M@ilbox, page 1
M@ilbox
Gabriel Prospero
Published: 2009
Tag(s): "science fiction" India Merlin Celts Hacker Turing Entropy Mystery Road travel Puck Arthur Viviane Ondin "post death"
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MAILBOX
The others know not that in this quarrel we perish
Gabriel Prospero
http://facebook.com/gabriel.prospero
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Characters in this novel are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The others know not that in this quarrel we perish. Back home after
Seth's funeral, Kev sends him a final email, which receives a reply. A voice from beyond the grave, a computer hoax by a Rogerian hacker, a manipulation of no importance? It is in India, following the course of the Ganges, that the discussion will take shape and substance, and come to life.
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Goodbyes
From:
Date: Fri 16/12 16:26
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Goodbyes
Hi Seth,
I know you are not going to answer me, but I wanted to leave this last futile message before Yahoo closes down your mailbox. I went to your cremation early this afternoon. They're all amateurs, pal. Your friends, well those presumed to be so, filed past to say what a fine-looking, sturdy, honest man you were. Well, they didn't know what the hell to say, and it was fairly obvious. The poor crematorium officer in charge behaved exactly as one should never do in this line of work: he was
fawning.
To top it off, your two daughters threw themselves on the coffin crying "I want my daddy!" The old ladies shed a few tears, proclaiming how moved they were. I didn't attend the cremation itself, not being a presumed friend.
I just wanted to send you this last email which shall remain unread. To say what… Well, nothing really…
Kev
From:
Date: Fri 16/12
16:26
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Re: Goodbyes
Hi Kev,
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Sorry for not having replied sooner, but I was busy being dead. Don't get too upset over my two daughters, who are only sobbing over their own misfortunes and their personal comfort whose future is endangered by my definitive absence. Anyway, they find something or other to cry about every day.
What I'm most interested in are my presumed friends. You, who have
been listening in the wings for so many years, must have had a good
laugh. I can just imagine them, cell phone at the ready, racing around to organise the repatriation of my main avatar, henceforth out of commission, by which I mean my body.
"Hello, is that the Premier Visa service? Can you confirm coverage of expenses linked to a death overseas?"
"Yes, of course, Sir, you are covered for an amount not exceeding x euros, you're lucky. Oh, sorry, please accept my condolences… hold the line, I'll get back to you…"
In life you knew me as a man who was a model of social propriety, of politically correct affability, a meekly accepting servant of the system, be it political, economic, fiscal or familial. From a worthy man in life, I intend to be an unworthy one in death.
No but can you believe it! I've got my reasons! Deceased during a business trip to Benares, flattened by the statue of an elephant toppled from its pedestal on the banks of the Ganges, only a stone's throw from the Meer Ghat – Hindu cremations of sandalwood (10,000€), beautiful coloured saris, a gentle light, melodious songs of hope, and reincarnation.
But what? They ship me back off to the Clermont-Ferrand and burn my
body to cinders in a propane furnace (I wouldn't mind knowing how
much that set them back), with by way of consolation the tears, doubtless sincere but of no interest, of my supposed friends, and the wailing, doubtless insincere and in any event hardly unusual, of my two bloody daughters.
You have to admit it's enough to make you want to drop a bomb. I
never thought my exemplary life would be rewarded, but honestly,
that's almost … a declaration of war.
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Anyway, I'll leave you to get over it.
Seth
From:
Date: Fri 16/12
20:26
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Goodbyes
Whoever you are, this is not funny. You are usurping a mailbox which is not yours.
Your IP is located in India. Yeah, it's easy to get hold of, an IP!
From:
Date: Fri 16/12/ 16:26
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Goodbyes
That's enough. Pack it in with the shock, horror act! Okay, so you have some difficulty believing…
Let's say I know you are screwing the PR trainee in the photocopy
room (the one that locks)… See, I know all about you. You believe in rationality, so do I. So unless I'm the old geezer from the photocopier be-stowed with a spark of wicked intelligence by some fairy or other, which in passing tends to suppose that fairies exist, then I can't have died in India and I'm still there, and you have stupidly, but in great pomp, burned someone else to ashes. Or maybe the other world is already equipped
with a wifi modem. Or else I'm someone else who is also extremely well versed about your PR activities.
Look, let's forget the sordid details. I'm sure you'll agree they're just not all that important. My regards to your wife, by the way.
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As you might imagine, I wasn't really in a position to follow the festiv-ities all that well. I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me all about it. I'm not being morbid, I just want to know who said what…No, actually, I couldn't care less, but I want to be part of it…
Seth
From:
Date: Fri 16/12/ 23:26
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Goodbyes
I think it was Paul who went to recover your body. I hope they gave
you a rectal exam to check you weren't transporting any drugs. I don't know any of the details, worst luck. I suppose you must have left instructions regarding cremation. It's a pity about the lack of organ donation – I suppose it wasn't possible to have your remains transported from Benares to Paris without breaking the cold chain.
