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“Good evening, Dr. Watkinson,” I greeted the old man with the spectacles waiting for me in that little white room, the place where his family decided to put him after his crisis.
“Nice to see you, Mr. Johanstone,” he said, sitting on the little mattress in the corner of the room. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you a seat, since as you see they left me none at hand, but I can offer you a space on the bed if you find it fitting and not too distasteful on my part.”
“It’s all fine, Dr. Watkinson. This is just a swift interview.”
“Doesn’t worry if you want to extend times, I have all the time in the world.”
“Thank you, but I have only two questions that I hope you are gracious enough to answer.”
“I will for sure. The matter will be if you are ready to hear,” he smiled.
“Look, Dr. Watkinson, I studied the results of your investigations on the subject of Anima Veritas.”
“So you skipped to the very end?”
“I read most of your research, but what interests me is not the work itself, but the impact in your life. You see, your daughter—“
“Ah, yes. My dear Agnes never understood what her father was doing with his life. She thinks that I wasted my life, her mother’s and of course hers, she can’t understand the simple fact of subjectivity affected by free will, so the blame of all her regrets falls over me.”
“She’s worried.”
“She’s angry. She feels that I could have been a better father if I had never dedicated myself to the study of the metaphysical, but not because she thinks I did it inherently wrong, but because my studies affected her social status when I stated that religion was nonsense, just a circus for the well of money making.”
“Those are some harsh words.”
“Why? Just because you are used to be scared with the concepts of sin and punishment under the rule of a Hebrew deity?”
“Now that’s open blasphemy.”
“If you came here to be offended by everything I say, maybe it was a not very good idea to begin with.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right… It wasn’t my intention to be this rude.”
“Besides I’m just a madman. Whatever I say is nonsense.”
“If you keep it like that, you’ll never get back to your normal life, Dr.”
“Normal life,” he smiled again, and this time I felt a weird chill crawling up my spine. “Do you remember the last lines of my study, Mr. Johanstone?”
“I do. ‘Everything is reduced to a single truth: Nothing is real but the notion of divinity. Divinity states that the soul is but a concept and matter a misinterpretation.’”
“You quote me well, but incomplete. I wrote: ‘Everything is reduced to a single truth: Nothing is real but the notion of divinity. Divinity states that the soul is but a concept and matter a misinterpretation. Nothing exists but the true divine and we prefer to keep it checked under a finite and dull set of rules where we even dare to fake an outer source of it.’”
“If soul does not exist, then you find yourself in the comfort of immorality, free of the fear of God and the punishment in the fires of Hell.”
“Why should a free man be necessarily immoral? Why being beyond any fear should mean necessary punishment? And to make things worse you even misread me!”
“What’s the right way to read it then? The spiritual is a lie and the material too, so nothing really exists?”
“You’re in the right direction, but still judging the letters for the concept you have of their author.”
“Look, I only wanted to discuss your chances to get back with your daughter and wife since Agnes and I are soon to be married, not your heretic concepts of life, so—“
“Nothing really exists but divinity,” yelled the doctor, “and divinity is a not so accurate concept because it immediately makes us think on terms of otherworldly power in the shape of supernatural creatures. But if divinity were everything, every meaning, every concept, then all would be one and the same under a notion of countless possibilities.”
“Doctor, please.”
“God is a concept, human is a concept, grass is a concept… but if everything is part of only one single concept, then everything including concepts is a lie.”
“The single concept would be true.”
“Until we fall in the notion of true and lie being part of the same concept, and if true and lie are the same, then—“
“Then it makes no sense. You said everything was a lie, but under your own set of ideas, if lie and truth are the same, everything could also be truth.”
“Only if we think that truth has the same value we are used to give to it. But if our single concept is everything, there’s no need for truth or lie since they’re no different at all.”
“So you say that there’s only one single thing existing, nothing more.”
“That’s right!” The doctor smiled as his face blushed with joy. “I see you understand!”
“And then what about the factual experiences? Even if everything is one single thing, that doesn’t change the fact of we two in this sanatorium. Or of you imprisoned and away from your former life!”
“Do you think so?” He said, and suddenly everything changed. I was born in some cave, millions of years ago, I grew up to be a hunter and died falling from a cliff, at the same time I didn’t died, but had a child who then was kidnapped by another tribe, at the same time I was the child, and I was a illuminated man in India, and a rock in America, and a star burning forever. I was every man and woman; every imagined and real being; every single thing past or future, huge or small, solid or ethereal, true and false. The doctor and I had the very same conversation in a beautiful garden, under enemy fire in a trench, after reaching the top of a Martian mountain, smoking opium in China, torturing a prisoner in a Russian bunker, while healing a little boy with sacred medicines from our dying tribe, after making love as man and woman – man and man – woman and woman, practicing telepathy, while swimming in a clear lake, in my dying bed, after breakfast, waiting for execution, running, standing, drinking, eating, divagating… Every imaginable and unimaginable life and form of existence was revealed to me, lived by me, designed by me, suffered by me, enjoyed by me, studied by me. Everything was a single thing.

When I woke up, they said I faded when I found Dr. Watkinson dead in his room. He hanged himself using a blanket. After that, someone else said I faded when I found him stabbed with an envelope opener. Somebody else said that I faded before arriving to the room and the Dr. was still waiting for me.
Nothing made sense, everything made sense.

Months passed until I returned to normal. I preferred to believe it had been but a dream. But sometimes I still see a person, a place, a thing, and I remember when I was in their place in every imaginable possibility.