones: amethyst, peridot, topaz, sapphire, citrine, and crystal quartz. As the souls swept beneath and around the stalactites, the hues meshed together, but always remained distinct.

It was the souls that picked up the quills, dipped them in ink, and then began to write on the blank piece of papyrus on the figures’ laps that still sat as rigid as rock. Fluttering back and forth, the feathers scrawled viciously until the entire page was filled with hieroglyphics from the top left to the bottom right. And once the page was filled, the quills bounced up and down above the inkwell and then settled down on the table just as they were before. Then the vapours of varying hues wafted down upon the cream coloured paper and plucked each character from the papyrus and lifted up each word until the paper sat as blank and untouched as though no soul had ever written upon it. Once the words were cleared and cradled within the caring arms of each vapour, the souls percolated through the limestone entrance till the cave was rid of any mist.

For the span of an hour, the six sat motionless and waited for their souls to return; they had escaped the cave and carried the wisdom that the six had discovered posthumously into the world. By this method has the world evolved for centuries: from the birth of man who, when the souls of these six chosen visited him in his brutish state, began to kindle fire and cultivate and sustain his life, from the first civilization that gained knowledge of constructing towns and cities, to the world of technology with its ever increasing advancements, and to the world that seeks wisdom of both the present, past, and also the after. Every grand conception man has ever had never once came from within any depth of his own mind, but from the six souls that carried every thought to the world at large. For here precisely was the price they paid: these six could partake in nothing besides this occupation, and this they would be forced to partake in for time eternal until God himself grew weary of old age. Thought, ideas, conceptions of the other and the self can only be derived once the self has perished and the soul transcended the shackling perspective of the mortal eye. This, however, man cannot achieve, for once he dies, he may never return to his body, and if he may never transcend, man would remain a brute incapable of ever learning, growing, changing, becoming for time eternal until God himself grew weary of old age.

Wafting upward through the damp floor came the six souls in their respective hues. But suddenly the earth quaked and rumbled and such a pandemonium was brought about that the entire cave trembled as though before the Lord. Such a din escaped sounding like a groan that the stalactites quivered and shook, until one of them (a thin and brittle one) broke off and shattered on the ground. Yet the chaos made the figures of stone tremble also until the threads holding the precious stones (the amethyst, peridot, topaz, sapphire, citrine, and crystal quartz) snapped and the gems came loose and toppled to the floor. The souls gasped and the earthquake ceased at once, creating an air of heart-wrenching silence only elongated by the agony of the entire cosmos as it watched the stones drop in conformation to gravity, bounce once upon the ground, and then fracture on the second time.

A miraculous thing then happened: the six bodies began to move! First they blinked, their eyes still grown together, bewildered and disoriented, and then glanced without seeing around the cave, soulless and empty. The vapours hung suspended, wide-eyed and mouth agape, feeling suddenly detached from their mortality. Swiftly moving to close the distance between the entrance and the figures, the souls realized their fate: they were barred from entering the six, for they were now alive, and the soul may not enter the living, only enter the dead to bring them to life. However, if they died now, the souls must perish too, for a body that kills itself without a soul must lose even the privilege of death. Though the two combined all at once received twice the wisdom that they had before, as now they had the woken body and the sempiternal soul rather than just the one or the other. But now the body without the soul (or the soul without the body) could no longer pick up the quill, nor dip the hollow shaft in ink. And upon the cognizance of their incapacitation, the entrance door of limestone began to shut, until no slit remained visible. Both the soul and the body (or the body and the soul) persisted unceasing as before, with more wisdom and more knowledge than even God perhaps possessed, but with no means to write, no means to tell, no means to exit from Charonium and disperse their revelations to the world of men. They were trapped within the cave with a mind transcended passed the heavens, but with silent, unvibrating vocal cords that could never elucidate their ascendency.

And thus the six souls of amethyst, peridot, topaz, sapphire, citrine, and crystal quartz ceased to write posthumous papers—and besides these six in their vaporous cave, the entire world halted its rotation and suddenly stood very still.