Psalm 8:3-4King James Version (KJV)
3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
To the left is one of the Hubble telescope's photos of a globular cluster of stars. As it travels through the universe, Hubble has given us a small glimpse of the manifold objects scattered throughout the "heavens." While I personally have never been visited by anyone from outside of our own earth's atmosphere, neither can I deny the probability that life exists, in one form or another, somewhere outside of our solar system.
Having said that, I need to ask one of this world's most revered writers, Mr. Stephen King, what is it with his obsession with some sort of evil ant empire awaiting us either here, to wit, ants using human beings in a reversed "ant farm" project as in Under the Dome, or hereafter, as in, waiting for us humans to die so they can enslave what is left of our pitiful selves when we die, per his latest tome, (destined, of course, to be yet another best seller for this "king" of the horror genre),Revival?????
All I could think as I read the end of Revival was, really? Ants, yet again? I was so disappointed, even let down. I felt, not suckered-in so much as I was "succored" by King's undeniably excellent power of narrative; he had me hooked, as usual, from the first paragraph. As the drama unfolded, I was increasingly interested in the source of the pervasive electricity sought by Rev. Jacobs, and where the final charge would lead. I just KNEW it would be a spectacular and awe-inspiring conclusion.
I didn't even care that the whole novel was tilted against anything spiritual. Perhaps the "revelation" would finally explain the unexplainable, reveal a bizarre but nevertheless believable continuance for the souls of humanity, a place where, at the very least, the intellectual vestiges of mankind would be allowed to grow and go on; in other words, a hopeful place, even if it were godless expanse.
But why such a depressing and sad end for us all? "Howling stars", "paper sky"? Malevolent ants marching the chained remnants of human beings in long lines toward some dim horizon, toward some huge evil queen ant? NOOOOOOOOOO! I howled at the paper sky I held in my hands. Not ants, not again!
I can only hope that Mr. King has finally written all of the ants out of his computer and will never again foist these foul critters upon his faithful reading public. I could never NOT read a new Stephen King novel. (Besides, I am in his book club and always get the newest book about the same time as it hits the library's shelves where I work.) I only plead that Mr. King let go of this obsessive compulsion to throw all of mankind under the six feathery legs of monsters with large mandibles and empty eyes. Enough already. We get it; big ants make really bad taskmasters.
And, besides, the ending does not make scientific sense, i.e., how can you chain non-corporeal human beings in any way at all? All that is left after death, if there is an afterlife, would be the electrical charges that reside in the brain. The flesh is in the ground or burned to ash or otherwise converted, so that the remaining unseen portion of our body, e.g., electricity, has to go somewhere, since, as Dr. Einstein once noted, matter cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed into either more matter or energy.
My alternate ending (without the fleshing-out it would need in real life novels, pun wholly intentional): Rev Jacobs has wrought the unthinkable: he has revived the newly dead woman and, although she does not breathe, her heart responds to the intense electrical prompt and begins to beat again. Her eyes snap open while her arms and legs jerk in spasms. The fallen, former man of God leans into her face, gazes into the glazed but still beautiful orbs of the recently deceased and sees a painting by Akiane Kramarik, the child prodigy painter/poet/author, who believes that God spoke to her when she was four years old, telling her to paint her visions and share them with a despairing and unbelieving world.
Akiane's parents were atheists who converted to Christianity because of Kramarik's paintings and visions, and so Rev. Jacobs is also converted, as he draws his last breath, with the image of his dead wife and son smiling from one of Akiane's portraits, only they are alive and well, and Jamie Morton slips to his knees in awe as, at the same time Rev. Jacobs sees HIS version of the vision, so Jamie sees his sister, Claire, smiling and happy.
Why not a happy ending? No need to mention a god or angels; just these angelic-looking faces of lost loved ones, smiling from a golden frame, painted in heavenly hues. Eternally at rest, forever young and beautiful. And like the paintings in Harry Potter's school (Hogwarts), these paintings are alive so the subjects in the frames can move around and visit people or places in other frames.
AND the quality of the frame is an indicator of how well the lives of the subjects had been lived, so these last three decedents are framed in gold and silver set with jewels, and bad people have wooden frames with knotholes and some sort of weevil chewing at the edges (this is for those who simply MUST have some sort of evil insect involved in their endings, hint, hint.) In addition, the evil people have to stay in their frames until they learn to live well with others.
Okay, I have had my say, I am out of here. Keep up the great writing, Mr. King. Just a little less of the ant themes in the future, and take a long look at Ms. Kramarik's works and tell me that brain is destined for some sort of ant chain in the next life. Yeah, right. People can be bad, Stephen, and they can even be evil, but there are a whole lot of good ones out there, too. I refuse to give up on the human race, and I refute any claims stating death is the end of us or worse.
I, for one, intend to go on, in some form or another, along with the rest of you. There may not be a single creator involved in our design, but there is surely some source for our ingenuity, our good emotions, our sense of community and our insatiable curiosity about everything around us, the world, each other, the universe. Something compels us to seek and in that seeking, (or, in that sleep of death, as Shakespeare once noted), what dreams may come, indeed! And if we are bound in any way in the next realm of existence, it will be by the bonds of affection and love, memory and faith, and even by verifiable science and a new plane of reality.
Goodnight and sleep easy, fellow humankind. All is not lost, there are no demon ants awaiting us on the other side, and I personally believe that we will survive; something of us will continue and go on. I believe that we forge our own chains, if we want to continue an analogy: the ones we will have to carry, for good or evil, in this life for awhile; in the next, forever.
("Faithfulness" a painting by Akiane Kramarik)
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