The Meaning.

Julie was confused.

She had gone to bed in her tiny apartment, wearing heavy pajamas, under two heavy comforters, and with her overweight tabby cat curled up at her feet. Where she found herself now was not her tiny apartment. She woke up in a strange room wearing casual mid summer appropriate clothes, with a pillow but no blankets of any kind, and her overweight tabby cat was nowhere to be found.

The room was an especially curious thing. If Julie had to guess, it appeared to be about twenty-five feet wide by twenty-five feet long, and about eight feet tall. The walls were white. On three of the walls were one window each, and on the fourth wall were two doors.

Scenarios ran through Julie’s mind as her imagination worked to fill in how she arrived here, and why she was here.

I’ve been kidnapped! Julie thought.

“No,” she said addressed her thought out loud. “I don’t remember being abducted,” she checked her body for any signs of injury, “and there is nothing suggesting I was taken against my will.”

Did I get blackout drunk and somehow end up here?

“When have I ever been blackout drunk?”

Maybe an elaborate prank by my friends…

“Too much effort, they wouldn’t pull something like this, and how could they have gotten me into clothes and drop me off here without me noticing anyways?”

I don’t know, aliens?

“Now I’m just being lazy.”

Fine, then look around and see what you can suss out.

“I think I will,” and with that Julie began to look around the room in detail. At first she didn’t catch anything beyond what she had initially noticed. She went up to a window and looked out, but all she could see was a blackness that was void of any defining details. “Well that is neither helpful nor encouraging.” Julie walked up to the other two windows, and each shared the same abysmal view.

Something about the room was off, and it bothered Julie immensely. It wasn’t just that she had somehow ended up there without any knowledge of how she got there, and it wasn’t the fact that the windows looked out into an inky blackness that she couldn’t make heads or tails of. She kept searching the room looking for something, something that she knew should be there but inexplicably wasn’t. And then she noticed it.

“Son of a bitch, where’s my shadow?” Julie had no shadow in this room, and it wasn’t like the small and muddled shadow a person had in a room with soft lighting. She literally had no shadow. “Why don’t I have a shadow?” she asked nobody in particular.

Look around, she thought. What would cast a shadow?

Julie scanned the room and realized that there was no light source in the room. There were no lamps, no lights, nothing was illuminating anything in the room. And yet here she was in a room without lights, without any source of illumination from within or without, and the room was perfectly well lit without her casting any shadow.

“Are the walls glowing?” She reached down and observed the walls.

They are not.

“Okay, so then what’s lighting up the room?”

Julie stood there in silence for a few minutes; no thoughts or insights came to mind. Finally her inner dialogue chimed in. What about the doors?

Julie had paid little attention to the doors before the mystery of how the room was illuminated caught her attention, and until this point she had paid absolutely no attention afterward. The doors were both plain, square, white doors. Both doors had a round brass doorknob, and brass hinges. The only difference between the two doors was the location of the hinges and knobs. The hinges on the doors were both located on the side closest to the connecting wall, and the knobs were located on the sides of the door closer to the center of the walls the doors resided on.

Then Julie noticed something she had not noticed before. There was a little off white plaque between the walls, with off white writing etched into the plaque.

“The only meaning is in the choices we make.” Julie read. “What’s with the Buddhist wisdom quote?”

“Funny you should ask,” Julie jumped in shock. In the middle of the room was a dark, featureless, figure in what appeared to be jeans, old sneakers, and a hipster t-shirt with the phrase Your Design Here printed on the front. Julie’s shock turned to a mixture of curiosity and horror as the figure continued to speak without a mouth. “I’ve told management time and time again, that they need to be more explicit with their directions.”

“What the hell are you, and what the hell is going on here?” Julie yelled at the figure.

“I understand your concern,” the figure said while fiddling with its hands, “but there is no need for such harsh language. I am an abstract,” it gestured to itself as it spoke. “We are lesser being of a higher order of reality who serve, generally, omnipotent beings.”

Julie just stared at it, and she assumed it stared at her, for a few moments.

Okay…

“So assume I believe this isn’t a crazy dream, where am I and why am I here?”

