Skinwalker ch.3 (standard:travel stories, 11990 words) [3/5] show all parts
Author: Eutychus	Added: Jan 21 2018	Views/Reads: 1733/1255	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
After a discussion with Minos, judge of those entering Hell, Moe and Jerry are given leave to proceed to the next circle, the circle of the lustful and after a few eye opening discussions, they move on to other circles and other sins and sinners. We are h

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life." "Then they are not tossed about by the winds because their 
hearts were not technically carried away by their lust?" "Arguably so. 
But as I recall, these are a very unpleasant lot. They are not cruel or 
vicious or anything like that. They are just full of self-pity, 
constantly bemoaning what they consider missed opportunities to sin in 
life, yet another confirmation of their fitness to be here. Their 
eternity consists of disconsolation for what they never experienced in 
life and can never experience here." As we passed by the people whom 
the wind ignored, none of them did so much as look up at us. They were 
totally self-absorbed to the point of not even noticing we were there, 
with the exception of one man on the fringe of those "grounded" in the 
second circle. "Hey... where're you going?" he asked us, waving his 
arms like we hadn't a clue he was trying to get our attention. "I'm 
Jerry. This is my friend Moe. We are on our way to the next circle." 
"Why would you be doing that? I hear that things only get worse the 
farther down you go." "I can't give you an exact answer to that 
question but I trust that there is a good reason or I would not be 
going." "Do either of you understand how this place works? I just don't 
get the sense of my ending up here. Or any of these others, for that 
matter. This is where the lustful are punished, but I never acted on 
any of the thoughts that came to my mind." "Have you ever been 
oppressed by a thought or words that seemed like a quote from somewhere 
that you couldn't explain?" Moe asked. "You mean from the Bible. All 
the time. I can't get away from it. 'But I say unto you, that whoever 
looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her 
already in his heart.' But lust seems so natural. What harm does it 
really do, especially if there's no actual contact between the one who 
lusts and the one who is lusted after?" "May I ask what you did in your 
life?" "I trapped and traded, mostly with the Iroquois until I took a 
job with the North West Company in '85." "That would be 1785, right?" I 
wondered. There had been a number of groups that attempted to profit 
from the westward expansion of the young United States that had begun 
operations around that portion of the 18th century. "Yes. Sorry, I 
forget how long I've been here. Simon McTavish," he said and nodded 
brusquely. "Simon, have you ever given serious thought to what lust 
is?" Moe asked. "A long-spring beaver trap, because all you need to do 
is touch it lightly and it instantly grabs the meat of the emotions, 
bites the bone of the soul and will not let go." "Poetic, I'll give you 
that, but that's what lust does. What is lust?" Feeling that Moe was 
asking a question Simon might be unable to answer, I volunteered to 
offer a perspective. "Simon, you must understand that my sense of what 
lust is comes chiefly through my knowledge of its opposite, and that 
would be the love that is found in a godly marriage, which is one of 
the strongest weapons God gives humans to deal effectively with lust. 
You see, marriage combines and amplifies the spirits of a husband and 
wife in a relationship that replaces lust with a healthy desire for 
only each other. So naturally Satan would seek to counter that by 
offering a cheap imitation, intimacy without commitment, unfettered 
passion without consequence, desire freed from any form of control. 
That imitation of what God intends for human sexuality is what lust is. 
Lust is a strong desire to pursue and get for oneself something that 
you currently lacks so that you can enjoy it by yourself and for 
yourself. In marriage, the focus is on the needs of the other." Moe 
nodded as if to approve and  added that, "God gave us a sexual nature, 
which He would allow us to fulfill with a mate. If that wasn't His 
intent, why would He say things like '...rejoice with the wife of your 
youth. Let her be as the loving fawn and the pleasant roe: let her 
breasts satisfy you at all times, and be ravished always with her 
love.'?" "So any premature attempt at intimacy, even if it takes place 
in the mind, is lust. Sex, as God intended it, is the result of love, 
not the reason for it or path to it. You see, making love is neither 
what society constantly portrays it as nor what Satan tempts us to 
