Fabled Extinction

Elvin Greenfield died today. He had lived a short, and some would say, a non-eventful life. He lived as we all live, day to day, having plans for a future he was sure would never come to fruition. But dreaming as he said, was better than acknowledging that life was good for some, and just OK for most others. Elvin, if he had to choose one word to describe his life, it would be, "regimented."

He went to work every day, paid his bills, raised his children, grew old in anonymity, and died. Elvin did not disappoint even himself. He expected nothing, and received in return what he expected. 

It wasn’t until Beatrice Bobby, the person who purchased the home of Elvin Greenfield, and in the process of moving in, found a box of papers in the attic. It was an affectual accounting of a life that had more significance than could have been imagined, even by Elvin Greenfield himself.

Mankind in general, Elvin believed, individuals in particular, have been deteriorating at an accelerated rate since the industrial age began. Life had, but for a few, existed on a survival level. There was no time for art or music, as every waking hour was consumed by either attempting to not die, or wishing you had. 

One morning Elvin awoke as usual, put on his pants as he most often did, and decided he’d had enough. If life was to be a test of some kind, he knew he would fail. He could not see a benefit to himself or others, in his survival. He had become just another mouth to feed. Had it not been for the mishap on the way to the 101^st floor of the Roosevelt Building, he and the world might be a different place, although Elvin would argue about the possibility. 

Elvin had read somewhere that humans only use about ten percent of their brain function.  The accident induced him to wonder what the other ninety percent did. There is no need to dwell on the accident itself, or its cause, as the word accident, adequately defines the outcome, although it may not be factual or truthful.

As his mind convalesced he realized that what he was suffering from, was normalcy. Everything he’d done or had considered doing, had been done previously. The idea that he had been no more than the repetitious shadow of a culture and society that had not evolved in hundreds of years, caused him to look into the prospect of using the remaining ninety percent of his brain, as it wasn’t doing anything anyway.

He formulated a plan to consider what was expected of people, and what they expected of themselves. He being in a more or less catatonic state, could not realistically change anything physically, but there was nothing keeping him from doing so metaphorically. 

He began to imagine what a world would be like if people were good, not just pretending to be on occasion, but actually good. Their souls spotless, their minds uncluttered with the frivolities of greed, anger; pretty much all the deadly sins. He examined his own backlog of unfortunate forays into the areas that would not be considered admirable, by those like himself, who were attempting to reform. He also knew that reform would not be the result of any foray, given the makeup of man. 

He had always believed temptation to be the root of most evil, as it brought out the worst in people. Rarely he knew, was one tempted to do good. Using his newly pledged idealism, he would refuse to fall under the spell of temptation, or so he promised himself. 

Lying he realized, was responsible for the majority of man’s mistrust of facts. Facts he could see, were to definitive to be truthful, as they left no room for optimism, should one have a need to distort reality to gain a better understanding of what was needed to become an alternative.

During his process of self-evaluation he realized that all the people he knew, or probably ever would know, were not inclined to seek perfection. They were satisfied with imperfection, as it allowed them to disavow their shortcomings by simply accepting the fact, that they were human.

He began to wonder if there ever was a person he, or anyone for that matter, could be considered truly good, perfect. But the word truly was misleading, as it expected one to judge the actions of another, and conclude based on their own learned bias, what the word truly meant. The same was true of the word good, and then of course, what is truth? There was no end to the madness these conceptions or misconceptions could cause.

Elvin Greenfield began to think about Sainthood for some reason. Many of his thoughts came to him after a particularly uncomfortable night, where clarity would not come, and his mind would wander. Never stopping where Elvin wished it would, but in a place he wished it wouldn’t. But such is the nature of dreams. And yet it became a routine Elvin found himself enmeshed in, and unable to escape. He found that the majority of his ideas, as well as his visions, came to him while in a state of what he considered to be, grace, or perhaps an evolutionary trend. A place unencumbered by the necessities of life. He believed there had to be someplace better than life, and couldn’t wait to get there.

Unlike Elvin, many of his contemporaries also wished to find peace in the afterlife, but their approach was less enthusiastic, as they lived with the possibility that perhaps there was a chance their understanding of an afterlife was not completely true; that word again, and therefore decided that to wait as long as possible to find out, would be prudent.

Elvin began to contemplate the concept, that if good, truth and fact, were vagrant terms, undefinable, then perhaps death was also. Was it possible that the path to an afterlife didn’t require death but only access to the ninety percent of his unused ability to create. 

He began to imagine that he was free to be and do whatever he chose. He could be a musician, painter, poet, novelist, even a good person, as he set the parameters necessary to meet his perceptions. 

He imagined floating like a sailing ship through the Universe, gathering insight from the ages and concluded, he needed to tell others about his observations before grace left him, like it had done so many times previously.

Elvin’s ramblings, or most of them, were dictated unknowingly to Sandra O’Conner, a candy striper doing community service at St. Bartholomew’s Redemption Center. She found Elvin’s insight into the world she considered oppressed, when not depressed, invigorating. She spent the majority of her time recording Elvin’s thoughts for posterity.

When Elvin finally died, she had no idea what to do with the dictation as it made little sense to anyone, as she was a dyslexic speller. She in an attempt to respect the musings of Elvin left the box on the porch of Elvin’s home, where his estranged wife thinking they would be of some use in her legal battle with the remaining family, placed them in the attic in case they were needed. They never were, as Elvin’s hospitalization drained the family’s finances and left his wife destitute, as well as the remaining members of the family. 

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Beatrice Bobby rummaged through the pile of papers and randomly picked one and began to read, luckily having some experience with dyslexia.

I have concluded that human beings are incapable of goodness, truth, and justice, as they have reduced the meaning of each to encompass what is good for them personally, and not what is good for mankind collectively. Although living and dying are personal experiences, they should be observed in the context of community, as no one is an island, and capable of surviving on their own. Nor should they wish too, as the purpose of life is accepting the possibility that every idea that is rejected by prejudice or arrogance, lessens one’s ability to move towards what has been acknowledged as the ultimate prize, perfection.

Being that perfection entails truth and fact, and those concepts have gone extinct, I can see no reason to continue, and…

Beatrice looked briefly at a few more musings and then picked up the box and carried it to the burn barrel at the back of the yard. She dumped its contents into it and lighted a match. 

The extinction of Elvin Greenfield was immemorable and uncelebrated, but left Beatrice Bobby unable to sleep that night, or any other night for the remainder of her life. She contemplated the meaning of the word truth, and the concept of factual goodness each and every evening until she too, became extinct.

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Elvin is presently in Wonderland playing poker with Galileo, Thoreau, and Darwin, of course. They are debating the meaning of the word, reality, and if it any longer has relevance in the latest evolutionary trend towards, contrived factuality.