skinwalker chapter 4 (standard:travel stories, 8474 words) [4/5] show all parts
Author: Eutychus	Added: Jan 22 2018	Views/Reads: 1742/1287	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Jerry and Moe continue moving deeper into hell. After making it across the river and the adjoining marsh where they encountered the souls of the sullen, Jerry comes face to face with beings that are patently demonic. They attempt to restrict further trave

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

I like that. It feels dishonest, sort of like this person's inability 
to believe in a God who can be wrathful." 

"Why would that be dishonest?" Phlegyas asked. 

"Okay, maybe not dishonest, but certainly lazy for not memorizing
scripture on my own and in the case of Moe's defiant acquaintance for 
not thinking the argument all the way through. I think what really 
bothers people is the idea of judgment and the wrath of God. They can't 
believe in a God who sends people to suffer eternally or imagine how a 
loving God can be filled with wrath. Yet it must be true because 
scripture tells us so." 

"I'll admit that was a question that bothered me during my life. I
eventually decided that God couldn't be like that and lived as though 
my behavior didn't really matter," Moe said. 

"Moe, did you have any kids?" 

"Four." 

"Then you should be able to understand what I'm talking about. You
likely had firsthand experience with the kind of wrath I mean. Any 
loving person, and especially a parent, is often filled with wrath. Did 
you ever have occasion to see any of your kids injured by unwise 
actions or relationships?" 

"Ram, my youngest son, spent time in jail but only because he followed
in his father's footsteps." 

"Did you respond to this with the kind of indifferent tolerance you
might show a stranger?" 

"Though I wished to praise him for having the courage of his
convictions, I publicly chastised him and inwardly hurt for what 
circumstance had brought upon him and he upon himself. But I think I 
can see where you're going.  The more a father loves his child, the 
more he hates in him the things that do him harm." 

"So if you and I, as flawed, self-absorbed, sinful men, can feel this
kind of anguish over someone's condition, how much more the morally 
perfect God who made that person? God's wrath is not an intemperate 
explosion of unfocused anger, but His complete opposition to the sin 
which is destroying the human race He loves with all of His being." 

"I'm getting such a warm, cozy feeling, but then we are approaching the
walls of Dis," Phlegyas said as he put new effort into his sculling. We 
were at the edge of the marsh and he needed the additional momentum to 
overcome the drag from the plant life and other obstructions in the 
water. Had I not been in the boat I'm sure he'd have skimmed right 
across the surface as we had seen him travelling from the other side of 
the Styx. The sudden surge caused the bow to lift and stern to drop, so 
I bailed like my life depended on it. This far from either shore and 
having seen the unpleasantness just beneath the surface of the marsh, I 
had no desire to swim the rest of the way. 

With every couple of strokes there was a thud at the bow followed by
angry knocking on the bottom of the boat. The people I had seen beneath 
the surface of the marsh were not as lifeless as they appeared. Once I 
looked back at our wake and saw a forearm break the surface and give us 
a one digit salute. 

"So they are fully conscious?" I asked Moe when he noticed my curiosity
regarding the people in the marsh. "Yes. Their anger has a different 
way of manifesting itself. It's not overt like the ones near the shore. 
Their anger remains hidden, below the surface. Any civility they 
displayed in life was merely a façade." 

"But a person's true nature always finds a way of making itself known,"
I said and pointed behind us at the hand that was still locked in a 
gesture of contempt. "I always considered the sullen to be people who 
simply refused to be happy and who would take issue with anyone who was 
happy. I never paused to search out the cause. I guess anger can come 
out in many different forms, like cutting words, sarcasm, jokes at the 
expense of the person the sullen soul is angry with... I suppose that 
means I've known a lot more sullen folks than I ever realized. Do you 
hear that?" 

"The burbling sound?" 

"That gurgle-gargle sound, yes. At first I thought it was water dripping
from the oar. There's a familiar rhythm to it that seems out of place." 


"It's singing, though the water distorts the tune and the words,"
Phlegyas said. "Anger that refuses to live life in the sun or accept 
pleasure usually finds a way to make its own distorted sort of fun. 
There is a group over that way that likes to come up with hymn 
parodies. The tune is Amazing Grace but I doubt you'd appreciate the 
lyrics. Thoroughly blasphemous and transparently bitter." 

The choir under the marsh became a minor footnote in my journey once I
caught sight of the first evidence of something patently demonic at the 
base of the glowing walls just beyond the bayou. There was a flurry of 
activity on the baked clay of the beach at water's edge that led up to 
the towered wall ahead of us. Creatures ranging from eight to twelve 
feet tall were lining up in formation near a massive gate. 

