What brought me out of hiding: So here I was playing a late night session of Assissin's Creed II (Yes, I'm behind the times) When I logged on to the internet and discovered that Leslie Nielson just died!
About 4 years ago I was training at Panavision to be their back up projectionist. I exited the private screening room to bump into someone. Disoriented, I looked up to stare into the striking blue eyes of Leslie Nielson. Flabbergasted, I struck out my hand like a good Panavision employee and stated "I'm a big fan Mr. Nielson." He took my hand with both of his and mightily shook it!
The truth is, I WAS a HUGE fan!
All the way back to his debut as Commander J.J. Adams (J.J. Abrams, is that your REAL name???) of the United Planets Cruiser C-57D in the AMAZING & EPIC Sci-Fi masterpiece Forbidden Planet, to the captain of the ill fated SS Poseidon in Irwin Allen's the Poseidon Adventure! I remember, as a small child, being devastated as the tsunami barreled down on the doomed ship, with Mr. Nielson staring death straight in the eye! And who could forget him as Dr. Rumack in Airplane! "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Or in Creepshow, or Repossessed, or Disney's Swamp Fox, or Night Gallery, or any of the countless film and television shows he brought to the screen. I'm sure most will remember him as Lt. Frank Drebin on Police Squad! and it's film adaptations The Naked Gun and it's sequels.
It takes a lot to emerge from cybernetic hiding, but my brush with greatness did it!
This is one of those deaths, along with the likes of Deforest Kelley, Jimmy Doohan, George Carlin, & Michael Jackson that reminds me that childhood is over. One of those deaths that reminds me about celebrity mortality, on a personal level.
Mr. Nielson, May a choir of angels sing you to your graces, and may your nose grow long when St. Peter asks why you deserve entrance through heaven's gates!
P.S. "I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you."
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Ventilation
After all was said and done, the question remains, would he have done it if he had known it would happen?
One annoying customer too many, I guess. Anyone who works retail will tell you that they’ve thought of it at least once a day. But in most people’s cases it never actually happened. Except in Frank’s case.
Frank didn't know he held such power. Frank figured he was just your average schmo working a dead end job.
Frank didn’t know when after he had mopped the floor and that stupid kid with the mud caked shoes walked in after closing that it would actually happen.
But it did.
You see, Frank didn’t know he was the son of the devil.
So thinking back on that day, all the unruly people he served on a daily basis, the rudeness, the self served-ness, the impression everyone gave that somehow they were more important than everyone else.
Frank was tired. Frank mused that maybe the human race didn’t deserve to exist. He thought “maybe if we destroyed ourselves then at least we can say that as a race we had achieved something truly great.” Frank didn’t know that he held the power to make it so.
So as mankind breathed it’s last and the world was left to the animals Frank blamed it all on one lowly teenager with muddy shoes. Frank thought, “If I had known, would I have ended existence?”
Probably.
One annoying customer too many, I guess. Anyone who works retail will tell you that they’ve thought of it at least once a day. But in most people’s cases it never actually happened. Except in Frank’s case.
Frank didn't know he held such power. Frank figured he was just your average schmo working a dead end job.
Frank didn’t know when after he had mopped the floor and that stupid kid with the mud caked shoes walked in after closing that it would actually happen.
But it did.
You see, Frank didn’t know he was the son of the devil.
So thinking back on that day, all the unruly people he served on a daily basis, the rudeness, the self served-ness, the impression everyone gave that somehow they were more important than everyone else.
Frank was tired. Frank mused that maybe the human race didn’t deserve to exist. He thought “maybe if we destroyed ourselves then at least we can say that as a race we had achieved something truly great.” Frank didn’t know that he held the power to make it so.
So as mankind breathed it’s last and the world was left to the animals Frank blamed it all on one lowly teenager with muddy shoes. Frank thought, “If I had known, would I have ended existence?”
Probably.
The Day The Rain Fell Up (a work in progress)
"Weather report for Sunday, June 12th:
Early morning showers turning to heavy
rain and thunderstorms by the evening.
Flood warnings for low lying areas.
Stay tuned for updates as they come. . "
I woke up and the bed was cold. The sheets pulled free to the right. She'd left. I'm not surprised. It's casual and if she hates herself half as much as I hate myself the morning after I can't fault her for bailing. At least it was raining. The pitter patter. Rhythmic. Drumming on garbage cans interspaced with the organic random beat of mother nature. I could forget. Last night, the day before, maybe even tomorrow. Shit, tomorrow.
