"The Meaning of Life" by Koutaro Ohnishi

 

Huff Huff Huff. Leo was running as fast as he could to his mentor, Mr. Thompson. He darted into his room like a cheetah trying to catch its prey.

“Mr.Thompson I have a really really important question to ask you! What is the meaning of life?”

Mr.Thompson looked at Leo like he had just seen a dodo bird. He was so confused that he did not know what Leo just said. 

Mr.Thompson asked Leo “What did you just say?” Leo answered, “What is the meaning of life?” 

“There are many ways of thinking about this question. Even though I am 74 years old I still don’t know what it means. The only way of knowing is after you pass away. Then you will look back to your life and see what the whole point of you living was about. But I do have a guess. I think it means to mature and think of new ideas. Humanity always thinks of new ideas, but what would happen if we just stopped imagining and making new ideas.” 

Leo was shocked. He just thought of something really really weird.

“What would happen if we were all one person but they just re-lived many many times and we are just him but in a different timeline?”

Mr.Thompson looked at Leo seriously and told him to follow him.

They went to the cold basement of the school. Leo looked around him but couldn't see anything because it was too dark. But then everything around him started to change. It looked like he was in a hologram. All around him was space and Mr.Thompson was in the very middle of it. Mr.Thompson explained that Leo’s theory of the meaning of life was correct. How he knew this was because he was an archaeologist and he found a book in Egypt. 

“I was a young fellow back then. I felt like nothing could stop me from doing anything. So I decided I might as well go around the world and look for what kinds of things are hidden inside of it. After my long journey through the Amazon forest, I read a magazine about Egypt, which said there were a lot of curses and mysteries. I knew I had to go there. I just had this gut feeling that I needed to go there.”

He continued, “When I saw the pyramids I was baffled. I didn’t expect them to be that big, but something caught my eye. It was the Sphinx. It felt like something was calling for me inside of there. I don't know if it was a trance or a curse, but I just knew I needed to go inside. I looked around and saw no one. It was my chance to go in there.

“I sprinted to it and found an opening. It was just under the left ear and I put a rock in the entrance so that no one could see it. It was chilly inside but I had no time to waste. I ran through the tunnel and found a chamber. There were shelves and shelves of knowledge and there were at least 1000 books. I picked up one of them and I guess fate wanted me to read it because it was about the meaning of humanity, the meaning of life. It said exactly what you said. Every single person in the whole world is actually one person, but in different timelines and that one person has died many times and re-lived many times. You won’t tell anyone I did this right?” 

“Of course, I won’t,” said Leo.

Then Leo and Mr.Thompson heard a yelling voice, “Put your hands up! Where is the basement of this school?” 

Mr.Thompson looked horrified hearing those voices. He looked at Leo like he just saw a ghost. “The truth is I didn’t only find books and knowledge in the chamber. I also found a box with a watch inside it and there was also a piece of paper. It said ‘If you are here it means that you are worthy of being here. Outsiders aren't allowed to be inside because they will use it for bad. You must give this to the next person you tell what the meaning of life is or else people will find it and they will force you into saying what it is, but the second you press the button you will forget what the meaning of life is. The person who you told what the meaning of life is will instantly teleport here to learn more about what the meaning of life means.

“The reason why they want me so bad is because they know what the meaning of life means, but if other people like citizens find out then the political world and the economic world will collapse. So you must press the button. Hurry!”

Leo looked at the watch and looked at Mr.Thompson. The door to the basement door swung open and several people came inside. They held up a badge that said CIA. Leo put the watch on as fast as he could and pressed it. There was a flash and he could not see anything. Then everything went black.

He woke up very groggy and in pain because of teleporting. Leo looked around and saw that he was really in Egypt, but not in any part of Egypt. He was inside of the chamber Mr.Thompson was talking about. Like he said, there were a lot of books and ancient writings that had at least an inch of dust on them. He was very afraid because he did not know what to do.

Leo had millions of questions on his mind.

How did I get here? Did I actually teleport here or was this all a bad dream and was I really a normal kid living a normal life and with a normal teacher? He pinched himself and sure enough, it hurt really bad. Leo was baffled that he was really here because he did not know that teleportation was possible. He was very curious about how the watch did teleport him here, but then he remembered why he was there.

He was here because he had to learn the actual meaning of life. He took one of the books on the rickety old shelf and opened it. He was confused by the language because it was written in Ancient Egyptian writing. But then he remembered that Mr.Thompson came here and he didn’t know how to speak Egyptian so how did he understand it?

He looked at his watch and thought if this watch can teleport me here there has to be something else I can do with it right?

Nope.

He tried to do everything he could in his power to make it do something but no. He pushed the button that was in the watch. He also tried to yell “Watch I demand you to let me read this book,” but no. Nothing happened.

He was bewildered because he didn’t know what else to do, but then he remembered that he never even tried to read the book so he picked it up, opened it, and then somehow the Ancient Egyptian writing turned into English. 

Leo was so confused when this happened because just a second ago it was Egyptian, but now it was English. He started to read the book even though it was very old.

It said:

“If you are reading this book then you are the chosen one. This book is the only way the chosen one can know the true meaning of life. Other people can’t see the words except for the chosen one. The world right now is in big danger. People are at war. Nature is about to collapse. There are people who want to kill themselves because of all this. All of this will make it so that in a few years humanity will erase itself off the face of earth. There is only one person who can stop this from happening. That is you. We are depending on you to stop all of this crisis or else you and all the others will die. The least we can do is to tell you and help you how to stop this crisis. One, you need to go back in time where you were a few hours ago and find the truck that abducted your mentor. Second, you will need to jump on the truck and find your way into the CIA headquarters so that you can explain what will happen to the world if we don’t stop making weapons and killing others. Also, you will have to do that at least 100 times because you will need to tell every president of every country what is going on. But you might be asking how you are supposed to talk with them? No worries. We made it so that the chosen one reads, writes, and speaks every single language in the whole entire world.”

Leo was stumped; he was under so much pressure because all of humanity was lying in his palm. He hated being under pressure. He thought and thought and thought. Then he came to a conclusion. There is no way I'm going to do this. Screw all of humanity. It is their fault that they brought this to themselves. Technically, I brought this to myself, but I don't care. 

Then he looked at the book and then looked at his watch. He ripped the book and smashed the watch on the floor. He knew that this was the best decision he could make because he would have to make himself learn that everyone killing each other is not okay. 

That was the end of all of humanity.