"Ahead lies the division between upper and lower hell. The horde before
us is aware of our coming and we are the reason for their presence. Me 
they will not despise but you will be an offense to them. Virgil had 
some issues as Dante's guide at this point in their story. He was 
unable to convince the demons that Dante should be allowed to continue 
his journey." 

"And that stance has not likely changed in seven hundred years?" 

"One thing demons in hell have in common with hell's human residents is
an inability to change. They still harbor an ancient bitterness 
regarding the thrashing they received at the same time those in the 
first circle were liberated by the unexpectedly Living Son. That event 
set their teeth and claws on edge where anyone living is concerned and 
the attitude prevails to this day." 

Not particularly welcome information, but useful. As the ferry crossed
the final hundred feet of the marsh I observed the gate we would soon 
have to negotiate. I saw no evidence of hinges on our side which meant 
that it swung inward. I recalled the details surrounding a Boston 
nightclub fire in the 1940s that resulted in nearly five hundred 
deaths, the changes that fire had caused in building codes and when I 
remembered where I was I chuckled at the thought that the in-swinging 
gate was a clear violation of fire and safety codes. 

"Out," Phlegyas said suddenly while we were still fifty feet from the
shore. 

"This is... inconvenient," Moe said without sounding ungrateful. 

"I am required to come no closer to the shore. Besides, what do you
care? You have plenty of vegetation to bear you up." 

"My concern is for Jerry whose specific gravity exceeds the water in the
marsh." 

"His problem, not mine. I have a schedule to keep and you two have
already put me behind. Out, both of you." 

Phlegyas used his oar to steady the ferry until I hopped over the
gunwale and luckily the water did only come to just above my knees. 
Moe, on the other hand, stepped cautiously from cattail reed to cattail 
reed without getting all that wet. 

"Godspeed, Skinwalker," Phlegyas shouted our direction. 

His sobriquet caught me off guard and when I turned to give him an
uncertain look, he was already moving like a bat out of ... really, 
really fast back toward the other side of the Styx. 

Something touched my ankle and caused me to completely forget the
garrison of demons waiting on the shore. 

"I trust he wasn't intending the native American legend of a human
capable of transforming into an animal with that nickname," I said as 
we both came ashore. 

"No, just acknowledging that you are a soul walking through hell that
still has his skin on. You moved quite fast through the water." "I was 
highly motivated," I said as I inspected three claw marks near the 
bottom of one leg of my jeans. 

"Now to the next obstacle," Moe said and looked nervously at the squad
of demons between us and the gate. 

"Do you have some well-reasoned argument that might cause them to let us
pass?" 

He raised his eyebrows and gave me a look that did not inspire
confidence. "What in your experience or in reading of instances of 
demonic activity in the Bible gave you the impression these things 
might be reasoned with? Whenever they couldn't get their way they threw 
the poor soul they inhabited into fire or water or drove pigs over a 
cliff into the sea. Do those sound like the actions of beings you can 
persuade to your way of thinking?" 

"I guess not. And I'm not going to pick a fight with them." 

"Wise choice. After Virgil proved unable to persuade them he and Dante
waited for an angelic messenger to force the issue on their behalf." 

"Moe, I read Inferno nearly forty years ago and I only remember the
general details. Where are you getting all these facts?" 

"While the Bible is the only book I can access on a word-for-word basis,
I have discovered that every memory I have concerning materials which 
might have moved me in the direction of salvation is surprisingly sharp 
since arriving here. I am taunted by opportunities ignored, it seems." 

"Can you remember any clues that might help us in this situation?" 

"Maybe this naturally follows given the circle we just crossed, but
Virgil mentioned that entry into Dis cannot be achieved without anger. 
'No entering save with wrath and ire,' I believe. Or maybe he was just 
frustrated that Reason was insufficient to gain them entrance." 

"Just as you said earlier, Reason is inadequate to lead a person to
faith, that at some point Grace must work in order for a person to 
believe. That was the element Virgil lacked, never having believed in 
the Savior, and Dante had forgotten, having drifted from the proper 
path in life. As a believer, I have received the Grace that produces 
faith." 

"In that case, if there is a way to move beyond those walls, you should
be able to find it." 

I thought about that possibility but something about me being able to
find my own way through life let alone through hell seemed foreign to 
how I should proceed. As an old Sunday School chorus came to mind I 
turned to Moe and said, "No. If there is a way through this situation 
it is not something I will figure out. Grace is not a one-time thing in 
the life of the believer. It is a resource we should rely upon moment 
to moment, not just when we find ourselves in a set of difficult 
circumstances. Up until this point I have been operating much as Virgil 
might have, relying upon my ability to reason my way through my 
circumstances and that is not how someone who alleges faith in God 
should be operating." 

"You had a moment of enlightenment? 