My presentation was due. I was behind on it, but I didn't really care. I could sleep through it. As long as I had colorful visual aids and a PowerPoint song and dance the content wouldn't matter. But for now, my bed was cold. Honestly, I prefer it that way. My naked feet searched out the cold spots in the sheets. I closed my eyes and listened to the rain. Imagined I was puddle hopping nude through streets. Careless like a child. Refreshing.
Fuck it.
I should get up.
I got up.
Black coffee burned down my throat . It was half past ten, still early in my book. Why'd she have to leave so early. Am I really that bad. Is she really that nonchalant? Why did I care so much?
I put on my robe, slipped my feet into slippers, lit the first cigarette of the day and shuffled out onto the doorstep to get the paper. My eyes were still encrusted with the night's sleep. That's probably why it took me so long to notice, or maybe I'm just slow. Anyway, I shuffled down the concrete path reached down to where the paper boy always seems to land the paper and began to stumble buck to the door when it hit me.
Right up the nose.
The first thing that struck my mind, even before I fully comprehended what was taking place was "I'm glad I'm wearing underwear." I had more concern that mother nature may smite me with her own colonic than the gravity of the situation. For some odd and entirely incomprehensible reason, the rain had decided to fall up. Every where I looked the ground was shrouded in cloud. Dense and thick up to my knees, spewing forth was droplets of water racing towards a darkened sky. Like electricity racing between a conduit. Straight from the ground clouds into the safety of the waiting ones above.
Everything flooded in reverse. Rain water flowed up from storm drains and waterfalled into the heavens.
I looked to the Anderson's driveway next door. Their SUV's undercarriage had collected enough water to fill the cab inside. I looked in and viewed the aquarium of their lives. Their brat kid's empty juice boxes and cheerios once wedged between seat cushions now floated and bobbed like clown fish swimming through sea weed. The wife's prescription meds, freed from the glove box danced like jellyfish in the tide. They never parked it in the garage. Serves them right.
I mused for a moment how this change in the weather might affect my day. Would my presentation be postponed, would the world be thrown into upheaval. Was it localized to here or had the whole world gone topsy-turvy. All I was really concerned with was would I be able to get back to sleep if I crawled back into bed.
No point in leaving the house in this. What would happen to my car? I wasn't sure my insurance would cover flooding from the roof down.
Best to stay at home.
Catch up on my netflix.
Read that book I'll never read.
Masturbate.
Hate myself a little more.
Get drunk, pass out, wash, rinse, repeat.
I pranced back into the house. My hair bone dry but my nethers in need of a good toweling. I turned on the tube to get the full story. I was anxious to see what experts were lined up. Commenting on the insanity, but the cable was out. Maybe the sheer amount of information being pumped through fried the network lines. Or maybe I just forgot to pay the cable bill. I've been slipping on things like that lately. I still should set up some kind of auto bill pay. I'll get to it tomorrow.
Early morning showers turning to heavy
rain and thunderstorms by the evening.
Flood warnings for low lying areas.
Stay tuned for updates as they come. . "
I woke up and the bed was cold. The sheets pulled free to the right. She'd left. I'm not surprised. It's casual and if she hates herself half as much as I hate myself the morning after I can't fault her for bailing. At least it was raining. The pitter patter. Rhythmic. Drumming on garbage cans interspaced with the organic random beat of mother nature. I could forget. Last night, the day before, maybe even tomorrow. Shit, tomorrow.
My presentation was due. I was behind on it, but I didn't really care. I could sleep through it. As long as I had colorful visual aids and a PowerPoint song and dance the content wouldn't matter. But for now, my bed was cold. Honestly, I prefer it that way. My naked feet searched out the cold spots in the sheets. I closed my eyes and listened to the rain. Imagined I was puddle hopping nude through streets. Careless like a child. Refreshing.
Fuck it.
I should get up.
I got up.
Black coffee burned down my throat . It was half past ten, still early in my book. Why'd she have to leave so early. Am I really that bad. Is she really that nonchalant? Why did I care so much?
I put on my robe, slipped my feet into slippers, lit the first cigarette of the day and shuffled out onto the doorstep to get the paper. My eyes were still encrusted with the night's sleep. That's probably why it took me so long to notice, or maybe I'm just slow. Anyway, I shuffled down the concrete path reached down to where the paper boy always seems to land the paper and began to stumble buck to the door when it hit me.
