The

Last Epiphany
By
Alexander Ruggie




All at once, Eli felt a great surge take over his entire being. It felt as though
the whole of his essence achieved a sort of perfection, however fleeting it may have
been. As he took his last breath he realized it was so, and he savored the faint,
diminishing qualities of the air. He noted there was a certain metallic flavor to it as
he slipped effortlessly into death. And then almost as suddenly as he knew he was
dead as a mortal body, he realized as well that he was no longer attached to that
body, and yet, he was still not dead.
Being an agnostic leaning towards atheism in his mortal life, he imagined this
phlogiston-like medium that bound him, as somewhat of a philosophical pickle. He
wanted to laugh at the idea, but just as soon as he envisioned the issue he imagined
its solution set as well. It was almost as though his questions and the answers came
simultaneously, which was even stranger. Then as soon as it was strange it was also
immediately normal.
Eli could not determine the meaning behind the new fractal nature of
knowledge, and the paradoxical realization that he was without realization was
what allowed him to commune with the Light. He could not see the Light. Nor could

any of his other senses determine that it was the Light. But this did not matter,
because he no longer had senses in the conventional realm. Nevertheless, Eli knew
that he was speaking to the Light.
You have found me much faster than usual, the Light said without speaking,
and without being, actually. It simply was.
What have I found? Eli asked immediately.
I am what I am. For you, that will be a gateway to the answers you cannot
immediately know.
Why dont I know them?
Because you are what you are. And that is a small reflection of what there
ultimately is. Consider yourself a focal point. From your surge, you know all that you
can know with what you know. After that, there is only me, the Light explained.
Strangely, while Eli heard what the Light was saying, he knew it as it was
being said, and not after. It was as if his own thoughts were being verbalized as he
thought them. But not by him.
Either this is all in my head, or youre what could only be described as God.
Eli thought and said, without needing to think or say.
It is your choice to see me in whatever light you imagine.
Thats not an answer. I could think that to myself. How can you prove that
you are not only me and I am not only you? How can you prove Im not alive and in a
coma and all this is in my head? Eli asked not knowing the answer, and feeling a
strange pride over his ignorance.

 Millennia have passed since your surge. Your existence as a mortal body
served its purpose during the time that it was designed for, and now your essence
has found me, the Light calmly explained.
Prove it, Eli retorted, knowing immediately that it could not be proven.
You know that I cannot, and that is why you are here with me now. I could
show you what you would consider the future of your time, and you would call it a
manifestation. I could show you your own life from a single cell to the moment your
essence separated from those cells, and you would diminish it as only a dream. You
are here with me now, because it is your purpose to find your purpose. As it is the
purpose of all those whose essences I render unto mine.
Then you are no God. Only a God could prove I am not me, and only I can
prove I am, Eli argued. Are there others like you?
You are you. I am me, and you, and everything else, the Light explained
solemnly.
I could be that too. Even when I was alive, if I ever was, I might have been
you and me and everything else. Who is to say I wasnt? Maybe I created them to say
I wasnt, just as I created you to argue with me now.
We are not arguing. You are trying to explain something to yourself that you
do not have the power to explain. Even if you are everything, you cannot explain
everything to yourself because it is infinite. And in this infinity, you will find your
purpose.
The thought alone exhausted Eli unendingly.
My purpose for all of eternity will be to find my purpose?

Precisely.
If you are a God, dont you already know my purpose? Eli asked half
begging for relief.
Of course I know it. That is why I saved your essence. But providing it to you
would negate it. It must be realized. By you, the Light replied.
What happens if I discover my purpose?
It was almost as though the Light paused for thought, but it only seemed this
way to Eli.
I do not know, the Light said.
Then you are no God. God would know everything.
If youd consider that everything is infinite, and even if you can infinitely
know everything, you can only know the permutations of that which have been
revealed. Thus there is a constantly evolving everything to know infinitely. Imagine
it as though you were trying to find the edge of a sphere. You will look forever.
Then you do not control entropy. Everything must start and then end. You
cannot un-burn a match, just as I cannot, Eli stated, proud of himself again.
I created entropy, as I have created you, and all other essences I have
brought to discover their purpose, the Light replied.
How many of your other essences have found their purpose? Eli asked.
Many have found it. But, in all of time, in all of my universes, in all of
existence, none have ever achieved it.
What makes you think I will be any different? Eli asked pleading again.
I do not. But that is a permutation yet to be revealed, the Light explained.

And with that, the Light was no more. It was not gone, just not there. For a
seemingly endless interval, Eli was with only himself. Eventually he no longer
questioned if he and the Light were separate because to him it did not matter now.
Eli spent what actually was forever stuck in a limbo that did not feel like time. It did
not feel like anything. In eternity, time itself loses its meaning and there is only ones
self. And it was here that Eli began to discover his purpose.
There was nothing left to eternity but the constant pursuit of discovery that
led to only one continuous, ever-growing thread of thought: that there was no
purpose. And this thought alone made Eli immeasurably low. He knew now that he
didnt want to exist any longer, for what was discovery without someone to share it
with? As ephemeral and fleeting as it may be, to share ones essence with someone
else was the only thing truly real. Eli realized that if he knew this, then the Light
knew this. Eli also realized that his essence was saved by the Light, to realize this.
Finally Eli concluded that there was no other answer. The Light had saved him so
that Eli might unmake existence.
You want to die, Eli said, hearing himself as well as thinking it at the same
time in what could only be described as a shout. It was so long since Eli actually
heard himself that he forgot what he sounded like and his own voice startled him. It
startled him nearly as much as the Light did when the nature of its being quickened
Elis presence with its own.
Very good. Now how will you achieve this?
Eli knew that he could not think of a way, for if he did then it would be
immediately known by the Light and hence cease to exist as the answer. It was a

paradox to be sure, but Eli loved puzzles. And this one was too good to pass up. Not
that he had a choice anyway. How do you find the answer before the question Eli
wondered without audibly asking the Light.
Exactly, the Light thought back unto Eli.
Eli could feel the Lights presence fading once again as he happened upon the
solution.
Its entropy! Eli said. When we talked about it the first time you didnt
admit that you can un-burn the match.
And what of it? The Light asked showing for the first time a hint of hope in
tonality.
I need you to eliminate it from the equation. If you created entropy, you can
undo it. I need to be able to un-burn the match too. I need to find the end before the
beginning, the answer before the question. It is only then that I will be able to
achieve my purpose.
Very well, the Light said.
Entropy ceased to exist, and in the wake of the ensuing chaos, Eli was set
adrift in a heterogeneous sea of his own thoughts. Time was no more. Existence was
a broken reflection of a shadows dream. And in the random maelstrom of warped
wonder, Eli discovered the answer before the question.
It was at the edge of all that ever was the Light appeared before Eli one final
time only to say, Thank you. And with that, it was gone.
A period of darkness followed and Eli was between it and the end of the
Light. Everything had been wrapped inside him. It had all become him. Everything.

Nothing. And now in the abyssal darkness, he was the only illumination. Eli had one
final realization as his essence surged.

Let there be Light.

And there was light.

And it was good.





The End