The Philosophy of Emily Adison

Caitlin Ross-Poteet

The Philosophy of Emily Adison

Emily Adison stepped daintily on to Friedrich Street. It was a day that only God him/her/itself could dream into creation. Or maybe, it simply was a dream, who could tell for sure? And who/what is this God character anyway? Well, Emily thought she knew, and she asked him why he would create such a gray, rainy day. But, in any case, Emily Adison stepped, nay, skipped, well maybe it was more of a hop? Well, to be fair, it could have looked different to different people. Whatever it was that she did, it landed her in the middle of Friedrich Street. Poor Emily Adison. She never saw that hospital car coming.
Emily Adison felt….unreal. “Perhaps”, she thought, “I am unreal. If I feel unreal, that must mean I am unreal musn’t it?” She pondered this for a bit. Or perhaps, you would prefer the word “explored”? No? Maybe then “consider”. She considered this? Or if that does not satisfy you, perhaps muse, mull over, puzzle, contemplate, ruminate, or percolate will? Or if even these do not fit your fancy, perhaps you can use a word in another language that serves this meaning, or, oh! Even more fun, you can make up your own word! After all, it cannot be nonsense if you give meaning to it! Can it? Well, I’ll revotillum (that’s “mull it over” backwards! See now, isn’t this fun?!), and while I do that, you choose a word to use, and whatever that word is, Emily did it, and in doing so had a small revelation.
“Wait!” thought Emily, “If I am thinking I am unreal, I am doing something, so I can not be unreal then can I?!” This was the conclusion Emily Adison came to. A rather good conclusion; doesn’t mean it’s true, nonetheless, she came to it and she stuck with it momentarily.
Feeling her eyes rolling underneath her lids, or what seemed at the time, like her eyes rolling underneath her eyelids, Emily decided that now that she had figured out she existed, she should start to function again, and she would start with opening her eyes. This is when all Hell broke lose. Or perhaps you don’t believe in Hell, so for you it would just be hell, or heck, or something that represents a poor situation that you would not want to find yourself in. Maybe you don’t like clowns. So, for you it would be “if a circus broke loose” or “Timmy’s 6th birthday party broke loose” (who’s Timmy?). That would be the general idea. But not the absolute idea, because you can never be too sure that anything is absolute, because in being absolute that leaves no room for change, and if you find one day that things are not absolutely as you thought them to be, you would be forced to stick by your absolute belief even if it was almost absolutely wrong and that would lead to ignorance, absolutely. Well, not absolutely…In any case…
Emily Adison opened her eyes to see…nothing. Nothing but white. Although I suppose you could argue that white isn’t nothing, but aside from that, she saw nothing. Of course that depends on your definition of nothing, because if to you nothing really means something and something really means nothing, then the nothing plus white that Emily saw, to you, could mean everything! But again, Emily saw nothing. She saw only the blinding white nothing (or something) and felt a great heat upon her face, or what she hoped was still her face, for, at the moment she could not see it so she was not quite sure. Even if she could have seen her face, who was to say that it was no more than an illusion? Emily realized at once what this must mean.
“Oh my!” she cried as (her) reality slowly settled in. “Bright lights?! Great warmth?! I’m dead aren’t I?!” she exclaimed as the image of the hospital car rushing towards her gradually returned to the forefront of her cranium (which is odd, seeing as how this image had never been there in the first place).
Then, rising from the highest, purest peak of the Heavens (since this is where Emily thought she must be if she really were dead; I won’t argue because I don’t want to start trouble), came a voice.
“Emily Adison?” thundered the gracious yet powerful voice.
“Yes?” replied Emily. “God, is that you, God?”
There came a slight pause and then again the deep voice spoke.
“Well, I don’t know. I mean, you sound so excited, so, in the interest of keeping you cheerful, why don’t we just say I am?”
Emily Adison fumbled for words for a moment. And I do mean fumble. There is no replacing this word. I mean if you could have seen this girl fumble…anyway, Emily tried to gather herself.
“W-what?” was all she was able to spit out.
“Well” responded the voice, “I mean, you just seemed so excited to meet God, so the pragmatic solution to this would be to say ‘yes, I’m God, what can I do for you today?’”
Again, Emily fumbled, but less so, so go ahead find another word, same meaning, have a field day, or whatever you associate with fun. Have one of those.
Throughout her new experience, Emily had started out scared, then had become excited. Now, however, she was just getting angry, and Emily Adison was not the type of girl who wanted to be angry with God. From what little she had seen, or, erm, felt, she liked Heaven, and she had no intention of leaving on account of God being stubborn.
“Look”, she said, sounding a bit less angelic than she previously had, “all I want to know is, are you God, or aren’t you, is this Heaven or isn’t it, and am I dead or aren’t I?”
The voice seemed to consider these questions for a moment and with a deep and dignified breath it spoke: “Yes. Yes, Emily Adison, Yes”.
The room, Emily felt, was grower warmer by the minute, and if she had a face, she was certain it was growing redder.
With clenched something or others (because without a face can one have teeth?) she replied “Yes, what?!”
“I am whatever you think I am.”
“WHAT?!” shrieked Emily. “What does that even mean? That is nonsense! Alright, I want to know what is going on, and I want to know now! If you’re not God, then who are you and how do you know my name?!”
“I never said I wasn’t God”
“What?” snapped Emily.
“I never said I wasn’t God, you assumed. And as for knowing your name, well, what is your name?”
“What’s my name?” she said in disbelief. “Why, you just said it, it’s Emily Adison, EMILY ADISON!!!”
The voice responded quite calmly, “Are you sure?”
“Am I sure what?”
“Are you sure that Emily Adison is your name?”
“Of course I’m sure!”
“Prove it.”
“Wha- prove it?! It’s on my birth certificate but-”