Right up the nose.
The first thing that struck my mind, even before I fully comprehended what was taking place was "I'm glad I'm wearing underwear." I had more concern that mother nature may smite me with her own colonic than the gravity of the situation. For some odd and entirely incomprehensible reason, the rain had decided to fall up. Every where I looked the ground was shrouded in cloud. Dense and thick up to my knees, spewing forth was droplets of water racing towards a darkened sky. Like electricity racing between a conduit. Straight from the ground clouds into the safety of the waiting ones above.
Everything flooded in reverse. Rain water flowed up from storm drains and waterfalled into the heavens.
I looked to the Anderson's driveway next door. Their SUV's undercarriage had collected enough water to fill the cab inside. I looked in and viewed the aquarium of their lives. Their brat kid's empty juice boxes and cheerios once wedged between seat cushions now floated and bobbed like clown fish swimming through sea weed. The wife's prescription meds, freed from the glove box danced like jellyfish in the tide. They never parked it in the garage. Serves them right.
I mused for a moment how this change in the weather might affect my day. Would my presentation be postponed, would the world be thrown into upheaval. Was it localized to here or had the whole world gone topsy-turvy. All I was really concerned with was would I be able to get back to sleep if I crawled back into bed.
No point in leaving the house in this. What would happen to my car? I wasn't sure my insurance would cover flooding from the roof down.
Best to stay at home.
Catch up on my netflix.
Read that book I'll never read.
Masturbate.
Hate myself a little more.
Get drunk, pass out, wash, rinse, repeat.
I pranced back into the house. My hair bone dry but my nethers in need of a good toweling. I turned on the tube to get the full story. I was anxious to see what experts were lined up. Commenting on the insanity, but the cable was out. Maybe the sheer amount of information being pumped through fried the network lines. Or maybe I just forgot to pay the cable bill. I've been slipping on things like that lately. I still should set up some kind of auto bill pay. I'll get to it tomorrow.
True Story
Between beers three and four I found a manila envelope sitting on the bar stool next to me. I turned it over to see neatly stenciled words reading: DO NOT OPEN UNTIL THE PHONE CALL TELLS YOU TO.
To my credit, I waited a full thirty minuets before deciding a phone call wasn't forth coming and opened it.
I was hoping for a silenced PPK and grainy black & white photos of a prominent businessman or a visiting dignitary. Plane tickets to Moscow? A code disguised as a clever riddle? A scrap of micro film? Ship logs from the U.S.S. Eldridge? Photographs of the Roswell Crash?
I tore it open with dreams of adventure, danger and deceit but all I found was a badly painted picture of a fish.
Between beers five and six I remembered there's a sushi bar next door. It's probably the alcohol, but I've got a crazy hankering to kill me a chef.
To my credit, I waited a full thirty minuets before deciding a phone call wasn't forth coming and opened it.
I was hoping for a silenced PPK and grainy black & white photos of a prominent businessman or a visiting dignitary. Plane tickets to Moscow? A code disguised as a clever riddle? A scrap of micro film? Ship logs from the U.S.S. Eldridge? Photographs of the Roswell Crash?
I tore it open with dreams of adventure, danger and deceit but all I found was a badly painted picture of a fish.
Between beers five and six I remembered there's a sushi bar next door. It's probably the alcohol, but I've got a crazy hankering to kill me a chef.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sins Of The Grandfather
We’re lucky when you think about it.
When they first arrived everyone was scared. Who wouldn’t be?
They were as big as cities. Hovering there in the air.
We all thought it was the end.
But there was nothing to fear.
They were here to help.
They looked strange to be sure, but familiar.
They were smart and kind.
They cured our sick and ended our wars.
They fed our hungry and gave us new energy.
We learned from them and they from us.
Historians, they studied every book written by human hand.
And they found something.
Something too recent in the scheme of things.
Something that troubled them.
They wouldn’t say what it was.
It was rumored that someone they read about reminded them of someone from their past.
They didn’t like it.
They said it must not happen again.
And we agreed.
So studies were made, and a list was released.
Some people protested, but then again some people always do.
Everyone agreed that the potential benefits outweighed their voices.
So we gave in to their demands.
So here I stand
Naked.