imagine that it is. Society tells us that sex is mostly about seeing 
someone unclothed, giving and receiving physical sensations, and 
occasionally results in children. But God made sex to be the deepest 
consummation of true love that there is. When a man and woman have 
loved each other so much that they have done the hard work of nurturing 
a relationship that has resulted in marriage, the marriage bed is the 
natural location where they can physically and spiritually share all 
that they are with each other in love, not lust." "This is why I never 
discussed these matters openly. It is always discussed in terms of men 
and women, an attraction that never exactly appealed," Simon said. As 
the look on his face turned to one of sadness and he headed back toward 
the others who hadn't followed us along I looked at Moe and asked, "Did 
that discussion do anyone any good?" "It may have given you a new 
appreciation for your wife, but it did McTavish no good at all. Hell is 
a place where truth comes through  unvarnished. All that Simon was, all 
that I was, is plain to each of us and we can do nothing about it. We 
are what we were, are what we are, and are what we always will be, 
without hope of changing." "Moe, whatever you were, you sure sound as 
though you've changed." "Just because I understand my situation and am 
able to see what I refused to see when I was alive does not mean I have 
changed in any way. I will return to my circle when our journey ends." 
"So was the fact that Simon never acted upon his particular sort of 
lust what kept him out of lower hell, those who were violent against 
nature by foregoing the challenge of the opposite sex?" "Interesting 
way of putting it. While my culture did not look approvingly upon such 
liaisons, there is a well-known text that dealt without ambiguity or 
hypocrisy with all aspects of sexual life, including marriage, 
adultery, prostitution, group sex, and male and female homosexuality. 
Just because something is not advertized within a culture does not mean 
it does not exist." "What was the name of this work?" "The Kama Sutra 
of Vatsyayana of Nashipur." "Hmm," I said, more in response to 
additional information regarding Moe's background than the name of the 
resource. "Did this work address the subject of marriage between 
members of the same sex?" Moe stopped short and looked at me like I had 
grown a third arm. "No, merely sex between men and between women. How 
can there be a marriage between members of the same sex?" "The argument 
has been made in recent years that if the emotional state of love is 
held to be the primary grounds for marriage, then the identity of the 
lovers should be irrelevant. This leads, quite naturally, to the 
strongest argument for what is referred to as 'gay marriage'. If 
marriage is only about the emotional bond of love between two people, 
then it is entirely reasonable to question why such a bond is only 
recognized between male and female." "Jerry, the emotions felt by the 
two people involved do not change the ontological status of marriage." 
"Oh that's right, you studied law." "How does that affect the 
discussion?" "It explains why you would be using a word like 
'ontological.'  If I'm not mistaken, ontology concerns itself with the 
nature of being or the kinds of things that have existence, like man 
and woman, mother and father and who qualifies for which role and why. 
Where this subject is concerned, it's probably best that I assert the 
fact that I hold to the orthodox Christian view of marriage, one man 
and one woman in a covenant relationship for life. And I'm not so much 
saying that same sex marriage is wrong, but rather that it is 
impossible probably for the very ontological reasons you allude to." 
"What I was suggesting is that calling two men or two women 'married' 
is the linguistic equivalent to calling one of the women a 'father' or 
one man a 'mother'." "You are correct, it is an ontological, rather 
than a moral, distinction, though moral consequences are definitely 
implied. A man cannot breast-feed, and even if he bottle-feeds the 
baby, that does not make him a 'mother'. A mother ovulates, gestates 
and lactates, all abilities which are wholly lacking in males. Also, a 
man can love his children very much and do many things with them that 
serve a nurturing function, typically the role of the woman in the 
parenting partnership. This ability to nurture will not make him into a 
'mother.'" "How do those who advocate on behalf of this form of 
'marriage' justify their position?" "They attempt to undefine 
marriage." "Don't you mean redefine?" "No. The argument is that the 
word ‘marriage' in the early twenty-first century suddenly means 
something different now than what it has meant for thousands of years." 