Paul has always enjoyed doing the dirty work. I think he likes it because it reassures him of his own existence. When the coffin was opened, a powerful odour of curry and cinnamon filled the room. A stench of
clay too. Even if I was quite a distance away, I could smell it strongly.
There was a necklace made of wilted yellowy-orange flowers too. And
also a little sealed copper pot containing water.
Your body was pretty squashed, but I never doubted an instant that it was truly yours.
The atmosphere seemed neither tense nor odd. Everyone was a bit sur-
prised to find themselves there. They exchanged a "whoever would have expected it?" for a "it's so sad, especially for the girls" (note that it is manifestly not considered to be sad for you…).
You're just so weird. I don't want to act as your reporter on your own funeral. If you are a spirit, then why didn't you get a good look at the time?
You're nothing but a lousy, evil-minded dead guy. If I sent you that email last month, it wasn't because I intended you to read it and send some rubbish back, but just to have a last contact. It was dumb. And I'm not quite sure how to say this… Whoever is replying to these emails, I want to stop.
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Goodbyes.
From:
Date: Fri 16/2/ 16:26
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Goodbyes
How appropriate that "s". On "goodbyes", I mean… I hadn't forgotten you but I had a lot of stuff to do today (you know, hymns, poker with the acolytes…)
You wanted to say goodbyes, plural; agreed - we will have several. Or rather "God byes", "God be with you" or should I say "gods", since there are several. In the first case, we can speak of reincarnation; in the second, polytheism.
Before being crushed by Lord Ganesha, the god of good luck and feli-
city, I'd never really had much to do with the gods. I'm not going to say that it was a shock… but I've been in better positions.
I'd never really considered the world in all its mystique. For me, the notion of reincarnation was just words, a joke (more than likely you will reincarnate as … a trainee's thong ;-)). Polytheism was, for me, an ancient religion, mere predecessor to modern monotheism. I think that's how we tend to represent things: as a form of progress, in the same way as the car replaced the horse-drawn carriage and the washing machine took
over from the communal wash-house.
Quite logical, when it all boils down, to transform the forces of nature into gods – springs, sun, moon, stars, oceans, winds – allow you to talk to the rain to ask it to fall, to direct the prayer to what is being prayed for.
But divine rain falls no more frequently than statistics and fluid dy-namics allow, no more frequently than its heretical counterpart. All rather bothersome for that caste of priests – no doubt self-proclaimed –
officiating in the lands of South America. Ignored by an absented-
minded divinity inattentive to the codified signs of its own clergy, said clergy sacrificed masses of young warriors, women and chil
Statistically, does it work?
The brutal forces of nature thereafter became somewhat humanised.
The ruthless ocean became truculent Neptune. A head, a heart, a
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personality, hostile no doubt but open to envy, desire, love and the thirst for power. From the abstraction which was the force of nature came the gods. Avatars, if you like. Avatars of nature. Avatars open to
negotiation.
For these anthropomorphic gods, sacrifice also became symbolic, if
ever present.
And yet the fear of death remains… On that subject, reincarnation fills a gap. We'll talk about that tomorrow. And to quote adepts of Near
Death Experiences, "I'll go find out and I'll get back to you"!
Sorry. Got to go. Someone's on the other line.
Seth
From:
Date: Sat 17/2/ 23:26
To:
Cc:
Subject: Automaton
I've just come up with another reason for your presence among us.
There persists among the literati a certain pretension with respect to the absolute complexity of language and dialogue.
Thinking back to the eighties, I recall a neat little programme named ELIZA which simulated a dialogue with a psychologist. It was based on an algorithm from 1966 and simulated a Rogerian psychotherapist.
ELIZA: "Hello, I am your psychotherapist. Tell me what's bothering you."
Patient: "I'm really anxious".
"Why do you say you are anxious?"
"It's because of my wife."
"Tell me about your family."
"I love my kids."
"I'd like you to tell me about your relationship with your children."
"Nobody loves me."
"Are you bothered by the fact that nobody loves you?"
"Yes, I feel very much alone."
"Perhaps it's got something to do with your sex life, please go on."
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OK, I know, thinking that a conversation with a psychologist can be simulated by fifty four thousand bytes is a bit far-fetched… even so, the software gave quite credible results…
I suppose it could have been perfected. Is that all you are? A pitiable digital rogue, a mere syntactical analyser programmed when you were
alive to speak in your stead?
Kev
From:
Date: Sat 17/2/ 23:26
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Automaton
You're anxious? Perhaps it's got something to do with your sex
life;-))… Interesting but pointless hypothesis. If I am a linguistic robot programmed to automatically reply to your messages then I've absolutely no way of knowing it. I can help you, nevertheless, in your search for the Truth – even if I can't help thinking, more and more each day, that it's the biggest lie ever perpetrated on the poor brain-bound mam-mals that we represent.