"I remembered a song my wife and I taught six year olds in Sunday
School. I am the vine, you are the bran-ches, he that a-bi-deth in Me 
and I in him, the same bring-eth fo-orth much fru-u-uit, for with-o-out 
Me you can do no-thing." 

"And after that they still allow you to sing to children?" 

"My wife has the singing voice. The important thing is realizing that in
life in general, and here most definitely, I cannot rely on myself. I 
need to be a branch and trust in the Vine." 

"And how do you do that in a way that is helpful in a practical sense?" 

"I think it begins by telling God something He already knows, namely
that I realize I cannot continue this journey trusting in myself," I 
said and turned my attention fully to a brief conversation with God. 

"None of that here!" an eight foot tall demon with a battleship gray
complexion mottled with redness shouted my direction. 

"I had no idea the ACLU's reach extended quite this far. Member?" 

"Advisor. You have no business here, flesh-thing." 

"Be careful Jerry. Though they no longer reflect the glory of their
Maker, they are almost as powerful as they were when they were created 
both in strength and intellect. You will not outwit them." 

"I harbored no such illusions. I do have questions, but I doubt they'd
answer truthfully." 

"Likely not, though if they did, it would be done in such a manner that
doing so would serve to further their own purposes." 

"How does a living human being find his way this far into hell without
having business here?" I asked no one in particular. 

"You don't understand. We do not care if you have business here. You are
not welcome. Your presence here is an insult, for you intrude into our 
realm uninvited, an agent of Lord Lucifer's adversary," another of the 
demons said. 

'Lord' Lucifer. The designation 'Lord' grated with unexpected intensity.
I thought about the discussion Moe and I had with Phlegyas on the 
subject of anger and felt his description of anger as the right 
reaction when it comes as an emotional response to a molestation of the 
honor of God fit this situation like a glove. But what tack to take 
from here... 

"Our 'realm'? When I hear that word I think of things like a kingdom; or
peerage, the system of hereditary titles in the United Kingdom. Pomp, 
circumstance. What I have seen thus far utterly fails to impress in 
that regard." 

"This piece of earth is but a foothold. We already possess myriad upon
myriad of souls. And that possession doesn't even require that we take 
up residence within the confines of a house of flesh. We can possess 
through ideas disseminated throughout a culture. Therefore it is just a 
matter of time until the planet itself will be completely ours." 

"Possessing a person as with the man living among the tombs in Gadara
implies an active process. That would reduce your influence to a very 
small portion of real estate. But if you insinuate your thoughts into 
the culture, I can see them taking on a life of their own. Tell a woman 
she should value her convenience above the life in her womb and get her 
to believe it, you've won a victory on many levels. Selfishness 
overrides the God-given desire to nurture and the conscience dulls just 
a tad. The next assault on the God-image that person was created in 
goes a little further and the sacred gets pushed a little more out of 
view. You suggest that hell doesn't exist and it naturally follows that 
heaven may not exist either. People pick up on these thoughts, they 
build on them, and humans are suddenly doing the work you began for 
you." 

"Yes, that is the idea. We'll show Him what a foolish move it was to
trust His image to flesh." 

"And then what, you will build something more glorious on the ruins? I
mean, you have yet to repair the damage done when the Son liberated His 
own from the first circle. Look at the gate. There's a two foot gap at 
the base. The bottom hinge has come loose on one side." 

"We are told there are plans in the works. Great things are coming." 

"Things more grand and glorious than what you at one time shared in
God's presence?" 

"Yes, that and more," a twelve foot tall demon said as he stood to full
height, lifted his chest and surveyed the swamp before him like a 
landowner inspecting his holdings. 

"You've all been promised something, haven't you? Whatever it was, can
the promise Satan made to you make up for the loss of heaven? I mean, 
you saw Him. You didn't just have His words on a page in His book, the 
evidence of His hand at work in the created world. You saw Him. What 
could Satan..." 

"A little respect, flesh-thing," the gray demon said as he clenched and
unclenched his fists, claws flashing orange in the dull red glow from 
the walls behind him. "You have received more than your due latitude 
with that insolent epithet. A visitor should have more courtesy." 

"Fine," I said in a tone any teenager might recognize. "What could
Lucifer offer that might compare?" 

"Freedom for one thing. We may do whatever we please. We can choose who
we will serve, what we will do. You have forfeited that gift by allying 
yourself with the self-important one." 

"That's the Self-Existent One, and it's whom, not who. So you chose the
creature Lucifer over the One who created him." 

"Creature? You would use such a term for one as glorious as our brother
and liberator?" one who hadn't yet spoken asked. 