"People must take care when they reason from their passions. The 
emotion of love is a powerful one, as I'm sure you'd agree. When an 
emotion is turned into a god, when it is made to be the most important 
thing there is, it can and will do all the things that any false god 
will do, including distorting one's view of reality and tempting us to 
even change our language so that we can pretend reality is other than 
what it is." "Oh yes, the language has suffered from the changes being 
forced upon the culture. Moe, if hell is a place of unvarnished truth, 
then was Simon telling the truth in stating that he never had 
opportunity to act on his appetites, unconventional as they may have 
been for his day? I mean, even trappers must make contact with 
civilization or other trappers from time to time, placing him near 
people to lust after," I said as the plain before us began to slope 
drastically uphill after a familiar fashion. The division between 
circles? If so this would be one illusion we would have to overcome. "I 
don't believe that a visible object is a requirement for lust as it, 
like every sin, originates in the heart, not the eyes," Moe said as he 
continued climbing the incline ahead of us with minimal effort. One of 
the advantages of having little or no mass, I suppose. Gravity wouldn't 
pose near the inconvenience for him that it did me. Soon I found myself 
on hands and knees in an attempt to place more surface area on the 
ground increasing my drag on the slope. As the grade increased I 
flattened out on my belly and advanced by crawling up the hill as one 
might crawl around under a vehicle when changing the oil. I 
intentionally paid attention to the base of the slope so I wouldn't get 
discouraged by how far I had yet to go. Though I had been crawling for 
a long time it looked as though I had only proceeded ten feet up the 
incline. In frustration I chanced a look uphill to see how far I had 
yet to go. And when I did, I saw sandals. I looked up at the person 
wearing them and saw Moe smiling at me. "Are we at the top?" I asked 
between gulps of air. "Yes. For me down slope is easy. As I said 
earlier, we are permitted to move deeper into hell. However, should I 
attempt to go back to the second circle from here, I would encounter 
resistance  comparable to the gravity well of a neutron star." "What? 
When did you die?" "Near the midpoint of the 20th century." "Alright, 
the existence of neutron stars was proposed in the 1930s, and the term 
did not come into the vernacular until the mid-1960s, so where did you 
hear about them?" I asked as we began our trip down the opposite side 
of the slope. "I have had discussions with a few writers who wrote 
something they called 'science fiction'. They explained what happens to 
a supernova after it collapses and how the star's gravity, mass and 
density increase as its size decreases. There was a lot of math 
involved in the discussion, something they referred to as differential 
equations, but they made their point and drew a comparison between the 
gravity of a neutron star and the force that makes uphill travel in 
hell so impossible." I nodded agreeably as my own education into the 
matter had come from the writings of an author who had written his best 
science fiction in the 1970s and died just a few years into the decade. 
But I didn't ask for names because I wasn't sure I wanted to know which 
of my favorites had ended up in hell. Half way down the slope the rain 
began. Still winded from the trip up the other side of the divide 
between circles, I found the shower invigorating. Moe's assessment, 
however, was altogether different. He was doing everything he could to 
hide from the rain by pulling his robe tighter and forcing the collar 
into a hood configuration to cover his bald head. "Is there something 
about the rain that I've missed?" "It feels like the waters of the 
Acheron on my skin." "I'm not getting that. Is it possible my body acts 
as insulation preventing my soul from feeling what you feel?" "Could 
be," Moe said through clenched teeth. "The third circle is the circle 
of the gluttonous. Why would a cold rain be an appropriate punishment 
for gluttons?" "There is more to this circle than just the rain. 
Because the rain never ends, the floor remains very soft. Not yet 
liquid but neither can it be called a solid." "Then perhaps it isn't 
the rain itself but the temperature. The punishment for gluttony is 
cold?" "Jerry, you earlier mentioned Ohio, which is both a river and 
state in North America. Am I correct in presuming that you are 
American?" "Yes." "You have an autumn holiday that involves feasting, 
don't you?" "Yes, Thanksgiving. The original intent was to celebrate 
God's provision of food following the harvest at the end of the growing 
