THE CONTRARY MAN

I have tirelessly trained and run in the most competitive of races with the greatest of athletes and, on the cusp of victory, I have slowed my pace to ensure I finish last. I have prepared the sweetest tasting meals in all of culinary history and put them straight in the bin. I composed the most stirring musical composition that ever would've been heard had I not performed it on only one occasion, in a remote and unpopulated vicinity, with my ears plugged so even I would not hear it. Every single time someone wins a lottery and does not claim the winnings, it is me. I painted the greatest painting ever painted and then I painted over it. I wrote the greatest work of literature anyone would've ever read had I not rewritten it so that every word was 'shiteballs'. I then retitled the piece 'Shiteballs'. I have invented things that would have changed humanity's course for the better had I not placed them in a locked safe and hurled that safe into the core of a nuclear reactor. I have also learned the ultimate truth and when people ask me to share it with them I tell them a lie.

I have done all these things because I am The Contrary Man. I have devoted my life to mastering the art of living and then denied myself and the rest of you the fruits of my talents and knowledge. This is my ultimate revenge on the existence that has been foisted upon me and upon us all. An existence that, for many, consists largely of suffering without explanation. This compulsory existence is the ultimate injustice and my greatest achievement is to deny the challenges set before us by learning to overcome them and then not overcoming them. I have even discovered the secret of immortality only to cremate it and when I breathe my last I want to go to the afterlife and I want God to look at me and I want God to ask me 'why?' and I want to relish the look of incomprehension on God's face.

This will be my victory but the effort has not been an easy one. In the struggle there is a small amount of satisfaction. I have learned to love the meaninglessness of it all and I have learned that the most tragic failure, when executed correctly, is the greatest triumph. I have come to understand that the only finishing line that matters is death and even that doesn't matter very much in the dribbling staccato overwhelming context of this, ...whatever this is.

THE AFTER-AFTERLIFE

Life is kind of intertwined with the afterlife. There's usually a ghost in the room with you. Someone you know, laughing at your jokes and listening to music with you. You can't see them though. They can only see you. They are always there. Don't worry, they tend not to hang around if you're doing anything private or intimate or whatever. Ghosts largely respect privacy.

It's sad being a ghost in the afterlife. They are always alone. The world is full of ghosts but they can't see each other. It's like they are on different frequencies, like radio stations that can never listen to each other. So, you're all they have for company. They are there at family gatherings and so on, unnoticed and unnoticeable in the corner. Enjoying the craic but sad really. Did you ever see some old friends from a bus window and wave but they didn't see you as they walked on, enjoying each other's company? Being a ghost is a bit like that.

A ghost will hang around watching loved ones live their lives and then those loved ones die and the ghost is left even more alone. New people move into the building and the ghost is left watching them, like it might a new TV show that has replaced its favourite. This is when ghosts start getting bored and feeling really lonely. This is when they might knock down a picture or slam a door shut. It requires a lot of effort for a ghost to slam a door shut. They have to build up to it for weeks. It's a real event for them. They slam the door and then they observe the reaction of the living. The living usually note the oddness of the occurrence and might remark on it a few times before eventually dismissing it and forgetting all about it. The exhausted ghost's little thrill at the slight acknowledgment will pass and the ghost will sit and pant and recall how easy it once was to slam doors shut and to open them. The ghost will probably wonder which it did more of while alive: slamming doors shut or opening them. The ghost will probably regret all the doors it slammed shut during its often lovely and sometimes unlovely existence; slamming doors shut on other people, slamming doors shut on itself, and eventually having the door of life slammed shut in its face. 'Ooh, I really wasted my life', say the ghosts to themselves. This is usually when ghosts start moaning and rattling their chains and that's when the living call the exorcist and that's when another door opens for the ghost and the ghost goes through it. On the other side of this door, the ghost discovers the after-afterlife. The after-afterlife is just a load of former-ghosts (ghosts of ghosts, if you will) that no longer worry about what they did when they were alive and instead spend all their time worrying about what they did when they were ghosts. 'Ooh, I really wasted my death', say the former-ghosts to themselves. The moaning and the chain rattling starts up again at this point but there is no one to call an exorcist and, even if there was, there is nowhere to move on to. It's a noisy place the after-afterlife and it's getting more and more full.