"I wasn't using the word like it might be used in the context of the Big
Chuck and Lil John Show. I meant that Lucifer is a created being like 
you and like me. He is nothing without the God who made him. His 
promises can only be made in the shadow of a lie. What he calls freedom 
results in enslavement," I said as I gestured at the glowing walls and 
fetid swamp. 

"I have had enough of your impertinence. You insult the Master with your
words as well as your presence. Your blasphemies call for your death, 
but it has been some time since I have worn a suit of skin. Perhaps we 
can teach you some manners another way," the gray demon hissed. 

"Probably not the best idea," I said as it moved my direction. 

"Alakbar, wait..." another demon called as the gray one reached where I
was standing and his clawed hand disappeared into my chest. My knees 
buckled and I dropped to the ground. 

I woke up coughing with the taste of clay in my mouth. Presently I
became aware that Moe was attempting to roll me over so I shifted my 
weight and rolled onto my back. When I did I remembered something and 
made a quick examination of my chest. 

"You're fine, which is more than I can say for the one who attempted to
assault you." 

"What happened?" 

"I think you fainted." 

"No, I mean...you know what I meant." 

"Do you remember the last thing you said before Alakbar came at you?" 

"I said what it intended might not be a good idea?" 

"Why did you say that?" 

"I presumed a demon needs an empty vessel to inhabit when possession is
the intent. As we have seen, there is already Someone in residence 
here. What happened?" 

"I've heard an expression among the wrathful. 'Touch me again and you'll
draw back a stump.' That is more or less what happened. His hand turned 
to dust half way up his forearm as he thrust it into your chest. It 
never broke your skin though I'm sure it looked like it did as it 
moldered away to nothing. That illusion was probably why you fainted. 
He screamed, the others called him a fool, a skirmish ensued and they 
removed themselves to elsewhere. While they were busy I pulled you 
through the opening at the base of the gate." 

I rolled and looked over my shoulder at the gate that was now behind us.
The huge metal hinge had not been torn free of its anchor point on the 
wall but had been bent where it attached to the gate, resulting in the 
gap where the two halves of the gate met in the middle. 

"We are now considered fugitives. The garrison that came to collect us
failed in their task and others will be looking for us. Word of 
Alakbar's experience will follow news of our escape so I'm not sure 
what we should expect. We may be ignored or we may have to deal with 
more sophisticated attempts at injury." 

As Moe explained our situation I inspected the inner layout of the wall
around Dis. Built into its interior were buildings from every 
architectural era. Miniature ziggurats, a full sized replica of 
Stonehenge, a 1/10th scale pyramid of Cheops, a diminutive copy of 
Herod the Great's temple, domed mosques flanked by minarets, cathedrals 
complete with flying buttresses. The farther we moved from the gate the 
more recent the style of design. 

"What is the sense behind these buildings? Do they serve some function
here?" 

"This is the sixth circle, the circle of the heretics. We have moved
from sins of incontinence to more intentional sins. There are two 
understandings of the term 'heretic' at play here. There is, of course, 
the meaning associated with the intentional promotion of a flawed 
interpretation of Biblical truth. Dante, for instance, viewed 
Mohammedism as an heretical form of the worship of God. The other 
meaning, somewhat related to the first, is a general inflexibility, a 
preference for one's own flawed views over revealed truth. I believe 
each structure is a representation of one or the other meaning of 
heresy during its era." "Most kind of make sense. Even the cathedral 
seems appropriate as the selling of indulgences helped to fund the 
construction of some of them. But Herod's temple?" 

"A house of prayer reduced to...?" 

"A den of thieves. Of course. The cursed fig tree the day after." 

"Forgive me?" 

"Mark 11. The Savior saw leaves on the tree and decided to look for
figs. But fruit doesn't appear on a fig tree until June and this was 
around Passover, which takes place in March or April. He would have 
been aware of this, so I always suspected this incident was some sort 
of object lesson. But out of apparent frustration over there being no 
fruit, He cursed the tree. Then they headed to Jerusalem, there was the 
den of thieves comment, the expulsion of the moneychangers and then 
they left. The next day Peter noticed the tree that was cursed had 
withered all the way to the roots. Remember how they left this 
situation the day before, with a tree that had leaves but no fruit?" 

"Yes. The fig tree and the temple had a lot in common. Was He cursing
deliberate fruitlessness?" 

"Could be, and could also be the reason a representation of the temple
ended up here. If Dante saw heresy as clinging to a flawed 
understanding of spiritual things, the notion of going through the 
motions in the temple equaling righteousness without any real change of 
heart might make the temple an artifact suitable for hell. I wonder 
what qualifies a structure for inclusion in this collec..." -0989 

"This what?" 