season, but these days it is thought of more as a day off to gorge 
oneself on turkey and watch football games." "What associations do you 
make with the holiday?" "Time spent with family, building the first 
fire of the season in the fireplace, the carving of the turkey twenty 
minutes out of the oven, pumpkin pie and cup of coffee after the meal." 
"Those are pretty specific. What general association do you see within 
those examples?" I thought for a moment and saw what he was getting at. 
"Warmth. Physical warmth complimenting the emotional warmth of time 
spent with family." "Very good. I chose your celebration of 
Thanksgiving because overeating is the most common understanding of 
gluttony, but natural appetites dominate us in many other ways that do 
not involve food. Many of these things are good in themselves, but 
gluttony is a deliberate and determined overindulgence in that good 
thing. The overindulgent pursuit of any pleasure is gluttony. Would you 
suppose a person who intentionally overindulges in an activity that 
could qualify them for this circle might experience a similar sensation 
of warmth in that act of intemperance?" I thought about every example 
of gluttony I had ever witnessed or participated in and realized that 
there was some degree of warm fuzziness connected to them all. An 
appetite fulfilled had for me always resulted in deep satisfaction and 
for the one who lives for such satisfaction, the act could become like 
a narcotic in its addictive ability to give pleasure. "But since the 
root of every sin is a disaffection for God, food isn't the real 
problem when it comes to gluttony. True it can be a vehicle that serves 
to distance a person from God and it accomplishes that task with the 
lie that it will give more pleasure than God, but that lie can be told 
by a vast number of things," Moe said as the slope leveled out and I 
sank ankle deep in ook. The sludge that my feet displaced rose briefly 
above the water line and I saw bits and pieces of nondescript garbage 
floating within the muddy suspension. Uncomfortably wet, but not 
painfully cold. I turned, looked at the slope we had just descended, 
and was stunned by the vertical cliff face behind me. About fifty feet 
farther into the mud field stood many oddly proportioned people. Short 
and wide, tall with legs that seemed too short in relation to their 
torso, and some who appeared to be sitting in the muck making it 
impossible to gauge their stature. But because of the steady rain, I 
wasn't certain of anything I was looking at. When we walked out into 
the peat bog I discovered that if I stepped on clumps of 
lifeless-looking vegetation I could keep from getting sucked into the 
mire beneath. And as I congratulated myself for discovering a way to 
avoid greater discomfort a distant sound brought a literary memory to 
mind. A throaty yupping like the bark of a bulldog unable to enunciate 
clearly around its jowls barely overcame the sound of the rain hitting 
the surface of the water and I remembered that this circle was also the 
domain of Cerberus, a three-headed dog who, in classical literature, 
had guarded the entrance to Hades and was not known for his cheery 
disposition. "Will Cerberus be a problem?" I asked. "Only if we find 
him. Don't be fooled by the echo. His barking carries forever across 
the water.  Hell is a big place and we may miss him altogether.  But 
should we happen across him there are ways to placate the beast." 
"That's right," I said, reached down and grabbed a handful of weeds 
just above where they disappeared into the muck an inch below the 
surface of the water. I worked them gently and as they loosened from 
the floor I pulled up roots surrounded by ten pounds of mud. A 
sufficient morsel for any hellhound with only one mouth, but Virgil had 
managed to throw enough dirt into each so that he and Dante had avoided 
the attention Cerberus gave to the gluttonous. "He's just like us, you 
know," a voice counterclockwise of me said. Back when we had entered 
the second circle I noticed we were at the side of the circle that was 
directly opposite Mino's palace because torches burning outside the 
structure were visible across the void. I had arbitrarily assigned the 
palace the twelve o'clock position and because our course toward the 
next circle had been relatively straight in, the voice was coming from 
the five o'clock position; hence the 'counterclockwise' reference. "Are 
you talking about me?" I asked a man standing shin deep in the muck. I 
had been dutifully avoiding the soupier-looking parts of the path we 
were following on the off-chance that there was no bottom to the slop, 
but this character seemed to be on stable footing, though it was ten 
inches below the surface. 

