Last Chance
Did I say I have a fondness for paranormal stories? It's not that I'm being forgetful, it's just that where the supernatural is concerned, time and space are relative. I've read that many reports of the paranormal that it's less a matter of when to suspend critical judgment as when not to suspend judgment. Credibility isn't the critical issue. The supernatural tale must be convincing. It is the difference between factual and true. It comes down to style. I believe the word in use for it is meretricious. In other words, I want to believe.
All my preconceptions changed when I first encountered Near Death Experiences (NDE). They were very unsatisfying as paranormal stories. Reading published NDE accounts struck me as like watching episodes of a reality TV series about screw-ups; the series "Jackass" comes to mind, and no, I didn't watch it. The accurate descriptions of medical issues involved, and minute details of circumstances anyone in a coma couldn't possibly be aware of makes NDEs compelling testament -almost too much so. They're the stuff of tabloid news.
A peculiarity of the genre is a distinct sameness. It's no exaggeration to say if you've read one you've read them all. This realization induced me to quit reading them. Boredom, however was not the incident that triggered my rejection. It was the preponderance of sameness inessentials that led to the realization that they could be invented by anyone with a modicum of creative writing ability. What then captivated my imagination was the thought of a perpetrator of such a hoax smirking at mischievously pulling the wool over the eyes of credulous believers such as myself.
What I do believe is that both Salman Rushdie, and I, are on the same page about NDEs. In his new book, The Eleventh Hour (2025), one of the five short stories, "Late," is an obvious fabrication of an NDE. It is narrated, in the third person, from the point of view of the fictional S. M. Arthur. He is a professor - an academic of some vaguely honorific distinction - which allows Rushdie to project the writer's soul into his character's body without too much discomfort. The narrative which follows is speculation on the Bardo, or limbo, which scholars of scriptures take for a probationary period (in profane terms), before crossing the final threshold from which return to natural life is impossible.
The title, The Eleventh Hour, of this collection of short stories is an effective caption for Rushdie's current personal concerns about death and the soul's prospects for survival. He is 78 years old. He has lived a life of danger and remains steadfast in continuing the struggle for free thought. He is settling accounts, leaving no unpaid debts, getting ready for the big day. About those who follow the path of renunciation, of voluntary withdrawal from worldly affairs, search provides the following outline:
Sanskrit Terms for Worldly Renunciation
Nivritti is the Sanskrit term for withdrawal from worldly affairs, representing the path of renunciation or turning away from material life. It is often associated with sannyasa, the stage of life dedicated to spiritual liberation. An individual who practices this withdrawal is called a sannyasin—one who has renounced worldly attachments and dedicated their life to spiritual pursuit. The term sannyas itself derives from sam- (complete) and -nyasa (abandonment), signifying total relinquishment of material, emotional, and intellectual attachments. Other related terms include:
- Vairāgya: detachment or dispassion from worldly pleasures, a key inner attitude accompanying withdrawal.
- Upavās: fasting or abstinence, often practiced as part of renunciation.
- Uparati: dispassion toward sense pleasures and discontinuance of ritual duties, indicating a state of inner quietude and renunciation.
These concepts are central to spiritual traditions in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, where such withdrawal is seen as essential for self-realization and liberation (moksha).
That's easy for the AI to say! The actuality is that, given Rushdie's controversial style, his present spiritual situation may better be characterized as having a tiger by the tail. It's not the Ayatollah's fatwa he fears, rather it is losing the mind's grip on reality, the prospect of which is continually before the mind, and perpetually confronts the seeker. Ordinarily, it's a simple matter for simple minds. Given Rushdie's formidable erudition, the difficulty is vastly increased. He knows too much to simply drop the whole thing, to forgive-and-forget, like a simple penitent.
Rushdie makes his disdain for academia palpable in the short story "Last." The plot's action (or, better, its inaction), takes place in what the reader pictures as a suite of rooms dedicated to the deceased scholar, a memorial library for his study, and research by future scholars. The professorial S. M. Arthur receives no satisfaction in this vanity. He is bewildered. In his present condition fame is useless. He ponders his situation, wondering if this can be what all the fuss (about death) is about? It's certainly not enlightenment, at least, not what he expected. He begins to suspect he might be in some kind of purgatory.
As said previously, NDE reports do not make for engaging reading, and I do hereby reaffirm that opinion -even in the hands of so engaging a writer as Salman Rushdie. That's also a problem for the reviewer. Why read Rushdie's short story take on Near Death Experiences if the whole subject is too banal for words? It can be effective if the reader brings personal experience to the reading of this–or any narrative of–the last stage of life, which is to say, in articulo mortis. Again, let sage AI speak:
Define In Extremis
In articulo mortis is a Latin phrase meaning "at the point of death." It describes a person who is in their final moments, facing imminent death, often used in legal and medical contexts.