"Collection," I said as I looked suspiciously at an emotionally familiar
edifice. "I know that one. I mean I've been in it. That was the library 
at the college I attended thirty some years ago." 

"Really? You know, that structure puts me in mind of something back in
the vestibule." 

"Why?" 

"It wasn't here the last time I passed through, just like the
radio-controlled planes pulling banners. What do you know about it?" 

"Give me a minute to remember. The Lernin-Coste Library was erected in
1900 with money donated by Abraham Lernin. That curved portion of the 
near wall used to be one story taller and that additional floor housed 
an observatory with its telescope. In the late 1930s the telescope was 
relocated to a new observatory a few blocks away. The place was added 
onto several times, became inadequate and was replaced by a new library 
around twenty years ago." 

"The building remains?" 

"Yes but it's been repurposed." 

"Then like all the other buildings along the wall whose original still
exists on earth, it no longer serves its primary function. That may be 
a requirement before it can be within the walls of Dis." 

"So how does a library embody heresy?" 

"Would certain expressions of idolatry also be considered heretical?" 

"Absolutely." 

"Then there you have it. What about the idol of acquiring knowledge just
for the sake of knowing? What better place to represent that heresy 
than a library?" 

"Yes, knowledge gained from books can be as strong an idol as anything
fashioned from wood, stone, or gold," I said as a memory surfaced that 
caused me to swallow a laugh. 

"You are amused by the oddest things." 

"I was remembering an acknowledgement of sponsorship at the end of the
Morning Edition program on National Public Radio every day. 'Support 
for NPR comes from NPR member stations and from the Pew Charitable 
Trust, driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most 
challenging problems.' " 

"The implication being that knowledge is enough?" 

"I would hope not but I think so. There is a lot of knowledge afloat on
the currents of the culture these days, but not much wisdom to properly 
guide the use of that knowledge." 

"But it is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to
be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." 

"I am referring more to the wisdom God gives to those who ask for it
than mere human wisdom," I said as I placed a hand on the wrought iron 
handrail at the base of the steps leading up to the entry. I looked up 
at the neoclassical pediment ten feet above the door atop four square 
white columns. The tympanum, the triangular portion within the 
pediment, was white and unadorned. There was no handicapped access, 
meaning the entryway looked like it did when I was in school, not as it 
did during the most recent reunion. 

"We will be going in?" 

"Of course," I said and ascended the stairs. When I reached the top I
looked back with a touch of uncertainty. Something was wrong. 

"Problem?" Moe wondered. 

"Maybe," I said as I walked back down and tried again. "Yes. I should
have landed on my right foot. I ended up on my left. A step is 
missing." 

Moe stood at the base of the stairs with arms folded looking thoughtful.
Fifty feet behind him a demon sporting jet black skin and glowing 
orange eyes was sprinting our direction. 

"Outta my way," it shouted. "Places to be, things to do, people to
influence!" 

Moe dove out of its path while I stepped away from the doorway it was
running toward. It hit the bottom step, went airborne, and disappeared 
as its lead foot touched the space between the top and first step down. 
I spent the next few minutes inspecting the area trying to determine 
what had happened and where the demon had gone. Eventually I turned to 
see Moe smiling at me. 

"Why the smirk?" 

"Because you're the one who obsesses over the details yet I'm the one
who knows what happened." 

"All right, experience wins out. Where did it go?" 

"Experience has nothing to do with it. I know what happened because of a
gift I received in 1915 from a Navajo gentleman named Black Horse who 
was a politician of sorts among his people. I think he was called a 
headman. Evidently he and I shared certain political opinions and his 
wife made a rug that he sent to me in honor of that common ground. In 
the accompanying letter he explained something about an intentional 
error that was woven into the rug. That error was placed there for two 
reasons. First it reminded the artisans that they too were flawed. This 
was a deterrent against pride. Also that one small flaw in the final 
product is thought to give any evil spirits residing in the rug a way 
of escape. That rug became the one luxury I allowed myself for a long 
stretch of time simply because I appreciated the lore behind it." 

"Then you are suggesting the intentional omission of a stair constitutes
a point of escape for the demon population of hell?" 

"He is still bound to this place so it was not a true escape, but
perhaps the flaw serves as a point of egress, just like in the rug. And 
I might even suggest that they move from here to the corresponding 
point on the original building." 

I looked both directions up and down the wall and concluded that if
Moe's suggestion was valid and every structure had a similar calculated 
defect a demon could emerge nearly anywhere on earth it desired. 