"No, I was talking to you about Cerberus," he said and opened his robe
to display scar tissue on his right side that made me think he died 
during the filming of something I saw during Shark Week on Animal 
Planet years earlier. 

"Ouch. What happened?" 

"The left and right head used me in a 'monkey-in-the-middle' kind of
contest with the middle head. Wasn't so bad until they let the middle 
head catch me and he acted like I was his favorite chew toy." 

"Sorry about that. What did you mean by 'he's just like us'?" 

"Well, this is the circle of the gluttonous and I am not the only person
here with scars like these. Cerberus is a glutton as well, gorging 
himself on the flesh of those trapped here." 

"I don't know that Cerberus can strictly be called a glutton. The
non-human residents of hell have always seemed to me to be pictures of 
something else. Cerberus, for example, I always associated with 
unrestrained appetite. There is no rhyme or reason to how he goes about 
satisfying that appetite, since he will be as happy with a mouthful of 
dirt as a mouthful of flesh," Moe said. 

"And speaking of appetites, what was yours?" I asked our new
acquaintance. "You don't look like the typical glutton of my 
imagination." 

"I tried to convince myself for a long time that I was different. I was
disciplined. I would never allow my fondness for new and different 
foods to turn me into one of those out of control gastronomes you see 
all over this circle. I may have eaten well in life but I worked hard 
to maintain a respectable weight. P90X, Ten Minute Trainer, Hip Hop 
Abs... I did them all and to good effect. The proteins I consumed 
became muscle, not fat." 

"Moe, how did you define gluttony?" 

"A deliberate and determined overindulgence in a good thing." 

"And I overindulged in both food and fitness, willfully and knowingly. I
puzzled for a long time regarding why overindulgence can send you to 
hell and finally gave up. There must be something innately sinful in 
any act of  excess." 

"I don't know that any one specific sin can be a reason for ending up in
hell. Specific sins are more like symptoms pointing toward a general 
condition that makes you more fit for hell than heaven," I said, 
noticing that this guy, Simon and Lena acted as though their sin of 
choice was the reason they were in hell. And Charon had all but plainly 
stated why they were here during his initial address to the damned on 
his ferry. 

"If you think about it, there is a spiritual element to gluttony that
mirrors the devotion a religious person gives to God," Moe said with a 
reflective look. "I think we could argue that gluttony is not merely a 
lack of will power, but that it is religious in nature as it is service 
to, devotion toward, and worship of the pleasure of food instead of the 
God Who gave it. This might, in a sense, make gluttony a form of 
idolatry." 

"And idolatry is what again?" 

"Idolatry is giving some created thing the place in your heart that
should belong to God alone. And the more I think about your picture, 
Moe, the more the parallels become obvious. God made various covenants 
with His people throughout their history with Him that He would be 
their God if they would do certain things, like keep His commandments. 
The glutton makes a covenant with food, fitness, possessions, whatever, 
 to be his source of comfort and security. He becomes his own way of 
salvation as well. Eating becomes a sacrament, exercise a means of 
receiving grace, acquiring more things an act of sacrifice on the altar 
of contentment. And in so doing, he essentially tells God that there is 
already something in his life he views as more valuable than God." 

"All right, I get it," the fittest looking glutton I had ever met said
as he turned away dismissively. He was finished talking and seemed, 
like Simon, content to wallow in his own misery. As he attempted to 
pull one leg free of the mire he miscalculated how his center of 
gravity was changing, pitched forward and wound up on his knees, thigh 
and elbow deep in cold mud. I offered a hand but he made it plain he 
could deal with the situation on his own. So we left him to his efforts 
and when I looked back at him some time later he was still pushing and 
pulling at the ground trying to gain some purchase over the mud. 

"Remind you of anything?" Moe asked as he pressed hard against the rain
in the direction of the next circle. 

"Yes. One year I tried to help my wife mix up the pumpkin cookies she
makes for Christmas and did it by hand, thinking it would be more 
efficient than with a wooden spoon. I struggled for a good ten minutes 
trying to get it off my hands once the mixing was finished." 

"I take it you didn't grow up on a farm." 

"No, I've lived in suburbs my whole life." 

"Then never mind." 

Though the temperature of the rain didn't cause me the pain it caused
Moe, I was growing tired of the fact of the rain. Shoving my hands in 
my pockets I steeled myself against the eternal downpour and determined 
to get through this circle as quickly as possible. This was getting 
depressingly old. 

In the process of  doubling my resolve, fingers brushed across the
screen of the phone in my pocket and inadvertently activated the media 
player. Relaxing Stanton Lanier piano chords moved across the water and 
echoed back. Heads snapped up from the chests they had dropped against 
looking all around in search of a source. As I struggled to close the 
player, Moe looked at me and shook his head. 

"Sorry. There isn't a rule against music in hell, is there?" 

"Doubtful, but a moment of pleasure will counterpoint an eternity of
hell, meaning any joy derived from hearing the tune will be viewed with 
regret a thousand years hence." 

A large form ahead of us pointed at me and said, "That was you. What do
you have there, a player or a phone?" 

"iPhone 8c. Does everything but make a phone call. Not that I would
expect to get a signal here anyway," I said and without a second 
thought checked for voice and emails. And no, I had received neither. 

"I have this urge to take the thing from you and see what's happening in
the world, but what does it matter?" 

"But there's no signal." 

"News was downloaded automatically to my phone. Probably does to yours
as well. You've got a widget that constantly updates headlines." 

I tossed him the phone and as he attempted to use it a look of
frustration washed over his face as he remembered that... 