I do remember that programme, actually. It was all the rage – "2001, A Space Oddity" and all that – with the public fascination for the perversity of man-machine dialogues. It's odd to imagine that the first of those films featuring a thinking machine encumbered it with such existential problems as to induce it to commit murder. Duty, faithfulness, affection, the behaviour to adopt faced with an indifferent parallelepipedic god, what better reasons to kill, especially if the future victims don't share the thinker's perspective.
If I am what you say I am, rather than a mere myrtle shade, lacking the means available to Hal9000, I'm not going to kill anyone. A pity.
In any event and whatever I am, an errant spirit, a digital rogue, a skil-ful usurper, I am finding this post-mortem conversation very amusing.
I saw something of India. You'll find enclosed a few pictures I took during a procession called Kavadee or Cavadee – I'm not sure which. I can't remember the exact place, either. No doubt somewhere in the south of India, in the Tamil Nadu.
The devotees, having fasted for several days, and unwashed, gather in the morning by the river bank. Bare-chested, covered only by a loin
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cloth, they allow their friends to pierce the skin of their chests with silver skewers, or have their tongues skewered. Dozens of hooks weighted
with lemons pierce their backs, and thus they walk several miles until reaching the temple, carrying on their heads a heavy, flower-festooned arch, walking on nails, broken glass, embers. Starving, weighted down, high on their own pain hormones, reeling with each step, cloistered in the recesses of their soul, they spin, only the whites of their eyes showing, deep in a shamanist trance. Upon arrival at the altar of the god, freed of their burdens and cleansed, honoured and reassured of their piety, they break their fast and rejoice in having been entranced. Avatars for a few hours of otherworldly forces, astonished and humbled by the mysteries, they sit by the statues, their eyes unfocussed, lost in another truth.
You can connect to the file server using the password
AVATAR. You'll like it.
Seth
From:
Date: Sat 17/2/ 23:26
To:
Cc:
Subject: Test
I'll not bother trying to give you a Turing test then to see if you are human…I could always send you a deformed image of a text and ask you
to transcribe it, since a machine is not able to do that…But I don't really give a damn; I find it entertaining, too. Anyway, I'm pleased to be talking to you. Well, writing to you. Not to mention that it's a hell of a lot easier logistically to send a mail rather than to light candles and gather a group of dishevelled clairvoyants around a creaky table, a bit too nine-teenth century for me.
The photos from the server are almost disturbing. The expressions are inward-looking and convey the detachment obtained by a personal mystical experience.
Having your body taken over by a partially divine spirit must count as one. I've been taking PROZAC for the past few weeks. I went o see Ber-trand and told him that I was sleeping fifteen to seventeen hours a day.
So he said: "Okay, I'll put you on one Prozac a day!" and I agreed. It's the 11
first time in my life that I've taken mind-altering substances: coffee and chocolate excepted.
Did you know that in fact it's a slightly modified extract of St John's wort? I'm always amazed by the fact that nature does our chemistry for us; that plants, preceding us by several millions years, synthesise
products which are medicinal. From the willow, aspirin; from mould, an-tibiotics; from the yew, anti-cancer drugs. And chemists copy and con-centrate, but in fact create relatively little.
Over the past few weeks I've been feeling the effects. I normally sleep a lot, but usually I feel a lot more connected to the present; I'm no longer ruminating over things, without necessarily forgetting them, pondering the past and the future. I think about what I want to think about, and life's omnipresent "popups" – worries, regrets – are neatly kept in place.
It's really weird to imagine that a mere plant can change our souls.
That a simple vegetal extract can change our behaviour, modify our priorities, the way we manage our time, how we cope with loss, how we
manage the very awareness of our own existence.
St John's wort teaches us to be humble. Can our suffering be so noble, so ethereal, so religious, if it is dissolved by a shot of Fluoxetine hydrochloride?
To decide that which is divine, human or social, a frame of reference is required. Would a society under the influence of Prozac be any the less mystical? Can God be dissolved in a solution of St John's wort?
For an avatar to exist there has to be an original. And I'm not sure he exists.
While I was looking for information to catch you out, I discovered
MyDeathSpace, the blog of the dead. This from the observation that most of the teenagers assassinated by a serial killer some time ago in a pitiful American high school all had blogs on MySpace.
So, after their deaths, an archive site took over and charges necrophilic techo-fans for the thrill of an otherworldly communication. The avatar on display continues to communicate news letters, update links and info, all by itself, depending on the programmation entered before his un-timely demise by the blogger. Whether he liked hard rock, Vietnamese cuisine or Japanese mangas, the blog will continue to display the latest news from Marilyn Manson, the latest soya-based recipes, the most recent cartoon of huge-eyed heroes.
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