by Brett Abrahamsen
He was attempting to write the greatest book of all time – a book that was great to the extent that no greater book could ever be written.
In order to do this, each sentence would have to be equal to each other sentence. If one of the sentences was inferior, a greater sentence existed, which signified that the work as a whole would be greater if replaced by a greater sentence.
Every word, in fact, would have to be equal to every other word – though words, on their own, signified nothing, perhaps unless the sentence consisted of merely one word.
The author of such a work could only be God Himself.
And, if that were the case, the ultimate book already existed: The Bible.
He read The Bible and pondered this.
Undoubtedly, the more powerful sentences – “Let there be light”, for instance – were greater than the endless lists of genealogies and so forth. Hence The Bible was not the greatest possible work of literature.
He would have to wait for a different God to reveal Himself, or else write the book himself.
He tried to write a book of great sentences, with all sentences being of equal value to each other – but, alas, he thought, none of the sentences were particularly great.
He decided, instead, to write the worst book ever written. Every sentence would have to be worse than every other sentence ever written.
This was even more difficult. Entire books of bad sentences had been written. The vast majority of possible sentences had no artistic value, hence the vast majority of published books had no artistic value.
Neither did the human species itself. Even something like Don Quixote could only perhaps be rated .000000000000000001 out of 10, if 10 were the flawless book he was trying to write.
He knew that the flawless book existed somewhere.
Where did the book exist? It existed in the hypothetical. The book could be written, but likely it never would be. He would never write it, and he would likely never read it, either.
Following this revelation, he collected all of his manuscripts, as well as his library, and burned them.
~
Bio:
Brett Abrahamsen has made several previous sales to the Sci Phi Journal, as well as various other publications. He resides in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Philosophy Note:
This is a meditation on the futility of literature – or, more broadly, the futility of human existence itself. The pessimistic ending is undoubtedly rational, if one is looking through the lens of a superintelligent species encountering our mediocre works of literature millions of years in the future.
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