THE DESIRE OF THE LIVING TO KILL

A big war was being planned in the name of freedom and patriotism and other sacrosanct and rarely interrogated concepts. In an attempt to prevent this new big war, the ghosts of all those who had died in previous wars decided to manifest, en masse, at various significant locations around the world. The idea was that the ghosts would appear and tell the living that war just isn't worth it and is a bit of a shit idea. 'We'll spook them into coming up with a better option', said one of the ghosts before they all appeared.

So, all the ghosts manifested around the world. They were quite a sight to see. The ghosts ranged from troglodytes who had come a cropper in tribal skirmishes to little kid ghosts who had recently lost their lives after stepping on land mines. Great war heroes of the past were also amongst their number and did most of the talking. The ghosts made their point clearly and then refused to leave until their advice had been adhered to.

The leaders of the living world met and discussed the dead. It was decided that the wishes of the dead were irrelevant because, unlike the wars of the past, this new war was definitely worth having due to freedom and all that. The ghosts were termed 'appeasers from beyond the grave' and it was decided that they would have to be dealt with. 'The ghosts are a threat to freedom', said a great thinker in a newspaper and this sentiment went viral and got lots of 'likes' on politics.ie and other heavyweight intellectual fora.

The militaries of the world joined forces for a time and trained in the new discipline of combative exorcism. The ghosts didn't stand a chance and were sent back to the afterlife. Then, after a global victory celebration, the nations of the world resumed their plan to embark on a big new war and did so and loads of people got killed and new ghosts were made.

Those who were made ghosts in the new war went on to the afterlife and met all the other war dead who had tried to stop them fighting. 'So, was it worth it?' the old ghosts asked the new ghosts. Some of the new ghosts, the spirits of civilian casualties mainly, agreed that the new war was not worth it and that nothing had really changed for the better in the end. Those amongst the new ghosts who had died as members of the military in the various fields of operation pointed out that the conflict may have been worthwhile as they had received posthumous medals and that those medals were shiny. The military ghosts continued in this belief until they looked down on the world of the living and observed their descendants getting their medals appraised on The Antiques Roadshow and selling them off to eccentric war enthusiasts for disappointing profits of around a tenner a piece.

Wars continued after that and they were bitterly recalled by the losers and celebrated by the winers and the medals of all sides continued to be sold for fuck all. The new wars created new ghosts and those new ghosts joined the other ghosts of former wars in the vast borough of the afterlife that is reserved for those who die due to war. 'It's getting crowded here', noted one ghost and all the other ghosts agreed but they also knew that they could do nothing about it. As much as these ghosts would like to prevent the living from prematurely dying, their desire is nothing when compared to the desire of the living to kill.

AAAAAAALLLLIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!

I doubt you're wondering how I'm managing to leave blog posts from beyond the grave but I'll tell you anyway. . .

I was buried alive and died and then it went something like this:
My body blew like a gasket and my spirit split like steam and slipped between a crevice near the lid of the casket. I plumed up through tiny worm tunnels and came to the surface, scaring a gravedigger and causing his mange encrusted blind in one eye terrier to bark. 
'Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!' went the dog. 
'Hey, I'm floating away', went me.
I went upward past the clouds and joined a million soaring souls as they stretched throughout the cosmos like some moaning astral motorway passing by the space junk and the planets and the stars and headed toward the light. The light, the light, the cliched light. And then I saw a meadow and the smiling departed stood with their arms outstretched and greeted their relatives but there was no one there for me, not even my old dog Jake or my cat Rupert (the latter was a mercenary little bollix so what would you expect) and I was aggrieved but then someone called to me. Was that my Aunty Dolly? It was, it was, it was Aunty Dolly. Dear old Aunty Dolly! Darling Aunty Dolly! Only problem was I never had an Aunty Dolly. 'It's not your time', said whoever's Aunty Dolly it was and I found myself falling back to the Earth and seeping back down through its pours and plopping back into my body like a shite plops into a toilet bowl and then I came back to life and screamed and screamed and then I remember being unearthed by the gravedigger and his terrier savaged my arm and fucked my leg and that familiar sense of vague degradation informed me that I was alive . . .again. AAAAAAALLLLIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!