Chantel's Reviews > Staying Behind

** spoiler alert ** In a world in which our decisions are not entirely our own, a moral question makes its way to the forefront; What is free will? For many people, freedom exists as a metaphorical concept. One is perhaps exceedingly lucky to never have to think of freedom at all. For others, freedom exists as a Mona Lisa; a beautiful thing to observe from the other side of the Q-Cord. There may exist a neutral stance; a place right snug in the middle populated by people whose lives revolve around the decisions they make to either obtain or denigrate the concept & reality of freedom, both for themselves & for others.

Readers are not necessarily required to have sat with this conundrum before reading this story. The premise itself engages a thought process that will cleave readers into their categories; the free, the serfs, the philosophers, & the manipulators.

The main character in this book has made his choice. While the world around him begins to offer an alternative to death—life everlasting as a disembodied voice—he opts for traditional mortality. His family is broken at the seams as members ignore his warnings; selecting to die a death neither noble nor understood. The logistics of their decision are not shared with the reader, one is left to understand that no character has a settled understanding of what it means to bury a body while transferring the soul. In this world, the norm is a deranged antiquity the likes of which human beings would rather shed than ever experience again.

The premise of this story poses the question I asked at the beginning of this review though, it approaches it from a different angle. Is the main character wrong for wanting to keep tradition alive? The people that he has loved throughout his life make their decisions & yet, he holds true to the belief that they were not in their right minds to make it, unless they made the same decision as he did. Does this constitute a reality any different than our own circumstances?

I found myself wondering how I might feel if placed in identical circumstances to the main character. He bore witness to his mother’s decision being overturned because her husband didn’t want her to die a death of finality; his daughter ran away to find herself among those who would choose omnivorous apathy rather than the carnivorous decomposition of our skin. All the while, what we know—our knowledge—is all the liberty we have; our body goes away & so do we. Readers might find a different way of looking at this story depending on their views of the body & the spirit.

If there were any time wherein religious dogma played an active part in a person’s life, this would be one of them. For the main character, the death of the body is the final death, there exists nothing else nor should there. For others, the death of the physical body is but one step into a future realm of existence. We come to a cornerstone; What is the right system of belief?

The secret antagonist of this story is the thief of choice. Without all the information how can one make the right decision? For the main character, the remaining state of consciousness that exists in place of his loved ones is nothing but a lie; a fraudster in lieu of intimate human connection. He cannot accept that the people he knew so deeply would think or act as the disembodied voices do. I am inclined to believe him. We do not become more intelligent by disconnecting from the world. This lingering state of vocal fry would not grant us any more depth than life in an earth-bound body. We kid ourselves by thinking that by dissecting our experience from the land, we might grow tall & profound in an Eden all our own.

Ultimately, I am still a bit conflicted on my stance & that is not because I do not have one—this review has been very clear in presenting my opinions. However, I am also of the belief that people’s choice of prophet & promise should be respected. Though it might be hard to accept that his loved ones have been made lesser, or different, than the people he knew them to be; this is the state of the world; this life takes & changes, altering indefinitely & beyond plausible recognition. What would happen if this new state of being was the one in which we experience peace?

In all the raving rambling thunders of the clouds & chilling acidic drops of the rain, humanity has found itself seeking the protected & immersive experience of life. Following sentence structures that are tangible & sticky like weeds on a vine; the premise poses a coin toss via the lottery. Would you give up your freedom for an eternity unfathomable to humankind? If your days were stripped like sawdust, what would you do with a newfound existence marooned from the beauty & despair of our mundanely heart-palpitating essence?

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