The Invention of Infinity

James Bentley was dead. He knew this for sure. The last he remembered, he'd been on a table naked except for a white gown. He had expected to wake up with a quadruple by-pass behind him. Instead, he found himself seated in a large, brightly lit living room. He was completely free of pain as he sat in a large upholstered armchair. There were other chairs in the room with people ensconced in them. One was a lovely young woman who was softly crying; another, a man in a tux with a revolver in his lap. The room had multiple sides and a highly polished wooden door at each one.

A white-gowned woman entered and escorted the pretty woman out of the room. Her soft crying turned to loud sobs as she got closer to her door. The man with the gun took on a bearing of dread. James became infected from the others and also began to worry about what the future might bring.

A door opened near James and a man dressed in coveralls approached his chair. "Come with me, Mr. Bentley," he said. James rose from his chair and followed the man's lead. As they went through the nearby door James felt a cold draft emanating from a hole at the side of a mountain. There was a sign over the door on age-darkened wood scrawled with white paint. The sign read, San Geltbin Mine. There was a gigantic haul truck standing near the opening.

The two stopped and looked toward the truck. "What's all this?" James asked. "It's yours, answered the man. "You need to fill the truck with gold coins that will be coming out of the mine. When you have done this, the truck will be driven to your eternal abode."

James smiled. "The truck will be filled with coins?" "Of a surety," replied the man. "That's the good news; the bad is that you will have to load it yourself." "I suppose that will be acceptable," said James. "From the look of things, I'll probably have plenty of time. That truck is enormous."

"There's enough capacity to load four railroad cars," returned the man. As he spoke, a coal shuttle car emerged on a track from the mine with a single gold coin in it. The car tilted to the left and dropped the coin on the ground. Then the car rolled away. "Fling the coin into the bed of the truck," ordered the man. "That's forty or fifty feet," James complained. "Too high for me." "You need to try," said the man. "James picked up the coin, braced himself and hurled it upward with all his strength. He missed the opening at the top of the truck by inches. "Try again," demanded the man.

While James was attempting his second throw, another car emerged from the mine and dumped two coins at the place where the first one had landed. Then it rolled away. James' second throw was no better than his first. "Again!" shouted the man. Another car arrived with four coins. "You're falling behind," he yelled. "Try again!".

A pattern began to unfold. With every throw, another car arrived from the mine with double the number of coins as before. James was failing to land even one coin into the huge cavern of the truck. He stopped trying and turned angrily toward the man. "What kind of reward is this for the life I've led? I can't place even a single coin inside the truck!"

"This is the reward you deserve," shrieked the man. "All your life you've been trying to accumulate money even though you had more than you could ever use." "Mr. Bentley," he added sternly, you're are not allowed to stop throwing."

"How long must I continue to try?" queried James.

"Until you fill the truck! Then there will be another truck!"

"How many trucks?" shouted James.

"There is no limit," retorted the man. "Keep throwing, keep throwing."

"Until when?" bellowed James.

"To the end of infinity," the man bellowed back.

"There is no infinity," screeched James. "It's a fiction of mathematics."

"Oh yes, there is!" screeched the man. His words caught fire as they escaped from his mouth. "There is an infinity! It was invented here for people like you!"