Pseudopod 130: The Greatest Adventure of All

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 130: The Greatest Adventure of All

By Ian McHugh

Read by Alasdair Stuart

By the time I cleaned myself up, Arj had scrounged me a fresh t-shirt. I stopped outside the recovery room to pull it on.

“How is he?” I asked, rather indistinctly. My top lip had blown up like a balloon. My head ached, too, where I’d hit it on the cold bed.

“Awake. Calm,” he said. “Whole – we think. Physical responses are normal. He’s in mild shock. Hasn’t said anything yet.”

“Abby?”

He shrugged. “Gone real quiet.”

Abby and Dole were a couple, the ringleaders of our little cabal. They were the kind of adrenalin addicts who see extreme sports as a mystical experience. Who’d mangle J.M. Barrie to tell you: “Death is the greatest adventure of all, man.”

Of course, the rest of us were fear junkies too, otherwise we wouldn’t be sneaking around the labs after hours like the cast of Flatliners.



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Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[MacArthurBug]

This episode was creepy. The idea that there's something waiting in the dark after deathfor us. This taps into a deep desperate screaming monkey/lizard brain fear of mine. Bad enough it's dark (which I've never been fond of in the best of times) but there's something there.. something terrible. Very flatliners-esque. Some parts of the story felt under explained, but over all well put together. Really great reading this week with added other accents! (YAY!)

[Listener]

When the narrator said "Flatliners", that did it for me. I really wanted the story to be good, but every time I thought about it, I thought, "Flatliners" did this already.

The interpersonal conflicts were very good. I think the author really understands people. Some authors don't get interaction between more than just two people to work right, but this author pulled it off.

Another good reading form A.S. I get the feeling these characters were not American, nor working in America, which means it made perfect sense for Al to read it.

[Sylvan]

When the narrator said "Flatliners", that did it for me. I really wanted the story to be good, but every time I thought about it, I thought, "Flatliners" did this already.

You bring up an excellent point and I had the same reaction.

The story was good ...VERY good, in fact... but once the Flatliners connection had been made, I couldn't stop overlaying the film on top of this story.  It was distracting and annoying, mostly because superficial elements were so similar.

The raw horror of the piece -that something is waiting in the dark to forever feast upon us- is really nasty in a Lovecraftian way and, yes, that's really awful!  Very sharp horror, indeed!  If there had been some other way to make a pop cultural reference or even avoid it altogether, I think the story would have benefited.

Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)

[Zathras]

As an agnostic, I don't know which frigtens me more, to just end or to end up in that dark place of eternal suffering. 

I wonder if the Flatliners reference was thrown in to acknowledge the similarities or not.  I would have thought about the movie anyway, so maybe the author was trying to head off some of those criticisms?

I liked this story.  It was the first one to really disturb me in a while.

[DKT]

I thought this was fun 

Very nice reading by Al -- perfectly suited for this story. The writing was good although the Flatliners thing kind of pulled me out after I heard it. If I hadn't heard it, I might or might not have made the connection but even if I had, I don't think it would've distracted me as much as it did this time.

Still, good writing. Fun story. Definitely a nice listen.

[Praxis]

It's a shame that a lot of people who listen to this will also have seen/know about the Flatliners film.  Like others have said, it is an awfully similar story and I found myself thinking about how so-and-so's post death experiences were different from such-and-such and wasn't it nice that Julia Roberts gets to have a nice reconciliation with her dad, rather than being haunted by something she'd done at school and I realised I wasn't following the podcast story so much.

I feel it missed the mark of showing what your life would be like if a) you knew what was coming afterwards and b) it was something horror-able.  (And yes that it a word, I just used it.)  After the characters are brought back the main drama of the story is the inter-character griping, I felt.  It could have been about anything and in this case happened to be their arguments about near-death experiences.

Actually, one of *the* most chilling references to What Comes Next occurs, like Al said, in the pilot ep of Being Human.  [nitpick]  And wasn't it "the men with the ropes and hammers" that you see in the corridor after you die?  [/nitpick]
When Annie (ghost) reveals this, it is so unexpected and the tone changes around it that I still remember it a year later.  (and, as anyone who saw the latest episode the other day, it looks like the writers are keeping that bit in  )  Whereas in this story, I was already expecting there to be some horrific experience from being almost dead that (merely) having characters reacting that that didn't seem enough.

I mean that it didn't add anything new to ideas of 'there might be Hell after you die'.