"Shall we?" I asked and opened the door to the library. We stepped
inside and I would have thought very little time had passed. Yes, the 
card catalog was gone, replaced by half a dozen bulky monitors with 
keyboards, but other than that it felt very much like the library from 
my college days. Checkout and return immediately to the left upon 
entry, reference librarian desk just beyond that, to the right before 
the stairs leading down to the fiction section a display of recent best 
sellers. Noble House, Gorky Park, God Emperor of Dune. And to our right 
a set of stairs leading up to the music library, a few offices and a 
reading room graced, as I recall, with some significant artwork. 

"This way," I said and began a slow ascent of the stairs. "The closer we
move to the back of the building the closer we'll get to the red hot 
walls. We'll stick to the front half of the library. Besides, there's 
something up here you might find interesting." 

We walked past the music room and I noted the turntables centered in the
room and the reel to reel players along one wall. Astounding detail for 
a duplication! And where was the power coming from? One of the reel to 
reel units had an empty reel on the feed side while the full reel on 
the take-up side spun pointlessly. And the lights were on. Was there an 
electric power plant buried somewhere deeper in the bowels of hell? 

Continuing down the hall to the reading room, I drew Moe's attention to
a pair of watercolor paintings that had been hanging here for nearly a 
century. Rather it would have been a century had a new library not been 
build twenty years earlier and the artwork moved. 

"It reminds me of some of William Blake's illuminated poetry. Songs of
Innocence, perhaps," Moe said as he inspected the works on the wall 
opposite the windows. "Is the title the reason why this library appears 
in hell?" 

"I doubt it. Vachel Lindsay's poem The Last Song of Lucifer, the full
text of which should be in this volume, The Golden Whales of..." I 
began, indicating one of several books on a table beneath the 
watercolors. 

"Don't open it," Moe insisted. 

"... California, has more to do with art than theology. In this case the
angel in question, as the second watercolor indicates, is not the being 
who became Satan but another angel named Lucifer whose singing voice 
drew him both acclaim and disgrace. He sang in new ways that deeply 
moved those who heard and because the universe was not ready for such 
music, Lucifer was silenced. The narrative speaks to the dangers of 
being an innovative artist, I think. Like Dante's Divine Comedy, this 
poem was a bit of an allegory too." 

"That was my interpretation as well," an unexpected voice behind us
said. I turned and was surprised to see a man dressed much as anyone 
else I had seen in hell standing with a book about the size of an 
Oxford English Dictionary under his left arm and leaning against the 
wall at the end of the hallway. Though there was something in his face 
that seemed slightly off, I sensed no real danger, so I walked over and 
extended a hand. 

"Hello. My name is Jerry. This is my friend Moe." 

As we shook hands his expression changed. "The street clothing made me
uncertain and the handshake confirmed those suspicions. You are 
considerably warmer than your surroundings and any of the other people 
in this room. You're alive. Oh, I'm Allen." 

"You," Moe said like he was making an accusation and then smiled
broadly. "Jerry, when we earlier discussed the skewed perceptions in 
hell resulting from hell's motionlessness relative to the rest of the 
universe and the relationship of that stillness to Einstein's theory of 
general relativity, I mentioned that someone other than myself had 
developed that theory. This is that person." 

"Alright. Allen, I look at you and am reminded of every time I have run
into someone from high school whom I haven't seen in thirty-five years. 
I should know who you are but I'm not sure why." 

"Possibly a dust jacket from something I wrote. Read much science
fiction?" 

"That helps," I said and mentally whiplashed through the fiction section
of my library overflow in boxes in the basement. "Allen Carpenter, 
wrote as Carpentier?" 

"The same. Not a lot of folks knew about the spelling change." 

"I was trying to remember the title of a short story a few years ago,
googled your name, read the Wikipedia entry and learned all that was 
worth knowing, which included your nom de natal." 

"Does all that have anything to do with the internet thing I've been
hearing about?" 

"Yes. You probably knew it as Arpanet." 

"Yes, it was a Defense Department method for transferring data packets
from one laboratory to another developed at UCLA in the late 1960s. I 
thought it was an idea that might hold some promise but I never saw 
much more than demonstrations of how it worked." 

"Arpanet was the backbone of what has become the internet, which has
proved to be both blessing and curse." 

"Probably fascinating but irrelevant in these parts.  But a living human
walking around hell. I find that far more interesting. What's your 
story?" 

I recounted the circumstances of my being here and gave a brief summary
of my journey thus far. Then I attempted to get a sense of why Allen 
was in both this building and circle. 

"If a writing style is any gauge of the writer's personality, I always
pictured you as fiercely rational, even to the point of excluding valid 
possibilities simply because they don't square with what you view to be 
rational arguments." 

"Yes, that's me in a nutshell, although I am willing to moderate a
position once sufficient evidence has been gathered." 

"Is that what you're doing in a library?" 

