Nothing from History

Another night under the light. Keen philosopher, Dante Gretchwold, faced the usual white scribbled plank that consumed his befitting appetite for research. Dante roughly licked his shaky finger against the brazen tongue he seldom used to turn the page of the common item of his life, a book. Adjusting his glasses, conforming to the habit of him doing so, he squinted at a statement within his research book he found rather eccentric, reading : 'Man learns from history, that man learns nothing from history.'
Dante chuckled to himself quite loudly without striking anyone else with curiosity; he liked his privacy. Leaning back on the leather chair he called home, Dante withdrew his arrogant snicker to replace a more contagious thought of his: wonder. He wondered where exactly he had received this book from; either the archives in which he owned or the library. He perused in search of an author but found his efforts inutile. He drew back on his memory, which could be deemed as a credible source, but conjured not a single recollection.
Struck with severe intrigue, Dante pulled back with a strong breath and flattened his left hand to push the book away from him while he pondered. Dante closed his eyes and tensed his temples, shaking his head now beaming with frustration as to why this would be written with such clear brashness. In fashion to Dante's persona, he wouldn't let this go. Rubbing the back of his neck, Dante shifted his attention to the drawer that clutched his telephone book he hadn't required for some years. With a hesitation inspired by his conscience telling him this was absurd, Dante still pried the dusty book from the cabinet drawer and opened its pages with careful hands as he had discovered moths had also toted their share of the book. After ringing the clerk from the library, Dante had tracked the whereabouts, and also the phone number of the author, Benjamin Foolsworth. Dante pressed the phone down with great relief and let out a sigh of sheer delight.
"This is ridiculous..." Dante uttered. But with that statement, Dante had the phone again to his head still thumping with the relentless intrigue wondering who this author was. A normal man wouldn't ponder such a script with adamant perseverance, but Dante questioned even the most simple of theories. Even those from a random he book he was looking through for research on the human memory.
Pressing each button, Dante felt his heart beat faster against his will. A sweat bead fell from his hairline and swam down his forehead to perch itself on his right brow. Soon bedaubed by Dante's hand, clearly succumbed to nerve. Dante cleared his throat with a look of bafflement and thought to himself "...I can't believe I'm nervous." Grabbing Dante by surprise, the other line answered and without time for Dante to speak, a mans voice spoke in a subtle yet threatening tone to Dante. He said, "If this sentence is true... Your world will end in a week." The phone line went quiet for a few seconds leaving Dante to fall into a pit of oddity.
The phone line then beeped to signal a blank line and Dante blinked with a tense shutter and let out a quick loud breath scaring himself out of his stunned state. A prolonged pause swept over Dante and he slowing hung up the phone with no hesitancy. He got up with haste and paced around his chair wiping his face with overwhelming absence to the subject's cause and meaning. Dante wasn't one for letting things slip from his knowledge.
Dante thought back to the first statement he read in the book. If man would learn nothing from history it would be something that he learned about history, therefore contradicting itself; also known as a paradox. Dante thought in relation to the voice message on the author's phone, his own history had taught him nothing, as in, nothing on whether to believe the sentence or not. Being a philosopher, Dante was welcomed to commonplace with this paradox that had arisen. Over the years his mind was conditioned for this judgement he would need to deploy on this happening in his normally dull and slow life. His theory on the paradox that had crossed paths with him at present was somewhat fickle to him. His own reminiscence of his past taught him things that he considered history, like eating, walking; these things built the fundamental string to tie up his history within a space of living. But history can be defined also by conditions. Dante meditated on what the conditions were to this paradox.
In Dante's concern dwelled the fact that this author's condition of Dante's history would end in a week. Dante's high intelligence, which could not be debated as otherwise, knew this was just a message bank but something bothered Dante, and he felt uneasy about it. If he was to die in a week, his history would of taught him nothing under those conditions. He knew not of a way to parry death, nor return from it. Therefore under the paradoxical law of man learning from history that man learns nothing from history, Dante's historical past did not give him a chance to learn. His history could not tell him whether the sentence was true or not. Dante's eyes were now resembling that of his tired mind. Dante thought it wise to rest and continue the following day with a prepared mind for further answers.
Another day Dante wish he could pass. Eating the same laborious breakfast that felt like kin to Dante as he swallowed into the depths of no return. Yes, a little poetically charged, but Dante's life was twisted and metaphorical to him. As was the task this day threw at him. "Why has this author shook me up this much!" Dante thought. Sitting down at his work desk, Dante leaned his heavy arms on the table-top and jarred his head down into his chest to heftily cough with much tiresome effort. Dante stood up and cracked his bones and reminded himself to check for mail afterwards. He looked back down at his desk and as a thought entered his cluttered mind concerning the author he left for his front door trying to convince himself this new obsession wasn't consuming his consequential actions.
Opening the mailbox, Dante noticed a letter that didn't simulate the banks' nor his daily bills. This letter would cast this Philosopher into disarray. On opening the letter, Dante wished he could've foreseen the words he would read so he could ready himself for potential terror. But he stayed somewhat calm, much to his dismay. He fell back without a worry colliding with his hallway wall just inside the front entrance to his small apartment. He stared at the note for a few gripping moments and dared not to blink as he could render this current emotion depreciated. Staring back at him were but a few words, "Truth does not exist". Dante wondered if this note was referring directly to the previous statement protesting that his life could come to a halt, or, it was another sinister-motivated prank which Dante never approached a locus of ignorance with.
"If truth does not exist..." Dante postulated "...this note is in fact truth, making truth actually exist." This letter was reaffirming Dante's true initial solicitude. Apparently according to the author, Dante's life would end in a week. But Dante thought quick to withdraw all presumptions at this point and think it through thoroughly. First was a book he read saying: 'Man learned from history, that man learned nothing from history.' That set up a condition for Dante to conclude his theory on the second phone message he received. Then finally a note arrived in the sweaty palms of this troubled man reading yet another paradox: "Truth does not exist". If truth did not exist, then neither do lies. This letter could be a lie, this whole episode could be. But nevertheless for Dante, even after contemplating this saga in its entirety, his distinct conclusion stayed as it were. This note summed up his fate. Maybe not directly as truth, but his defeat to unravel the author's beliefs and doings was enough to potentially drive him to collapse.
Dante shuffled his feet and scratched the back of his head which was composing an idea. His next action entailed looking through his childhood photos his late mother left him. Here existed a tome-aged book that told many tales Dante had chose to forget. Skipping through the many photos of him and his mother, Dante squinted with discomfort as he gazed upon a rare photo of his father he had never seen. Within black and white confines, his father Phillip Gretchwold pierced the hard shell of Dante's heart. His fond yet extremely vague memory that haunted his mind had place in this moment to take a shape in Dante's perspective that touched a good meaning and chord for the first time.
This memory had taught him something. This was a history of truth, reviving a provocative image that could be nothing but truth. Dante stood only a foot high but the effect that day had on him manifested itself ten-fold. A photograph of his father struck a tune of opposing wrath against the author's folly. Reaching for final theory, Dante came to find solace at last. The author could not prove fact to his initial paradox. History could be taught and the memory of the human brain provides truth to it. Truth does exist which the author instructed, then, Dante preceded the author's threat; the note in his mail. The conditions were still propagating, and to Dante's utter disgrace, his history taught him on nothing to parry death.
A week from the day he opened the letter, Dante's brain which, unwrapped the shady discourse of the author's intention, had bled from the inside and thus, caused an aneurysm. Dante entered nothingness, and history taught him of it. Another night under the light. Static.