“Your birth certificate? Well how does that prove that Emily Adison is your name?”
“How?” How. Emily paused for a moment. “Well, because it’s in print, and…it’s a certificate. That means something doesn’t it?”
“Oh does it?” asked the voice with pure fascination. “Well, now I’m rather interested! Do tell me what it means!” Again, Emily paused.
“Well I-I don’t actually know really. I guess I was always just sort of under the impression that it meant something because people, my parents, told me it did”
“Your parents?”
“Yes, my pare-My parents!” Emily cried. “That is how I know my name is Emily Adison! My parents gave that name to me, they called me that my entire life, and it’s what everyone has known me by my entire life, so it has to be my name!”
“Oh, does it?”
“Oh, what do you mean ‘does it’? Of course it does! That is the name that people know me by, that is the name that I respond to, therefore it is my name.”
“Well if Emily Adison is your name simply because you respond to it, then what if you didn’t hear someone when they called your name? Someone called your name, and you didn’t respond to it, so it obviously can’t be your name anymore. ” Emily was stumped. The voice was right. “Something can only have meaning if you give it meaning”. Emily had a vague feeling that, if the voice could smile, it was probably doing so now.
“So…I don’t have a name? I don’t have an identity? Then who am I? I mean, who was I? Am I? Was I? Am I a Was I?” Emily was growing increasingly confused and increasingly frustrated. “Where am I?! What is this?!” she exclaimed at last.
“This is whatever you want it to be” said the voice. “You are wherever you want to be. You are whoever you want to be. Your reality is only…”
“what I decide it to be” finished Emily. Suddenly the bright nothingness grew brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter still. She pushed her mind forward.
“Ohhhhh” sighed Emily. “I see” she cooed as she began to make out a blur of the faint figure before her. She made out a white robe…
“Do you?” the voice questioned her.
“No, I don’t think I do. But if I think I don’t at least I’m doing something, meaning that I exist, and in existing and doing something and that something being merely thinking and not knowing, that leaves room for change, possibility, uncertainty, and relativity.”
“So…” prompted the voice.
“…So…by knowing thinking I know nothing I will always have the possibility of learning all! You are God!!!” Emily exclaimed. “Oh I knew it, I knew it! Only God could bring such a Truth to my blind eyes!”
“Oh Emily Adison” came the mournful reply. “Have I taught you nothing?” And everything went dark.
“Emily! Emily! Emily Adison can you hear me?!” This voice was not so soothing as the one that had left her. At last Emily physically opened her eyes and saw…a middle aged man in aqua scrubs and a long white lab coat.
“Hi, Emily” he said with a smile. “Welcome back. I’m Dr. Rene, I’ve been taking care of you while you were out. You gave us quite a scare there, skipper. Do you remember what happened at all?” Emily looked around at the blinding white hospital around her. She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the fluorescent lights.
Thought Emily. And then, just as it had before, it all came back to her. The hospital car colliding with her body. Or at least, it had appeared to. The rushing car was the last thing she remembered seeing. She looked at Dr. Rene. The long white lab coat. That was it. It was all just an elaborate dream, Emily realized.
“Yea, I think I remember” Emily responded finally. “I was hit. By a hospital car ironically enough.”
Dr. Rene chuckled. “Yes well, we had a bit of an issue with one of our patients down in the psychiatric ward…” He cleared his throat nervously.
“Problem?” Emily thought she might be understanding, but thought there could be no possible way…but as Emily should have learned, there is almost always a possible way…
“Well to be honest, Emily” Dr. Rene began nervously, “this little accident of yours was a sort of a saving grace for our hospital”
“Oh yea, well whatever I can do to help” Emily said politely, not really knowing how else to respond to the fact that Dr. Rene seemed quite appreciative of her near-death incident.
“Yep”, said Dr. Rene, “if it weren’t for you that psych patient might still be out there, on the run with our car! Haha!” His chuckles quickly faded as if he knew that this really wasn’t funny at all. “But because the accident happened and the police showed up and everything, he was identified and brought back here. In fact he should be on his way to the psychiatric wing right now…”
Dr. Rene’s voice faded away and was soon replaced by a deeper, booming, thunderous voice…
“I know the Truth!” it boomed “I climbed from the inside out and beyond the shadows I have seen the Truth!” They must know that we can never know by climbing towards the light! That is the only solution. That is the only way to find the Truth!!!”
The voice grew louder until at last two strapping hospital security guards passed attempting to sedate an old man, wearing a long white hospital gown, who was flailing about uncontrollably. And for a moment, or maybe for a million years, or possibly for the length of the creation of an entire universe, or perhaps for no time at all, the voice was given a face as Emily Adison looked deep into the old man’s eyes. He fell quiet and still for just a moment. “Emily Adison! Emily Adison! You must see the light! So close Emily Adison! So close! Keep climbing Emily Adison and you shall know!!! Meet me at Friedrich Street seven days from forever and you shall learn the Truth!”
Dr. Rene stood silent for a moment or two, then cleared his throat again, laughed nervously and said “Now, where did I put your chart?”
Emily looked at him in disbelief. “I don’t know, Dr. Rene, where did you put my chart?”
“Um, i-it must be h-here…” he stuttered “I mean, I’m the doctor, so that means I’ve got to have that clipboard around here somewhere…uh, doesn’t it?”
Emily raised one eyebrow at Dr. Rene. “Oh does it?”

In some world, on some sort of day, seven days after now, or then, or never or forever, Emily Adison stepped, or lept, or did whatever your mind will say she did, to arrive on Friedrich Street. Poor Emily Adison never saw that hospital car coming, probably because it didn’t come. Regardless of what she did not see, Emily Adison heard a voice.