They said that we would be clothed as soon as we passed through decontamination.
Then we will board the amazing craft from beyond.
We haven't eaten in days, but they said an empty stomach helps with space sickness.
I stand in line, with my bar of decontaminate soap.
I can only marvel at what wonders await me in the beyond.
They said we were being taken to relocation communities.
They say the sins of our blood line must no longer linger in the population.
They’re probably right.
They’re smarter than us.
It’s my turn now.
The door hisses open and a voice tells me to step inside.
The doors close.
Germ killing gas fills the chamber.
Strange, it’s hard to breath. I’m sure it won’t last long.
We’re going where no man has gone before.
We’re kind of lucky when you think about it.
When they first arrived everyone was scared. Who wouldn’t be?
They were as big as cities. Hovering there in the air.
We all thought it was the end.
But there was nothing to fear.
They were here to help.
They looked strange to be sure, but familiar.
They were smart and kind.
They cured our sick and ended our wars.
They fed our hungry and gave us new energy.
We learned from them and they from us.
Historians, they studied every book written by human hand.
And they found something.
Something too recent in the scheme of things.
Something that troubled them.
They wouldn’t say what it was.
It was rumored that someone they read about reminded them of someone from their past.
They didn’t like it.
They said it must not happen again.
And we agreed.
So studies were made, and a list was released.
Some people protested, but then again some people always do.
Everyone agreed that the potential benefits outweighed their voices.
So we gave in to their demands.
So here I stand
Naked.
They said that we would be clothed as soon as we passed through decontamination.
Then we will board the amazing craft from beyond.
We haven't eaten in days, but they said an empty stomach helps with space sickness.
I stand in line, with my bar of decontaminate soap.
I can only marvel at what wonders await me in the beyond.
They said we were being taken to relocation communities.
They say the sins of our blood line must no longer linger in the population.
They’re probably right.
They’re smarter than us.
It’s my turn now.
The door hisses open and a voice tells me to step inside.
The doors close.
Germ killing gas fills the chamber.
Strange, it’s hard to breath. I’m sure it won’t last long.
We’re going where no man has gone before.
We’re kind of lucky when you think about it.
Hang Nail
I'm not quite sure how they found out, but they did.
At first I hardly noticed it. A snag here, a poke there, but nothing that would really tip me off. Let me in on their plan.
I mean, it's crazy right? They aren't sentient. They don't have eyes or ears, or even a mind.
Right?
I guess I shouldn't have read that article.
You know, the one in the New Yorker about the science of death. It talked about the 21 gram loss and the rate of decomposition. It explained the bacteria at work and the gasses released. But most of all, it mentioned the growth. It talked about how the hair and fingernails continue to grow after death. I always thought that hair and nail was just dead skin cells. Every school kid knows that, has tried to gross out their fellow playmate with tales of decay. Now I know better.
It must of been when I brushed that hair off the page. The vibrations of the ink against my finger tips. My nails felt it. They read that article like brail!
They know.
They know they no longer need me. It's only a mater of time.
At first I thought I was just careless. My fingers would snag on a shirt or on my seatbelt as I pulled it across my chest. But it escalated. They became razor sharp. The simple act of brushing my teeth or shaving became a surgical procedure. The slightest bit of carelessness and I would slit my own throat.
I know what you're thinking. Why don't you just trim them? Oh, trim I did. But the next morning they would be back. With the speed of bamboo. Like a bonsai, clipping them only promoted their growth.
And now I look like a comic book freak. fingers tipped with razor edged weapons. It's only a mater of time before I slip up, become careless.
Then it'll just be them.
They never needed me anyway.
Reign
They say the greatest trick I ever performed was convincing the world that I don’t exist. I’m convinced that the greatest trick the world ever played was convincing me that I do.
Do you know what the biggest advantage of being Lucipher is? I mean the true perks of the job of being the Lord of Darkness? It’s that no matter what happens, the politics of heaven and hell, the strife, the dismay, the pleading for souls, it’s that at the end of the day you're still Lucifer.
You know who you are.
You know your role, no mater what may come.
Never did I sit and think what could I have been. What my life would be like if I turned left instead of right. You have no idea how freeing it is to truly know what you are. I get angry, I never want, I never need to need. Come rain or shine I’m still Lucipher.