"...the screen requires galvanic skin responses to be navigated. God has
quite the sense of humor." 

"How's that?" 

"He sends a Smartphone to hell that I, the consummate news junkie, am
unable to operate." 

In the absence of a news app he chose to grill me on recent events. Who
was the president, what were her politics, which talk radio 
personalities were popular? How useful could any of that be in hell? 
And yet these were his primary concerns. I finally shook my head and 
ran to catch up with Moe. 

"What was all that about?" Moe wondered as I splashed up behind him. 

"Just more proof that not all forms of gluttony involve food," I said
and noticed that I had adjusted the volume of my voice to compensate 
for the background noise. As we crossed the mud field we had drifted 
counterclockwise following the dead vegetation seeking out good 
footing. The farther we drifted, the louder the noise had become and 
the heavier the rain fell. 

The background noise reminded me of something and after a few seconds I
pinpointed the memory. Elsbeth and I had honeymooned near Niagara Falls 
and this was reminiscent of the sound of the falls from Goat Island, 
the piece of land mid-river that separated the American and Canadian 
falls. Presuming a nearby source for the sound, I scanned the "sky" in 
an attempt to locate it. 

"What are you looking at?" Moe asked when he realized that I was no
longer right on his heels. 

"That," I said and pointed to what I could only describe as a geyser
issuing horizontally out of the face of the cliff we had dropped down 
from the second circle. "And I'll bet the reason the rain feels so cold 
is because it is water from the Acheron. If I recall correctly, the 
Acheron moves underground at some point and re-emerges as a spring just 
above a marsh a couple of circles from here." 

"And passes a fistula in the cliff, no doubt, some of it escaping
there." 

"Yes, and it appears there is sufficient pressure behind the flow to
push it well beyond the inner boundary of this circle. Isn't there a 
burning city a few circles down?" 

"It is called Dis, and yes, the walls glow red and are very hot." 

"Which means there is hot air rising above the city all the time that
probably acts like the propellant in an aerosol can and sends the water 
upward only to fall as an eternal rain on this circle." 

Another hundred yards down the path I noticed that we were no longer
splashing through water, though the mud hadn't decided to dry out as a 
result. And as we reached the incline I had come to expect between 
circles, the slope was not nearly so drastic as the last circle's. Of 
course it didn't need to be as the mud served to add the degree of 
difficulty that had been lost by the reduction in the grade. 

As Moe stood on the ridge at the edge of the drop to the next circle
surveying the next phase of our journey, I continued to make a two 
steps forward- one step back kind of progress. When I was almost able 
to see over the crest I heard what sounded like a bullwhip cracking 
multiple times in rapid succession. I suddenly found myself somewhat 
hesitant to proceed. 

"You are a mess," Moe said and then looked back at the scene playing out
below us. 

Near the base of the cliff walked a line of people rolling and pushing
(mostly pushing) large somewhat round objects ahead of themselves. 
Directly beneath where we stood the line turned right and headed away 
from the cliff toward the next circle. Ten feet to the left was another 
line headed in the opposite direction coming from the rim and then 
turning to walk parallel with the cliff face away from the first line. 
This group was also pushing large objects. 

I followed Moe along a narrow ledge that, with some nervousness on my
part, led us to the base of the cliff. Close enough to reach out and 
touch any of the people in line pushing their burden, I was somewhat 
surprised by the faded opulence their attire bore witness to. 
Immediately in front of me was a woman in an off-white dress with a 
reticella lace collar ruff like the painting of Britain's Elizabeth I 
that had graced the cover of my Norton Anthology of English Literature 
in college. And from the condition of the dress, I could imagine her 
having been wearing it since the time of Elizabeth I's reign. Behind 
her was a man wearing an embroidered black jerkin with long skirts over 
a white satin doublet and matching padded hose. I saw every type of 
tuxedo and evening gown styles that spoke Fiorucci, Dior and Bulgari. 

When we came to the point where the two lines met and one turned out
toward the next circle while the other turned to parallel the cliff 
face, the styles changed dramatically. The other line of people wore 
clothing of Quaker-like simplicity with no concern for style. And the 
tension between the two groups where they walked past each other like 
two teams following an athletic contest was conspicuous. Those dressed 
to the nines glared with disapproval at the others while those dressed 
modestly looked suspicious of the lavishly clad. Farther from the cliff 
I heard insults traded and curses spoken, like a jousting match of 
contempt. Then, as if on cue, both lines changed the direction of flow 
and heaved their burden at those in the line opposite. 

