When fiction walks hand-in-hand with reality

To me, a short story is like an intimate dance between two minds—the author’s and the reader’s. And like a dance, it doesn’t last long, but that’s the best part. Because when lead has done it well, something is left lingering long afterwards, and maybe, even a heart is moved.

I’ve loved short stories since I stumbled across them nearly four years ago.

In this short time, I’ve consumed hundreds of them. I’ve read the complete works of Guy de Maupassant, Flannery o’Conner, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, Franz Kafka, Nikolai Gogol, Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Borges, Isaac Babel, and I’m presently halfway through the complete works of Anton Chekhov. I’ve read several works by Dostoevsky and other Russian authors. And many others, old and new, but whose names I can’t remember right now, and from all over the world.

The origin of the short story goes back millennia and is, in fact, a fundamental part of religious texts, and all spiritual teachings. Whether one sees these as literal or metaphorical makes no difference to the message received. One of trust, faith, honesty, morality, strength, humility… surrender to the power greater than ourselves. The original “how to be human” guides.

But this is another story. Because the one I want to share here is, possibly, one of the most terrific short stories ever written.

Of course, this is only my opinion, and like an acquaintance of mine used to say: “Opinions are like an asshole; everybody has one.” But I like things that make me think, that puts things under the microscope when the to-and-fro of the daily grind has distracted me from these more profound objectives in life, from the engine driving the train. I like to be put on track again, and the help is sometimes found in the strangest places, but always on time. And this is where the shortness of the short story can play its wonderful art.

Unlike a novel, a short story is a glimpse into a moment. A moment that can be a single sitting or spread over generations. It’s a genre of its own; a difficult art that, when done well, amalgamates fiction with reality, similarly as our material existence is inseparable from our spiritual one. This story had that effect on me, and fits in with our theme of something to graze on, as we’ll show, or attempt to show, in a bit.

Sadly, this art is largely lost with modern short stories. There are always exceptions, but the modern short story has literally become a story that’s simply short, with some superficial message about morality, or politics, or making a social point, painted on as something deep. But we’re kind-of going off point here.

Because I want to talk about Lazarus.

That’s the name of the story, by the Russian author, Leonid Andreyiv (1871-1919), written in 1906. This is not a critique nor a review. I’m just going to quote one paragraph. Because it’s a gem (in the context of the whole story), some food for the traveller as Andreyiv takes us on a journey into death, and infinity.

Infinity (and death) can be viewed in two ways, which, I think (or maybe to me?), is part of what the story brings to light: to those who treat the world as a place of fun and games, it’s a nothingness, an emptiness, an end. While those who view the world as a university for the soul, who surrender to greater powers that fashion the universe, infinity is the no-place, the no material form, the no dimension; true freedom. As indeed, the further the mind travels, the more the soul reaches for Truth, the more it realizes just how imprisoned it really is. While to many living in war zones, displaced, or being throttled, dehumanized, and dismembered by the hands of genocide, life is not just a prison but a continuous torture, a living hell.

But we can take lessons from the stories speaking to us through the millennia, where the fresh springs of wisdom carried the protagonist through the most difficult circumstances imaginable, and where death becomes “the disappearance”—the highest spiritual attainment. Something not given, but earned.

It's Nirvana to the Hindu and Buddhist, Jannatul firdaws to the Muslim, the Christian resurrection, the philosopher’s stone of the alchemist, and being one with God for the mystic. Which (I think) is depicted at the end of Andreyiv's story.

I have no idea if he meant it this way, or simply to show the meaninglessness of everything in the fashion of Nietzsche(ism)'s nihilism sprouting its buds on the world stage, where the universe and life has no purpose. But this is another beauty of the (great) short story: it can mean many things, or none of them. Like poetry, only the author really knows. But for me, anyway, Lazarus is one of those dances having left something lingering.

So I’m leaving a link to the full story if you haven’t read it, and would like to: Lazarus.

The scene

The story is about the biblical Lazarus, after he rose from the dead. And instead of it being a happy occurrence, where everything goes back to normal, Andreyiv shows what three days in the grave had done to his body and complexion. His demeanour was morbid, and he made everyone uncomfortable, but they loved him anyway, and everyone was over the moon for his miraculous return. Then he draws us into a deeply metaphysical, spiritual horror story, that begins when a party was thrown for Lazarus.

All the village attended, but he never spoke to anyone, and barely moved. He just sat at a table and stared at it’s surface. Until someone eventually asked what everyone wanted to know:

“What was there?”

He refused to answer.

They pushed for a response and when he looked up, only a few words were uttered, but his eyes said everything. All happiness and joy was drained from the lives of everyone there, and anyone else who happened to catch a glimpse of his eyes afterwards. Towns and cities became morbid, and lost the will to live. Even the Emperor Augustus struggled with himself after a single meeting with Lazarus.

Says Andreyiv:

“This is how those who still had the desire to speak conveyed their feelings:”

“All things visible to the eye and tangible to the hand have become empty, light, and transparent—they have become like light shadows in the gloom of the night; for neither the sun nor the moon nor the stars, could disperse that great darkness that envelops the universe, covering the earth in a black veil, embracing it, like a mother; she would permeate everything, iron and stone, and, losing connection, every particle would grow lonely; and she would permeate the depths of the particles themselves, and the particles of particles would grow lonely; for neither the sun nor the moon nor the stars can fill that great emptiness that embraces the universe, reigning boundlessly, permeating everything, disconnecting everything: body from body, particle from particle; trees spread their roots into emptiness and were themselves empty; in emptiness, foreshadowed by their spectral fall, towered temples, palaces, and houses, and were themselves empty; and in emptiness man moved carelessly, and was himself empty and light, like a shadow; for time did not exist, and the beginning of everything has approached its end: a building was only just being built, and workers were striking their hammers, but already one could see its ruins, and emptiness in place of the ruins; a man was only just born, and already funeral candles were being lit above his head, and already they were extinguished, and already there was emptiness in place of the man and the funeral candles; and, embraced by emptiness and gloom, man trembled hopelessly before the dread of the infinite.”

Death is that terrifying door, the last threshold, we must all pass one day. While to others, it’s the relief. It’s the inevitable consequence of life. And when accepting this unpleasant truth, it becomes the whole point of life, and preparing for it enlivens purpose and meaning even in the darkest days. Revealing distant horizons, then past those horizons into the light of light, bringing hope in the present.

Crossing bridges is part of the journey there, and finding common ground is how fortresses are built in a world seeking to dismantling the human spirit. Where the modern view of death is to ignore it at all costs, as the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years tic by. Or the only preparation is a life insurance policy that will take care of the coffin, so those shedding tears for the one tumbling into the forgotten “emptiness” don’t have to.