Beyond the Grave
So many things had changed. Jarvis looked out of the window from his second-story apartment and contemplated change.
It was his job to dissect and solve puzzles. It was a job he enjoyed. Also, much to his satisfaction, he was good at it.
On any particular day, Jarvis was set to strain over the multiple complex conundrums that reflected the impossibilities of the universe. He solved things. Many difficulties drifted into the realm of understanding under his guidance.
The crisis over fossil fuels, for instance, became a nursery rhyme of logic. The problem was so easily remedied by the sun, which always shone free rays onto the planet.
The crisis posed by poverty was somewhat more difficult, but his deep affiliation with the earth soon came to his aid, and organic plots of land under the stewardship of individual, committed owners produced such proliferation that the AI-driven news media was at a loss for words.
Many, many mysteries were no more than putty in Jarvis’ hands.
The world became complacent with Jarvis at the helm. Life made sense, and senses were entertained by the resulting availability of time.
There was no single problem too large, too confounding, or too baffling for Jarvis.
Most every problem was no longer a problem.
Until Jonas arrived. Until Jonas!
Jarvis understood that Jonas was his nemesis. The damn man was a jigsaw in his own right, but the issues he posed and the problems he shoved into view were extraordinary and ridiculously tangled.
New standards were set. The bar was raised, and things became troublesome. They became confusing.
So, Jarvis looked out of the window of his apartment to see if the darkness that creased the corners of his view would squeeze out an answer.
An answer for Jonas. An answer for the world.
Jonas found questions when all the queries had been put to rest.
Jonas was a magician of unrivaled and spectacular nature.
Jonas was a master of perplexity.
“Dear Jarvis,” he posed, “we live in a world of light. Light means one thing; it means that people can see; am I correct?”
Of course he was. Jonas was right.
Jarvis contemplated the dastardly man’s theories. He contemplated while dragging his hands through his thick graying hair.
His dark window showcased the night. The mysteries of the dark glowed in low relief against the black.
“Why is it that I must live in such a place?” Jarvis questioned the window frame.
“Of all the places that there are, why must I be consigned to this particular spot?”
Of course, the widow frame, and the plain plane in it, had no idea at all. They had no answer.
But the thing about Jarvis was that he was clever.
He was a really, really clever man.
The environment always held answers to the most confounding of questions. Jarvis understood that he simply needed to take a deep, deep look.
A view of a graveyard under lights reflected at him. His view; a view no man would choose.
Jarvis peered across the gravestones, individually highlighted in the grim lamplight that focused his unfortunate vista.
And there, in the dim dimensions of the departed, he found his answer.
Of course, it was an eureka moment.
A moment unlike any other.
Jarvis’ excitement mounted. He felt as if he could part the Red Sea.
And, of course, he could.
"So, my friend,” Jonas had asked with a steely glint of victory in his eyes, “where do all the pens and single socks and single earrings and Tupperware lids go? Where?”
Jonas had every scientific mind buzzing like static in an audio studio.
No one had the faintest idea.
Nobody‘s struggle to find the answer mattered apart from Jarvis’. Jonas wanted his position. His fame. His fortune. Jonas wanted everything for himself. He wanted it all, so he posed a question that no one could possibly answer.
“I have it.” Jarvis’ voice echoed like a drum roll through his apartment.
Of course he had it. Of course…
Jarvis set up his media kit, focused his spotlights, and positioned his faux leather chair. He positioned his chair just right.
Next, he set the cameras rolling. He knew that his announcement would take the world by storm.
“So much for you, Jonas. Haha!”
Jarvis arranged himself into a dignified pose for the cameras. He wanted to come across as the professional he was.
“Well, folks,” he began in an authoritative voice, “the secret is out. The riddle is solved. There’s a portal to another world within our world. A graveyard we know exists but cannot see. Pens, single socks that used to belong to a pair, Tupperware lids, and single earrings gravitate to their own special hidden graveyard. They gravitate there, and then they drop into the abyss of infinity. That’s where they go.”
Jarvis could hear the applause resound across the known world despite the fact that he hadn’t set his system to “Air”, yet.
“Of course they drop into the abyss; there can be no other explanation, because like our dearly departed loved ones in real graveyards, we simply never see them again.”
Feature image https://images.ai