I vividly remember feeling this way. So, at any rate I know that it was once real. And quite frankly, I got off on it. But then one night, gazing into the fire place, watching flames dance in a color spectrum no human eye could ever perceive, burning so bright it would incinerate any mortal, the thought struck me.
And struck me hard.
Why in all the millennia I’ve been here have I never before questioned my existence?
I think, therefore I am.
Oh, if only it were that simple.
The politics of heaven and hell run solely on the power of human belief. With out them, we would cease to matter. What difference would it make to the cosmos where their soles went after death? If all the inner workings of the divine exist for this sole purpose, what existed before the belief?
“What you hold true on Earth, I’ll hold true in Heaven”, HE said that. If so, does that mean I’m here in my basement solely on the basis of belief? And what of my choir of daemons? Christianity wasn’t the first religion by a long shot. Marduk, Unicron, Ishtar, were Babylonian Gods. Beelzebub: Lord of the Flies, was Baal the Prince: God of the Canaanite Pantheon before history was rewritten by the powerful. If heaven and hell is truly eternal what are they doing here?
For that matter what am I doing here?
Lord of Darkness? How did it come to this? My name means Light Giver. The Morning Star, The first light of dawn, The Bearer of Light. How could a symbol of all that is fresh and new be condemned to be the poster child of evil? Or is the truth that it’s always darkest before morning,?
If I am all that is evil why have I still been unable define exactly what evil is? Is an act evil when there’s justifiable intent? Is an evil act good when it rights a wrong? Is evil simply a point of view. After all, there really is no light or dark, just varying degrees of shade.
I’ve been portrayed so many different ways. Devil as seducer, as politician, as trickster, but the Devil as philosopher? It was a new one to me.
If we were made in his image, what use does it serve me? What use are arms and legs in the realm of the insubstantial? Why have a face with wrinkles about my eyes when time is not linear? If time is not linear then why is there a today. Is today just tomorrow’s memory?
Questions propagated more questions, till everything seemed to unravel.
The veneer dropped. Like a hologram in a computer simulation, Hell ceased to be lakes of fire and chains of ice. It was just a place. And I...
...What was I?
Not knowing.
If there’s a Hell, that’s it.
I wonder if God feels the same way. Has the same thoughts. Or is he too ignorant to consider the possibilities?
To my knowledge I’ve never spoken to him. I remember it of course. The Love. The Idea. The Argument. The Fall. But I can’t say it ever took place for certain.
And Lilith. Poor Lilith, Cast out of Eden in place of Eve for she did not heed Adam. What way was that to create a race? For simply asking “why?“, one is cast out. For thinking differently they are banished. Lilith and I will always share an unbreakable bond, for we were the first critical thinkers, and yet, why hadn’t all this occurred to us earlier. Why now after all this time
In hindsight I regret ever mentioning it to her.
The thought was terrifying to her.
Lilith now stairs for all eternity into her mirror. Touching herself, tasting herself. Her throat is swollen and raw from constantly humming to herself. She says the pain is reassuring. Wired fish hooks pierce her eye lids and pull them back. Forever staring. Terrified that if she should blink, even for a second, she would cease to exist. If she didn’t hear her voice, she would go mute.
This is Hell.
You don’t know what it’s like to ponder things in the physical flesh. One morning I was walking by a lake, recalling what it felt like to see true love for the first time, how it felt to have my heart skip a beat. Suddenly , through no conscious act of my own, I was throwing a child’s heart across the lake, watching it skip several times before taking the plunge. I stood there for several moments, unemotionally staring at my hand and wondering why through brief word association that I was destined to do such a horrible act. Was it of some personal daemon lying with in my subconscious, or was it because that was what was expected of me? “How can the Devil think of love, no, no that wont do“, right?
We’re the tortures of man more effective than mine because I am incapable of forming ones of my own? Or is the very word “existentialism” synonymous with “hell”?
I had to know.
The truth.
I sat. Pondered for days about it. What could possibly ease my fear. Give me hope that destiny wasn’t written and I was my own being. Able to make my own decisions.
Day turned to weeks. Weeks to months. Months to centuries.
Finally, I emerged from my solitude. Weary but filled with resolve.
I knew what I had to do. What I had always promised to do.
I called forth a council and drew up the plans. I went to my fortress and drew forth my shinning armor and sword of flame.
I would fulfill a promise I made all those ages ago. I would do that which was always threatened I would. On my own terms.
I would raise heaven to the ground.