"After a fashion. I'm trying to teach myself Tuscan Italian so I can
read Inferno in its original tongue. There must be some detail that 
didn't come through in any of the translations I read because the 
normal path out of hell, the one leading up Mount Purgatory, does not 
follow the flow through the other volumes of the Divine Comedy. I ended 
up right where I began. Instead of arriving at the Earthly Paradise 
atop the mountain I found myself back in the vestibule for the 
umpteenth time." 

"Allen, do you really think there is a way out of hell?" 

"There must be. I saw a friend of mine climb that mountain never to be
seen here again. Everyone who translates Inferno does it with an agenda 
in mind. Ciardi, for example, attempted to make the images clear at the 
expense of the way the text flows as it is read. I'm presuming some 
detail was lost that a reading of Dante's Italian will make clear." 

"And yet here you are after making the same climb. Are you certain your
friend didn't suffer a similar reversal?" 

"No one has seen him in a long time. He seems to have disappeared." 

"But hell is very large. There are billions of souls here. Just because
you haven't found him doesn't mean he's not here," Moe said with a 
convincing degree of certainty. 

"If a person was able to leave hell, why would you think they could?" I
wondered. 

"Because they have finally learned enough about themselves and are at
last able to move beyond the sins that landed them here." 

"You are suggesting that a person might conquer their fallen nature
simply by force of will. Does that square with your experience? I have 
attempted to grow in my faith using that same rationale and failed 
miserably. How many people in hell have you met who have defeated their 
capacity for sin? How many have expressed that they even wanted to? And 
if we could work our way to salvation, what was the point of the events 
of Good Friday?" 

"Point taken. But the punishments here must serve some purpose, and what
better purpose could there be than to get a sinner's attention? It 
would be horribly cruel to bring about awareness of a need for 
salvation and then smother the desire that awareness awakens." 

"But Allen, do you truly desire salvation or do you just desire to no
longer be in hell?" 

"Of course I desire to be anywhere but here. And if C.S. Lewis was right
about anything, it is that we cannot have a desire without there being 
the possibility for fulfillment of that desire. For the  person who 
desires to eat, there is food. For the duck who desires to swim, there 
is water." 

"You've been spending time in the two hundreds stack. Of course, all of
the examples Lewis gave were physical desires, with the possible 
exception of his example involving sexual desire. I think a person 
could make the argument that there can be both physical and spiritual 
dimensions involved where that desire is concerned. Is your desire to 
no longer be in hell merely a physical desire or is there a spiritual 
component as well? Do you feel a need to fill Pascal's God-shaped 
vacuum in your soul?" 

"I'm still hedging my bets where God is concerned." 

"Allen, did you consider yourself a materialist, someone who felt that
matter was all there is to the universe?" 

"Until I arrived here, yes. I suppose I ought to make a point of working
my way through a good book on systematic theology." 

"Allow me to suggest the abridged version of Grudem's. If matter is all
there is, what do you do with something like your own consciousness?" 

"Perhaps consciousness is a by-product of the electrical activity within
the brain?" 

"If consciousness was dependent upon the activity of the brain, what
would happen to people who have had large portions of the brain 
removed? Wouldn't their consciousness be adversely affected?" 

"Well, there was the case of that railroad worker who had a steel rod
run through his brain when a charge of dynamite launched a tamping bar 
through his forehead..." 

"Ah, Phineas Gage. That incident informed neurologists that the frontal
lobes, previously thought to have little to do with personality, in 
fact played a major role in behavior and qualities of character. But 
the damage done did not affect his consciousness. It merely affected 
behavior. So consciousness must be something that takes place separate 
from the brain, though it has an effect upon the brain, interfacing 
with it in a way that allows it to direct the voluntary functions of 
the body. So in a sense the brain is an interface unit which allows the 
consciousness to interact with a physical world." 

"Good to know, I suppose. But what does it matter?" 

"It goes back to viewing the world as nothing more than matter. Do you
have thoughts?" 

"Obviously I do." 

"What do they look like? What color are they? Does your head get larger
to accommodate more complex thoughts which take up more space in your 
brain?" 

"Okay, I admit that thoughts are real yet do not take up space or have
dimensions and could not be measured by any means available when I was 
alive. I'll presume the same is true now. So there is more to the world 
than the materials that make up the world. In that case, where does 
thought happen?" 

"There's a subject that has been getting a lot of attention among
physicists for twenty years now. It's called multi-dimensionality. 
Though the term may not have existed when you were alive, the idea was 
around. 'You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is 
another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a 
dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and 
substance, of things and ideas.', " I said with my best Rod Serling 
voice. 

"Yes, I touched on the theme in some stories that dealt with traveling
diagonally in time." 