- Legal Significance: In law, statements made by someone in articulo mortis—known as dying declarations—may be admissible in court if the person believed death was certain and imminent. These declarations are considered reliable because they are made under the belief of impending death.
- Medical Context: In clinical care, a patient described as in articulo mortis is acutely near death, with little to no chance of survival.
- Related Terms: The phrase is closely related to in extremis, which means "in extreme circumstances" or "at the point of death," and is used similarly in legal, medical, and religious settings.
Example: A victim of a violent assault, critically injured and bleeding profusely, tells a first responder, "It was John Smith who shot me," before losing consciousness and dying—this statement may be admissible as a dying declaration made in articulo mortis.
Anyone who has come as close as Rushdie has to getting killed - whether experiencing a beatific vision of the afterworld (or not) - will forever have a changed outlook on life. It would therefore be very difficult for any writer to get into character, so to speak, in order to write convincingly about death in extremis, without having been there. Accordingly, inexperienced readers may be easily taken-in by persuasive narrative. Few readers but those who, like Salmon Rushdie, have had close calls with death will truly relate. To confront the dilemma for the benefit of the inexperienced the narrative testament must be given a frame of reference.
Begin by admitting that death is everywhere. It is at hand at any given moment. I find that family relations reduce objectivity about death and dying, while a wide middle ground stretches between a death in the family, and the completely objective feeling for the death of famous persons known only through news reports. The friends and acquaintances of the middle ground constitute a narrative opportunity for disinterested participation in the final stage transition experience. If you are like me, you don't attend every funeral, or visit everyone whom you know in the hospital, even if possibly for the last time. Willingness becomes a factor in seeing-off these unfortunate ones.
Rushdie's semi-fiction triggered in me vivid recollections of visiting one such acquaintance - for the last time - in an assisted living facility. As a secondary reflection, literature can be seen to function less as information, than as a code, a triggering mechanism for remembering autobiographical content. And so, I will admit it was with a touch of hesitation accompanied by personal foreboding that I approached an assisted living facility for the first time. A friend had been complaining to me about another individual who had checked himself into the facility. He felt betrayed. I promised to look into it.
Inside the facility, I knocked politely at his door. He did not answer, which gave me cause for concern. I sought a staff member, who said, "Go right in. None of the doors here are locked." I entered the room. He lay in bed wearing only briefs, watching the news channel. I asked if he knew me. "Of course I recognize you, Brian," without turning his head or averting his gaze from the TV screen. He continued watching the news without interest as we talked. After his wife died, it seems the light of his life went out, and he became impatient to join her. He told me his son asked him to live with him, and his family, but he declined. He was done with living.
He seemed to be in good health, and I could not decide if he (or I) would have the patience to reach the goal. As I was standing to leave, he asked me to inquire into the whereabouts of (resident). Now at my leisure, I looked around the facility where residents might idle, other than one's own room. There was a communal dining room – with a large family dining table – and an internal atrium containing an attractive planted environment, more for looks than for use. About to exit, at the registrar's desk, I stopped to ask after the person requested by my resident friend. "Never," the registrar said firmly, "ask about anyone. All I can tell you is he is being cared for."
Edified by that admonition, I resolved to find out for myself what had happened to those who seem to have dropped-out, without again committing the faux pas of inquiring directly into anyone's whereabouts. Another time, I was stymied by a friend-of-a-friend who had checked-in, without revealing to anyone at which facility –making visitation impossible. Yet another provided only a telephone number. Upon dialing, callers received the “voicemail box full” message. Perplexed, a few moments later callers received the text message, "Who do you want?" Replying with the resident's name, the sender then replied, "Don't know him."
These, and similar encounters, did nothing to diminish my curiosity about life's last act. In his short story "Last," Rushdie offers the metaphor of the English fog as the disembodied consciousness, in which voices and ambient sounds can be heard –but not seen. While the dead cannot be seen, they are assuredly near at hand, perhaps listening to what is said that relates to them in their present state. Metaphor-for-metaphor, therefore, to appreciate the literature of the end-of-life, the reader must bring to the reading prior experience of the subject. The thread of the argument can't be picked-up at random, like an episode of a TV drama in the middle of the series broadcast. At the same time, if the watcher is unsure if what is being watched is not a re-run, seen before (-how many times?), be assured that all instances of the in extremis genre have certain things in common, one of which is the open-ended ending. That we must write by ourselves, alone.