The ranks were assembled. The generals rode forth on beasts so foul. And at it’s head my winged serpent carried us through purgatory. We feasted on the Lost to enhance our strength. The taste of fresh blood filled us with the ecstasy to do what we knew needed to be done.
A trail of shattered souls flowed behind us all the way up to the Gates of Salvation.
Saint Peter posed no threat.
I dismounted my beast, pulled close my cloak, and gazed up the walls of the capital city of Heaven.
I looked up past the battlements. Past The Angels holding the wall. Past The Archangels with their shields held tight. Past The Principalities with their hammers of war. Past The Powers with their bows drawn tight. Past the Virtues with their healing tools. Past the Dominions with their volumes of strategy. Past The Thrones with their wheels of fire. Past The Cherubim atop their sphinx. Past the Seraphim with their flaming swords held high. It was past all these that I saw HIM. Sitting there on his throne.
I took one long, hard, look.
And I understood.
Unceremoniously I threw down my sword, turned, and walked away.
When I had looked into his eyes it was not the creator of all things, the knowing, benevolent and reassuring stare I had expected. It was my own. I read it in his face, the wrinkles, the weariness. I saw that the same fears that plagued me were all too familiar to him.
The curtain had been pulled back, and there was no wizard.
Head, dropped low, hands in my pockets, I walked home. Behind me I heard my daemons charge in their berserker frenzy. Any moment The Angels will clash with them and Armageddon will unfold, but to what purpose. If my brother’s fears are the same as mine than this is only happening because there are those that believe it so. If that's the case then the ending has already been written.
A breeze grows around me and I pull my cloak tighter. I feel cold. A True chill that I’ve never felt before. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end for the first time.
I know It’s time.
But there is a flipside to this. A grain of hope that is the only thing left to me.
I am able to take some comfort in the fact that, you there, reading this, may just be a delusion of my belief., and if so, I do not envy your Hell.
Do you know what the biggest advantage of being Lucipher is? I mean the true perks of the job of being the Lord of Darkness? It’s that no matter what happens, the politics of heaven and hell, the strife, the dismay, the pleading for souls, it’s that at the end of the day you're still Lucifer.
You know who you are.
You know your role, no mater what may come.
Never did I sit and think what could I have been. What my life would be like if I turned left instead of right. You have no idea how freeing it is to truly know what you are. I get angry, I never want, I never need to need. Come rain or shine I’m still Lucipher.
I vividly remember feeling this way. So, at any rate I know that it was once real. And quite frankly, I got off on it. But then one night, gazing into the fire place, watching flames dance in a color spectrum no human eye could ever perceive, burning so bright it would incinerate any mortal, the thought struck me.
And struck me hard.
Why in all the millennia I’ve been here have I never before questioned my existence?
I think, therefore I am.
Oh, if only it were that simple.
The politics of heaven and hell run solely on the power of human belief. With out them, we would cease to matter. What difference would it make to the cosmos where their soles went after death? If all the inner workings of the divine exist for this sole purpose, what existed before the belief?
“What you hold true on Earth, I’ll hold true in Heaven”, HE said that. If so, does that mean I’m here in my basement solely on the basis of belief? And what of my choir of daemons? Christianity wasn’t the first religion by a long shot. Marduk, Unicron, Ishtar, were Babylonian Gods. Beelzebub: Lord of the Flies, was Baal the Prince: God of the Canaanite Pantheon before history was rewritten by the powerful. If heaven and hell is truly eternal what are they doing here?
For that matter what am I doing here?
Lord of Darkness? How did it come to this? My name means Light Giver. The Morning Star, The first light of dawn, The Bearer of Light. How could a symbol of all that is fresh and new be condemned to be the poster child of evil? Or is the truth that it’s always darkest before morning,?
If I am all that is evil why have I still been unable define exactly what evil is? Is an act evil when there’s justifiable intent? Is an evil act good when it rights a wrong? Is evil simply a point of view. After all, there really is no light or dark, just varying degrees of shade.
I’ve been portrayed so many different ways. Devil as seducer, as politician, as trickster, but the Devil as philosopher? It was a new one to me.
If we were made in his image, what use does it serve me? What use are arms and legs in the realm of the insubstantial? Why have a face with wrinkles about my eyes when time is not linear? If time is not linear then why is there a today. Is today just tomorrow’s memory?
Questions propagated more questions, till everything seemed to unravel.