[Zathras]

I thought the horror was implied in what the information would do to civilization.  There is a lot of nitpicking that can be done there, such as, how many people would believe the information.  This story could have been about an alien invasion that was going to capture our souls and use them to power their ships, causing us eternal torment with no hope of salvation, and the horror would be the same.

[Praxis]

That was another reason why I wasn't gripped by fear or suspense with this story, I didn't believe that any of the characters would be likely to tell people generally about their experiences.

Even the route of publishing findings officially was a non-starter as it wouldn't get past any sort of peer review.

Meh.

[Poppydragon]

I guess last weeks was always going to be a hard act to follow, but unfortunately for me this didn't really get close. The overt reference to Flatliners simply seemed to be an excuse for coming up with nothing new and it was only Al's reading that made me bother listening to it all the way through. There was so much potential in Dole & Hoops experience, but in the end it just felt a bit like Compo's matchbox, a short lived horror with no real substance. Shame really.

[Ocicat]

I think the reference to Flatliners was an attempt to "hang a lampshade" on the similarities. 

I also think it pretty much failed.  The story didn't offer enough new and interesting material to get past the similarity.  The author would have been better off just not pointing it out. 

[Raving_Lunatic]

umm.. having no idea what Flatliners is, I enjoyed the piece i thought the idea was good (although apparently stolen) and the human reactions weren't bad either. Raised the question of whether we could deal with immortality, for me.

[kumarei]

Wow, I'm really glad that I haven't seen Flatliners.

I liked this piece, but I felt like it peaked in the middle. After the narrator experienced death in the middle, I felt like he was just waiting for it all to end. And so was I.

[600south]

umm.. having no idea what Flatliners is,

Please check it out, it's a great very interesting movie. and although the premise is the same, the plot is nothing like this story.

The real, ultimate horror we feel is nothingness. At least in hell, you're still you. But really, after you die, there's

[eytanz]

I pretty much agree with Praxis. All my life, I've been hearing that once I die I'll go to hell, simply for failing to be the right religion (whatever that may be) from both the media and individuals I've met. That information isn't new in any way. So, now a group of medical researchers add to what I've already been told a million times. Why would that shock me?

So yes, maybe they're more scientific about it, but this was hardly a controlled experiment. As the narrator points out, they all had independent reasons to think that they were hell-bound anyway. They all experimented on animals, none of them was religious, etc. etc. Even if they managed to convince me that there was hell for some, would they really convince me that I was going there?

And of course, for all that they managed to replicate the experience three times, they did so without altering the methods substantially. They haven't shown that this experience - whether hell or not - is not tied to the specific type of death, or to the fact that it was recoverable. Maybe what they were experiencing was some sort of entry procedure into heaven? Maybe everyone faces an eternity of joy preceded by 24 hours of pure agony to wipe away your sins or whatnot.

This was not a bad story when taken as a psychological thriller about people getting over their heads. But to believe that such an experiment would have any real impact on society at large if word were allowed to leak is outright stupid.

[Zathras]

I think the angle I looked at with the information causing world chaos was that other people would start their own experiments to prove or disprove their findings.  Plus, look at some of the atrocities committed thoughout history in the name of religion.  I do agree with you eytanz, in that the conflict comes from this group's fears and worries.  If they believe their findings and expect that others would duplicate the results, then their concerns are valid.  They may be flawed, but just like religion, reality isn't important, it's all about perception.

[Loz]

It was a perfectly decent story but I felt it needed to be more intense. You have two members of the team who are pretty much superfluous to the story and the other three go through breakdownville and straight into "we can't really discuss what seems like a perfectly describable experience". That so much of what happened to Dole and Abby happened off-screen, he went off to have a religious experience, she did what exactly (insisting that nothing happened while wanting to publish, a cry for help perhaps?) while the narrator just sits around with the shakes, perhaps the nothing-with-teeth is waiting for them in the afterlife because they don't have much by way of lives?

[birdless]

Though the premise wasn't anything completely original (thanks to Flatliners... did anyone voice that complaint yet ), and as has been pointed out, the "horror" of the public at large finding out what lies on the other side left too many practical questions, but the writing itself was the best i've heard on the entire family of Escape Artists (in my opinion, of course). It was alive, extremely well-phrased, vividly described, atmospheric, and the characterizations were very well-defined. Even if the story wasn't my favorite, the writing captured me. The reader did a great job, too.

[PoorBrenton]

I never saw Flatliners, so I was spared that distraction. I liked this one.

What struck me as terrifying was not the idea that they had gone to hell, but the horrors they encountered could be what waited for everyone when they died, sinner or saint. That made even my dirty atheist spine shiver-shake.   

