Work Text:
Where do I go when I die?
I know the answer. Or, I should know. I do not know, but I can tell you. The very nature of this passage is paradoxical, but please bear with me.
I became a tree.
I now have no head, no arms, no legs, no chest, no brain. Instead, I have my sturdy bark, my outstretching branches and my verdant leaves. My roots strangle down and grow beneath the surface, implanting me into the earth and providing me sustenance. It is a simple existence. But I exist. I live, basking in the sunlight alongside what could or could not be my brethren.
I don’t know what I expected. Heaven? Hell? But I’m sure you’d like to know how I feel about this.
Well, there’s nothing to complain about. But there’s nothing to brag about. Nothing to cherish, nothing to hate.
Some might find this existence terrifying. Being stuck forever in one place for centuries, solely existing to supply myself and at risk of the whims of higher creatures.
But I can assure you that you would never feel terror again. But do not feel relieved, for you would never feel relief either.
It’s just nothing. I’m not ok with it, but I’m not not ok with it. I am sure you can understand by now.
Of course, I don’t literally feel nothing. That is what a dead person does. I am alive. I feel. I just do not feel. I do not emote. I do not have opinions. You can’t make a tree happy, you can’t make a tree sad. You can only make a tree grow or decay. Growth is good, not joyful. Decay is bad, not depressing. I can smell. I can touch. I can feel pain, I can feel refreshed. But the associations that come along with those words do not follow. Simply a response to stimuli.
Is this a good afterlife? Would I recommend you to be a tree like me?
Well, if you do end up like me, you couldn’t worry about it.