The Book of Irrefutable Truths

The Book of Irrefutable Truths

         If there's one thing you need to understand about old Mac it's that he sometimes talks to people who to you or me appear not in our physical realm. The other is that sometimes when he does this, he does it on purpose; he may be fully conscious of the real and the invention. If you lived in the city of Far, you would become completely enamored with his conversations, even if they were not with you. Ask anyone around the city and they will tell you how entertaining it is to listen to the old man asking the sailor of his tour of Europe or the astronaut of his completed mission to the newly discovered planet. The occurrences of which old Mac speaks of, the glimpses into the lives of others invisible to you, may or may not have actually happened. It's fun to imagine along with him; however, he might consider it spectating history.
         Before we become too acquainted with Mac as a man of great age, it may aid you in reading about his earlier days as a young man. Although he mainly kept to himself throughout most of his childhood, Mac socially blossomed during college and spoke seemingly effortlessly; everything came to him as if he had defined it in his head the world's knowledge. He often went hungry for conversation and sought after the brightest minds in the school along with the under spoken. Most of the students in his college that knew more than anyone else did pronounced it quite arrogantly and stated thoughts as facts. Mac, fascinated with this mindset, enjoyed comparing the pedants with the mousy types that attended the same college. In his own way, he would conduct a sort of research about the two types of talkers and deduced that neither side would benefit from conversation, for both sides knew what they knew and had no capacity to challenge and branch their knowledge. After a while of this learned reality, Mac got tired of listening to the know-it-all ramblings and took conversation to anyone that would have something more to offer per say.
         It was during these college years that Mac took to writing as a profession, whereas before, after each conversation he initiated, he at most jotted pages of notes on legal pads. His early works consisted of collections of sketches that frequented the talker-listener relationship of which he enacted in his life. He gained minor successes for these sketches. He later wrote surreal science fiction and horror novels that put the art of conversation on a pedestal; and for these he received major success. For a while, the great success prompted him to travel around the world and talk with new people. (Rumor went around that old Mac became great friends with the author Salman Rushdie whilst on an excursion in England during the period of Rushdie's persecution in India.) He traveled to China and asked their thoughts on democracy; and he went to Germany and asked their thoughts on dictatorship. Bouncing from one corner of the world to another, he managed to land conversations with a great deal of interesting people and talked of an array of subjects, some quaint, others scandalous. Inevitably, however, when Mac grew older in age, he settled back in his little city of Far and watched as the youth of the city did what they willed to their surroundings.
         Mac never took on a durable relationship, let alone a marriage, so no one ever questioned what came of his offspring. Sometimes, however, when one did ask him of his wife--probably one of the Flores kids out to pull his leg--Mac would create a wife out of thought; and each time one of those kids asked the same question, he would make a new one. This is when all the travelling had stopped and the time showed its effect on his body. Everyone thought old Mac would die all alone in his house found in the heart of the city, in a neighborhood where many trees shaded in the summer and abandoned in the winter. Thing is, if anyone ever asked Mac about death, he would give you a smile that looked like he mocked you and mocked life in general. Death might have never occurred to him all his life: that would explain him not worrying over love the way everyone else did, also his response to the questions of expiration.
         Going back to the two things you have to understand about this man, no one really marked the date of when he started conversing with ghosts. (Many people called them ghosts because of their invisibility, the main quality they assume off the scary movies they watch nowadays.) Ever since he started talking to them, however, he seemed to take on a completely new persona that the people in the city, initially, seemed alien to. They gave it the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde label, although this new persona attributes much to the man in his youth; and to label the transformation as something that describes the antiquated duality of man sullies what actually occurs. Therefore, the Jekyll and Hyde reference does not quite fit what happens to the man.
         Every now and again when old Mac steps into this phase of consciousness, he seems elated and near spritely. His face displays great animation, and an upbeat rhythm would show in his mere actions. Outside of this mood, old Mac's appearance took the mold of many an old man: the wrinkles, the grey, the laxness. Something would flicker and he would change, however. It became quite apparent to the eye that observed further than the superficial that young Mac came to pay the old man a visit, and most of the times the youth brought company.

         One night after coming home from a very exhilarating evening at the Tequila Worm, the old man felt compelled to write. That evening, not only did his old self visit him, but also it seemed that a party had followed. The old man danced around the place, sat down where he pleased and listened as the ghosts of nowhere shared their experiences. It had been a slow night at the bar, so scarcely anyone attended this fiesta; but those who did sat and enjoyed the show the old man put on. At times, he would sit next to a real person and introduce them to a ghost. "Oh, haven't you heard of the great king of Xanadu?" "It is my distinct pleasure to introduce Gonzalez the Great. You may have heard of his trek around the world in the blink of an eye." "Do not tell me you failed to hear of the Count of Yemen. Why, he's the man who discovered that dinosaur a couple of days ago!"
         Yes, old Mac nearly lost his voice during the entire evening and tired his body out. For the first time ever in his life, he felt his age sink into him; however, this did not burden him the least bit. When all of his company departed, including his youthful self, old Mac begot the inspiration to write. This craving struck him like a cold shower of great urgency, and hence he drove on home.
         Back at his residence, the old man scribbled and scribbled in an unopened journal he had saved for when his current one ran out of pages. In the new one, he lurched over like an intent gargoyle whilst his hand made words upon words appear onto the paper.
         It all came to him--or rather, they came to him: many voices echoed within his skull, all and each of them he took as truth.
         There on that late wintry night of southern Texas, many faces, all of them eerily familiar, greeted old Mac. He found it peculiar that all of the faces he fleshed out in his mind he had thought he met within the great travel that is his life. All told of their story, and all of them intriguing. There he had ghostwritten many tales of many truths, and none of them the same. In a brief skeleton, some stories told of betrayal and redemption, of sickness and wealth, of identity and loss, of life and death.
         "This I know is true," old Mac wrote as part of his prologue, "that many a man and many a woman, since the dawn of time, have created singular truths about the world. Although they put forth all of their belief into these truths, not one soul can prove them correct; nor can one oppose them or deny them this exercise. I am not allowed to judge these truths, to say whether they be ugly or beautiful. All I can do for these souls is to give voice to them..."
         Old Mac would find no extrication from writing until the next morning. Whether or not he would choose to publish the work that had so urged him to finish, that goes to the old man to decide. He felt it odd to publish such a work as he considered those that would read it and quickly deem it as the ramblings of an old man; and he strongly considered the voices of his mind. At that moment, he had brought together the ghosts and his mind as one entity, as an effect. Many years went by since he began to talk with ghosts, and until then, he had never thought to think that the people he talked to might have been an invention of the mind, perhaps a ruse. The further along he contemplated this possibility, the more drawn out reality was. This came to rest, however, for the old man came to understand the full gravity of his hallucinations and henceforth has never ceased to take on the role of a listener and a talker to any person, whether they live within the world or the soul. He regarded them the same.
         Prior to that evening, no one had ever seen old Mac as excited as when he left the Tequila Worm. It goes to shame that very few actually showed up to the spectacle. Ever since then, you can catch a glimpse of the old man, as animated as ever, here or there--and certainly you can stop him for a chat.