[JoeFitz]

Although I remember Flatliners and groaned at the reference, after looking up the movie again, this story is really nothing at all like Flatliners. And that's a good thing, IMHO.

That movie was enjoyable at the time, and had good early performances of very famous people, but I enjoyed this story much more.

But in a classic example of "murdering to dissect" I find myself liking the story less and less the more I think about it.

I was, disappointed at the straw man of risk to society by "publishing" and the over-wrought dismissal of the idea (good reading, though).

The odd insertion of "faith" in the story. A character goes off to a monastery and couldn't find his faith again.

I say odd, because to me, it seems very facile to advance the idea that the discovery of what the characters believe to be eternal suffering after death leads to a "loss of faith". Firstly, we have no indication that any of the characters were particularly "faithful" nor any information to indicate whether the characters are "free from sin" in a dogmatic, religious sense.

So now I'm left with an Allegory of the Cave feeling... oh well. At least it stirred a few thoughts, half-formed though they were in my head.

[stePH]

I saw Flatliners years ago on cable teevee; promptly forgot most of it.  The reference was nothing more than "lampshade hanging" to me.  The story itself didn't do much for me.

But I must address Alasdair's outro and the comment that he's "waiting for stories about emails or text messages from the dead".  I have one to offer up immediately: Serial Experinents: Lain.

[kibitzer]

Ooh, now there's a good anime. Somehow I didn't think much of it at the time but wow, it's stuck in my head. Fab music, too.

[Unblinking]

I saw Flatliners years ago on cable teevee; promptly forgot most of it.  The reference was nothing more than "lampshade hanging" to me.  The story itself didn't do much for me.

But I must address Alasdair's outro and the comment that he's "waiting for stories about emails or text messages from the dead".  I have one to offer up immediately: Serial Experinents: Lain.

There was a side plot in the "Heroes" season 1 comics about this, with the character Wireless.  Her physical body died, but she lived on on the web, and improbably kept running a blog to keep people interested in the show.  Me, I'm not sure what's worse, eternal damnation, or spending the afterlife promoting a TV show.

[Sgarre1]

Me, I'm not sure what's worse, eternal damnation, or spending the afterlife promoting a TV show.

same difference....

[Unblinking]

This story really got to me, more than any other story I've listened to on Pseudopod.

I may be just about the only one who's never seen Flatliners, so I didn't have that issue.  I may have to go rent it now!

For me, the reason it stuck with me so much is that questions of what comes after have bothered me my whole life.  I'm not particularly religious, or perhaps I am just sporadically religious.  When I'm in my more religious moods, I tend to gravitate towards belief in the afterlife, not because it is in any way rational, but because it is the only resolution that adds any sort of fairness to the equation of the world.  I realize "fairness" is an unscientific concept, but damn it all I still want to believe in it.  Also, I take comfort in the irrationality that I will see my dead relatives again, and it cuts me deep to think that all of them are suffering for no reason at all.

IF they could publish these findings and IF people believed them, it could cause a great deal of social chaos.  Fanatic religious groups would uprise on both sides.  People whose morals were primarily motivated by fear of damnation might stop caring and just do whatever they wanted to do--I mean, the worst punishment here is nothing compared to eternal excruciating pain, and if nothing you do here affects the outcome, then what's the point?

An interesting alternate take on this story is the view of the afterlife taken in "What Dreams May Come"--excellent movie by the way, haven't seen the book.  In that movie, the afterlife is infinitely malleable, you basically get what you expect to get, or what you think you deserve (which I have moral problems with since sociopaths would end up in "heaven" and depressed suicides end up in "hell", but that's a different story).  This view of the afterlife could be interpreted directly in this story.  Dole, the first subject, is a religious man, at least to some degree.  Feeling guilty about what he's done to the animal test subjects, and perhaps also feeling guilt over his quasi-suicide, the afterlife he sees is the hell he expects.  Once he tells the others about it, then they have an expectation of what's to come, and they experience the same thing because they EXPECT to.

In this view of the story, publishing these findings would cause widespread damnation.  Not everyone would believe, but many would, and all of those people would be condemned to "hell" because they believed that's what was coming to them.

Of more immediate concern, if this view were true, then publishing this story could ALSO cause widespread damnation.  Way to go, Pseudopod.  Listeners, if you know what's good for you, you'll close this thread immediately, and never think about this story again, perhaps even jamming your fingers in your ears and yelling "LALALALALALALALA" should anyone broach the subject of the afterlife.  You'll thank me for it later.  Remember:  DON'T think about the afterlife!  Starting.....now!