The veneer dropped. Like a hologram in a computer simulation, Hell ceased to be lakes of fire and chains of ice. It was just a place. And I...
...What was I?
Not knowing.
If there’s a Hell, that’s it.
I wonder if God feels the same way. Has the same thoughts. Or is he too ignorant to consider the possibilities?
To my knowledge I’ve never spoken to him. I remember it of course. The Love. The Idea. The Argument. The Fall. But I can’t say it ever took place for certain.
And Lilith. Poor Lilith, Cast out of Eden in place of Eve for she did not heed Adam. What way was that to create a race? For simply asking “why?“, one is cast out. For thinking differently they are banished. Lilith and I will always share an unbreakable bond, for we were the first critical thinkers, and yet, why hadn’t all this occurred to us earlier. Why now after all this time
In hindsight I regret ever mentioning it to her.
The thought was terrifying to her.
Lilith now stairs for all eternity into her mirror. Touching herself, tasting herself. Her throat is swollen and raw from constantly humming to herself. She says the pain is reassuring. Wired fish hooks pierce her eye lids and pull them back. Forever staring. Terrified that if she should blink, even for a second, she would cease to exist. If she didn’t hear her voice, she would go mute.
This is Hell.
You don’t know what it’s like to ponder things in the physical flesh. One morning I was walking by a lake, recalling what it felt like to see true love for the first time, how it felt to have my heart skip a beat. Suddenly , through no conscious act of my own, I was throwing a child’s heart across the lake, watching it skip several times before taking the plunge. I stood there for several moments, unemotionally staring at my hand and wondering why through brief word association that I was destined to do such a horrible act. Was it of some personal daemon lying with in my subconscious, or was it because that was what was expected of me? “How can the Devil think of love, no, no that wont do“, right?
We’re the tortures of man more effective than mine because I am incapable of forming ones of my own? Or is the very word “existentialism” synonymous with “hell”?
I had to know.
The truth.
I sat. Pondered for days about it. What could possibly ease my fear. Give me hope that destiny wasn’t written and I was my own being. Able to make my own decisions.
Day turned to weeks. Weeks to months. Months to centuries.
Finally, I emerged from my solitude. Weary but filled with resolve.
I knew what I had to do. What I had always promised to do.
I called forth a council and drew up the plans. I went to my fortress and drew forth my shinning armor and sword of flame.
I would fulfill a promise I made all those ages ago. I would do that which was always threatened I would. On my own terms.
I would raise heaven to the ground.
The ranks were assembled. The generals rode forth on beasts so foul. And at it’s head my winged serpent carried us through purgatory. We feasted on the Lost to enhance our strength. The taste of fresh blood filled us with the ecstasy to do what we knew needed to be done.
A trail of shattered souls flowed behind us all the way up to the Gates of Salvation.
Saint Peter posed no threat.
I dismounted my beast, pulled close my cloak, and gazed up the walls of the capital city of Heaven.
I looked up past the battlements. Past The Angels holding the wall. Past The Archangels with their shields held tight. Past The Principalities with their hammers of war. Past The Powers with their bows drawn tight. Past the Virtues with their healing tools. Past the Dominions with their volumes of strategy. Past The Thrones with their wheels of fire. Past The Cherubim atop their sphinx. Past the Seraphim with their flaming swords held high. It was past all these that I saw HIM. Sitting there on his throne.
I took one long, hard, look.
And I understood.
Unceremoniously I threw down my sword, turned, and walked away.
When I had looked into his eyes it was not the creator of all things, the knowing, benevolent and reassuring stare I had expected. It was my own. I read it in his face, the wrinkles, the weariness. I saw that the same fears that plagued me were all too familiar to him.
The curtain had been pulled back, and there was no wizard.
Head, dropped low, hands in my pockets, I walked home. Behind me I heard my daemons charge in their berserker frenzy. Any moment The Angels will clash with them and Armageddon will unfold, but to what purpose. If my brother’s fears are the same as mine than this is only happening because there are those that believe it so. If that's the case then the ending has already been written.
A breeze grows around me and I pull my cloak tighter. I feel cold. A True chill that I’ve never felt before. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end for the first time.
I know It’s time.
But there is a flipside to this. A grain of hope that is the only thing left to me.
I am able to take some comfort in the fact that, you there, reading this, may just be a delusion of my belief., and if so, I do not envy your Hell.
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