"Physicists are telling us that there are at least a dozen dimensions
that we, in our finiteness, are unable to plumb. Thought is considered 
to be one of those dimensions. If scientists can say there are several 
other dimensions to our universe, do you think that in one of those 
dimensions angels might converse with our departed loved ones about 
what it's like to be redeemed while in another those who wanted to have 
nothing to do with God in life receive the answer to that unspoken 
prayer following their death?" 

"Circumstances force me to agree to the possibility. Am I correct in my
assessment that you must be a believer?" 

"You are correct." 

"And you are okay with the contradictory nature of some of the claims?"
Allen asked as he cocked his head to the side and pulled his eyebrows 
together. 

"Allen, I'll presume you understand that I'm a Christian, and classical
Christianity never  sugarcoats or attempts to explain away difficult 
realities. In fact one of the hallmarks of the faith is the fact that 
we not only acknowledge the difficulties but we embrace them." 

"I can see that being true. Why is it that you can be comfortable with
facts that don't hold up well to a reasoned analysis?" 

"Because I openly admit that reason has its limits. Deuteronomy 29:29
tells us that 'The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the 
things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that 
we may do all the words of this law'. What has been revealed to us by 
God is held as a special treasure, hence the Southern Baptist emphasis 
on the importance of God's word, the Bible. Yet God retains some 
knowledge unto Himself. God's very nature is a good example. Think 
about it. The Trinity is a concept that is used to describe one God in 
three Persons. That's not one person who acts in three different 
capacities. Not three gods who operate in complete harmony with each 
other. One God, three Persons. Not the kind of thing that fits 
precisely into neat little boxes. Christ is both fully God and fully 
man. How do you reduce that which is by definition infinite into a 
man-sized and shaped container?" 

"Not only that, but then you take this God who is supposedly
transcendent, a Being beyond the limits of all possible experience and 
knowledge, and make Him utterly and intimately knowable in the person 
of Christ. It's a mind-numbing contradiction." 

"I prefer paradox. A paradox seems impossible but has the outrageous
fortune of being nonetheless true. Are you familiar with the Greek term 
Logos?" 

"It's a philosophy term. It means that which is supremely logical, the
organizing principle of the universe." 

"Yes. It is also the term the apostle John used for the Savior. The
Logos was in the beginning with His Father, He was with God and was 
God. As God He was equally transcendent with the Father yet John said 
'We have seen His glory.' John knew Him, ate meals with Him, they 
walked dusty roads together. He suffered with us as one of us. He is 
the unknowable God we can know." 

"I'm glad that you find comfort in the language of paradox, but my
comfort comes from Reason alone." 

"I've learned not to expect change from hell's residents, though I had
hoped a writer, someone fluent in the language of metaphor, having 
developed the skill of the short story, where you make your point with 
a minimal number of words, understanding how poetry uses an economy of 
words to effectively express ideas that are vast in their scope, might 
be able to see how grace functions just beyond the reach of Reason and 
would be curious enough to explore an unfamiliar landscape. I'm sorry 
you missed it." 

"I have wasted enough of your time. I should get back to my studies,"
Allen said and plopped down in an overstuffed chair at the head of a 
twelve foot long table. He heaved the large volume he had been carrying 
up onto the table, took a deep breath and opened the book about a third 
of the way into the mass of pages. 

As we turned to leave I heard a crispy sound accompanied by the odor of
sulfur. I looked back to where Allen was sitting and saw that bluish 
flames were leaping from the page. He looked at me, brushed charred 
hair from just above his eyes, shrugged and turned back to his volume. 

"That was what seemed strange about him when I first saw him in the
hallway. His eyebrows were missing. Evidently they grew back as we were 
talking," I said to Moe as we moved down the stairs. 

After we exited the library I took a long look at the scene before us.
Spreading out in uneven rows like some ignoble Arlington Cemetery laid 
out by drunken groundskeepers were rank after rank of sarcophagi. Most 
of their covers were pushed off to the side so that the tomb was at 
least open while others were leaning against their tomb. 

"I'm surprised by your encounter in the library, Jerry," Moe commented. 

"Why is that?" 

"You finally met someone whom you knew. Dante ran into acquaintances,
friends, and enemies in every circle of hell, and it was at those 
moments that he came to understand something of particular importance 
on his journey." 

"I  have learned something nearly every time I've turned around in hell,
so not knowing my teachers has not inhibited their ability to teach." 

"Then what did you learn from Allen?" 

"I believe I learned that everyone in hell understands that they belong
here. From all the anger used by the wrathful to mask that realization 
to Allen's compulsion over finding a way out of hell, I get a sense of 
resignation." 

"Allen hardly seemed resigned. He's still convinced he will find a way
out." 

"He's using that quest as a way of distracting himself from the truth,
but he had a tell."


Tweet