“Good questions,” the figure responded with a chipper pep in its voice, though you would never be able to tell from its lack of a face. “Predictable questions, but good nonetheless.” Its chest heaved outward as though it was taking in a deep breath. “You are in an artificially constructed twelfth dimensional space. We call these particular spaces The Meaning. When someone, like you for example, has a chance to make a choice that can affect the outcome of the future of a world, they end up here. You are here because you have such a choice to make.”

Julie stared at it for several more minutes as she digested what it had told her.

“So…” Julie began, “I have a choice to make that is going to affect the whole world?”

“Sort of,” it raised its hand as it spoke. “Normally anyone who enters The Meaning has a choice that will only affect one world. You, however,” both of its hands gestured to her in a dramatic reveal like manner, “have a choice to make that will affect your world, and many others.”

A cackle of laughter escaped Julie’s lips. “Okay, now I know this is a dream. There is no way I could be responsible for a choice that will affect my world, much less others.”

“Whatever do you mean?” the figures head cocked as it asked the question.

Julie’s raised her hands above her head in exasperation. “I’m an insurance claims adjuster! I don’t do anything that could have worldwide implications, much less multi-worldwide implications. This is such obvious malarkey that it has to be a dream.” Her arms folded and her head dipped downward as she considered the dream option. “Maybe it was the linguini I ate. It did taste a bit off.”

She felt a sharp slap across the face, causing her to look up as pain welled in her cheek. The figure hadn’t moved from where it has stood a moment before. “That,” it said, “is the only evidence we can provide that you are not in a dream.” Julie stared at the faceless humanoid void in shock. “Now, I want to assure you, you are indeed the person who will be making this choice, and your choice will have consequences across many worlds besides your own.”

Julie drew her hand to her cheek. It felt hot and sore to the touch. “Okay, say I believe you. What are my options?”

The figure gestured towards the doors. “Right or left,” was the only explanation it gave.

“But what is the choice I need to make? What is behind the doors?”

“That’s the trick of it,” the figure shrugged, “we don’t know.” For the first time since Julie had noticed the figure, it moved from where it had been standing. “One door could lead to salvation of countless worlds, or plunge them into a hell the likes of which you could not imagine. Maybe one of the doors will expose your world to others. But whatever the outcome, it all depends on what you choose here and now.”

Julie stared at the two doors and back at the figure. “What if I don’t choose anything? What if I just stay here forever?”

“As I said earlier, The Meaning is a twelfth dimensional space. You are removed from time in your existence. You can stay here for as long as you want and not a millisecond will pass in your reality. You don’t need food or water here, nor will you age. You are here until you make a choice, and once you do, you will be brought back to your existence with your choice put into motion.”

“How do I know which choice to make?”

“That,” the figure clapped its hands together, “is a fantastic question.” The figure began to pace a little bit as it talked. “The short answer is you don’t, but the short answer is never really a good one. In essence, you already know at some level what your options are, and which doors represent which choices, though usually we see more than two doors. It is one of the finer complexities of moral souls. You can know something without knowing it, and you can make a choice based upon that knowledge that you both do, and do not, possess.”

“That is insane.”

“It can seem that way to third dimensional beings existing in an linear fourth dimensional flow.” The figure brought up its arm and seemed to observe its wrist as though it was looking at a watch. “Well we’ve covered about all that I can, and it is about time that I take my leave so you can make your choice.” The figure walked over to the window on the wall opposite of the doors and opened it.

“Wait.” The figure stopped midway through the window and looked back at her. “This place is called The Meaning, the meaning of what?”

“Why life, my good mortal. The meaning of life.”

Julie looked back to the doors, and back to the figure. “Will I remember any of this?”

A smile spread on the previously featureless face. “Good luck Julie,” it stepped out the window, and the window closed behind it. Julie ran up to the window, but there was nothing but an inky black void with no trace of the figure.

Julie slowly backed away from the window and sat down. “I have to make a choice,” Julie repeated until she lost track of all sense of time.

What was it that it said?

“I am removed from time here.”

Oh, right.

Julie continued to sit there and lost herself in thought. When she finally stood up, she couldn’t tell if she had been there for a few years or a few minutes. But either way, she was done waiting here and spinning her wheels. Julie approached the door on the right and reached for the brass knob.

Do I know what my choices where?

“Not really, no.”

Julie turned the knob and opened the door.

Then what I choose?

“I choose to remember.”

And Julie stepped through the door.