A Coma Carol

I was dreaming and I knew I was dreaming. I walked through the woods until I came to a secluded cove. I looked down into the water where I saw a technicolor whirlpool. A burly gust of wind poured through the trees. Suddenly I lost my footing on the edge of the embankment and fell, but where I should have hit the water, I just kept falling. Faster and faster, I was moving beyond the speed of light, my physical body stretching out into extra dimensions.

I woke up in my bed, screaming, drenched in sweat, and there was a stranger's silhouette at the foot of my bed.

“Ay Caramba!” I yelled.

The figure leaned into the moonlight and I could make out a rather stern face with a thick, bushy mustache.

“I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?”

“I am Friedrich Nietzsche,” he said. The left corner of his mouth twitched and he cleared his throat. “Or at least, I used to be.”

“What gives man? What are you doing in my room?”

“Well, Bart is it?”

“Actually my name is Nemo but my mom says not to give your name to strangers.”

“Ah, Nemo. That is good advice your mother gave you. The answer to your question is a tricky one because I don’t honestly know the truth.”

“Are you a ghost?”

“In a way, I suppose I am. I died. I remember that. The principle of Occam’s Razor would suggest that as a logical conclusion.”

“I don’t know what that is man, but like, what’s your beef with me?”

He chuckled “No beef young man, no beef. I’m here to tell you some truths I have learned since I died. Are you listening?”

I was gazing out the window.

“Um, yeah. Go ahead, I’m listening.”

“Good. Now, picture the universe like an ancient tree. It never stops growing and the limbs and branches are alternate timelines of existence. Each leaf, on each twig, is a separate but connected reality. Every event that could happen, will happen, and has happened.”

“Wow,” I said, trying my best not to sound nonplussed. I didn’t really understand what he was saying and I wanted to go back to sleep, but it kind of seemed like I was still dreaming.

“Wow is right! But that’s not even the half of it. The universe tree is actually a simulated perception. Your brain acts as a storage device for all the scenarios particular to your consciousness. You’ve done it all. You’ve been a prince and a pauper. A ruler of nations. A pious holy man and a mass murderer. A drug addict, a fishmonger, a philosopher, and a famous writer. Take anything you can imagine and you’ve already lived it, infinite times, forever. Your brain, that provides you such a rich interaction with your perceived world, is nothing more than an exquisite computer simulation of a prison. A prison from which you will never escape alive.”

I yawned. “This kind of feels like a dream Freddie.”

“In a way, it is, because you’ve never actually woken up. What you recognize as sleep is nothing more than a reboot of the whole system, a calibration.”

I sat up in my bed and reached out to touch his spectral form . I grabbed his arm and was surprised that it was solid.

“Please do not touch me,” he said, waggling his mustache.

I had had enough. I kicked out at Mr. Nietzsche as hard as I could.

When I did, it felt like I had caused a ripple that echoed through the whole universe. My body slowly convulsed, stretching out in strange directions, and waves of nausea and euphonia rode slowly over me, through me. I closed my eyes until it seemed to stop.

When I opened them, a new stranger perched on the end of my bed. He had a mustache like Freddie’s, but just the middle part, and his face was much more weaselly.

“Aww, c’mon man. I just want to go to bed. I got school in the morning!”

“You are in school right now young man! I am here to tell you a number of very important things!”

“I already know dude. My brain is a video game where I can play any character I want and there really aren’t any consequences. The other guy already told me.”

He looked appalled. “Hmph! I see that fool Nietzsche has already been here. Well forget what that moron has told you! There are very real consequences! I am in hell for eternity for my crimes against humanity! I knew very well that my quest for ultimate power would be at the expense of anyone in my path, but I took my moral compass and I threw it against the wall as hard as I could and I laughed!" He started to cry. "But I don’t laugh anymore!”

Clearly there was no going back to sleep now. Everything this guy said, he yelled it. He got himself so worked up he was sweating. I guess ghosts sweat.

“So who are you man?”

“I was Adolph Hitler. And what is your name?”

I squinted my eyes with concentration. Where had I heard that name? Then I remembered. My Bubbee had sat me down once and told me some nightmare stories about her time in a concentration camp. Without hesitation, I kicked Hitler so fucking hard that the interdimensional spasms I’d created felt like they might actually tear me apart.

It took a while but slowly the waves of distortion resided and another body appeared. Finally, one that I recognized.

“Woah! You’re Tekashi 6ix9ine!”

“Yeah.”

“Wait, you're dead? I thought you were just in witness protection.”

“Yeah. I was. They got me though.”

“Okay. Man, you did some shitty stuff with your life.”

“Whatever man. I did some good shit too. You don’t know me, You don’t know my struggles.”

I had no argument. “So, like, what are you here to teach me?”

“Just do whatever man. Light can’t travel backwards. Yolo.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded, then flipped me off.

“I’m out. Suck a dick.”

He stood up and jump kicked me in the chest. It knocked me into the headboard and propelled him out into the interdimensional ether.

I just lay there with my eyes closed, hoping maybe no one else would visit me. I was wrong.

“Nemo. Nemo. Nemo? Look, I know you can hear me. I just wanted to ask what you thought about the modernization of my classic story ‘A Christmas Carol’? Pretty funky with the sci-fi twists on the multiverse and all, hmm?” He leaned toward me, eyes wide, erratically interlocking his fingers and twiddling his thumbs. “I know, I know. Hitler wasn’t my first choice either but I think the whole fire and brimstone angle really works as a juxtaposition to Tekashi’s Y.O.L.O. perspective.”

Begrudgingly, I opened my eyes. “So you’re Ebenezer Scrooge?”

He looked confused. “No, I’m Charles Dickens. Ebenezer was just a character.”

“Okay Mr. Dickens, if I tell you what I think, can I go to sleep?”

“Oh, no. Of course not. You’re in a coma. Do you remember falling off your bicycle trying to do that trick where you ride real fast and stand up to balance on the seat?”

I shook my head.

“It didn’t go so well, and since you might be here a while, I just wonder if you wouldn’t mind giving me a review.”

I shrugged, taking a deep breath. “Well, I don’t really get it. What’s the take away? Am I damned if I do? Doomed if I don’t? Do I just do what I want since unfiltered light only travels in one direction or have I done it all already on a never ending loop?”

He began to belly laugh. “I don’t fucking know kid,” he said. “I’m a ghost and it’s a work of fiction. Sometimes stories are just for fun. Sometimes you don’t learn anything. I just wanted to know if you liked it or not?”

Now I was really annoyed. I pulled my hair and screamed. “No! Not really, dude! I thought it freaking sucked.”

Charles Dickens held up his hands. “Okay! Okay, I’ll leave, just don’t kick me.”