The skirmish was quick, loud, and probably the reason for the sound I
had interpreted to be a bullwhip earlier. When someone managed to move 
their boulder to a position where it would absorb the force of the 
boulder coming their way, there was a loud *crack* much like the 
miniature sonic boom created when the end of the bullwhip reaches full 
speed and is drawn quickly back. And at the point of contact I noticed 
several clouds of sparkling light, like glitter falling to the ground 
where the stones had struck. Hmm... As quickly as the melee began, it 
was over, and the greatest concern following was relocating the correct 
boulder. Once proper ownership was established the line continued on. 

"There would be no reason for this if you weren't such hoarders," the
man in the jerkin said to the woman immediately across from him. 
"Consider all the good you might have done with your money that was 
left undone because of your selfishness." 

"And what was the good you were doing when you had someone tailor that,
Marcel?" she replied and moved on. 

He turned to his stone and caught me staring. 

"Well?" I asked and shrugged. 

"My sister. She simply resents the fact that fortune and title passed to
me. When her husband died she overcompensated for my obvious excess in 
life by clinging to every farthing she received upon his death and 
lived a miserable existence for the rest of hers on earth." 

"Hoarders and wasters," Moe said as we walked away from the cliff.
"Always choosing to do the wrong thing with the resources God gave 
them." 

"So the hoarders love to receive but they don't like to give. And the
wasters use what they have, but only on themselves." 

"Yes, not at all like I have discovered such blessings were intended to
be used. When God blessed someone it was generally so they could bless 
others." 

"Excellent observation. And were it not for God's grace I'm sure there
would be a lot of hoarding Christ-followers pushing rocks. Come to 
think of it you'd see some in line with the wasters as well." 

"I'm not sure I get what you mean," Moe said above the sounds of effort
being made by people moving their burdens. 

"It's sad to say but I see a good deal of hoarding and wasting in the
Church, and much of the time it is the same folks involved in both 
activities. They take what they can get from God but they don't give 
back much. They soak up the worship and teaching on Sunday mornings, 
attend their small groups, study their Bibles, and then never share 
what they learn with others. They hoard what has been given to them and 
then waste it by not sharing with those who so desperately need it." 

"Then faith does not translate into action?" 

"Sometimes the answer can be no, but that is not an indictment of the
One who purchased salvation and works sanctification because He never 
forces us into action. He works with us to encourage us to join in the 
work He is doing of our own accord. And when He gets us to the point 
that we are asking not 'How much can I get?' but 'How much can I 
give?', we are getting close to where He has wanted us to be all 
along." 

"'Whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life for My sake will save it'?" Moe asked. 

"Yes. And that sentiment isn't even necessarily talking about money. It
could be a possession. It could be time. It could be knowledge. It 
could be love and attention," I said and thought I noticed something 
beyond the line of wasters to our left. 

"Jerry, what do you think you're doing?" Moe asked with some alarm when
I ducked between two wasters and entered the space between the lines. 

"I just need to know something," I said and dropped to my knees. I felt
around, found what I was looking for and grabbed a handful. The curses 
were coming more frequently across the space between the lines so I 
knew there wasn't much time before tempers exploded again and rocks 
flew. As the fervor of the accusations increased I smiled, imagining a 
square dance where every time two partners passed they shouted at each 
other, "Why are you so uncoordinated?" 

"Do you have any idea how foolish that was? Those are real boulders and
their mass is as real as yours." 

"Some things are worth the risk," I said and opened my hand to display a
small pile of grainy gray dust. 

"What is this?" 

"I noticed something when the rocks struck the last time they went at
each other. A small bit of the rocks pulverized where they came in 
contact. I figured that with tens of thousands of impacts over hundreds 
of years there would be a collection of the fragments about midway 
between the lines." 

"And this is important?" 

"Only to as big a fan of irony as myself," I said as I spread the pile
out in my hand so I could examine a single piece of crushed boulder. 

"What do you hope to learn?" "Something about the boulders. Do you know
what a geode is?" 

"Some kind of geological formation?" 

"Yes. Geodes are hollow, roughly spherical masses of minerals that form
around gas bubbles in volcanic rocks and before they are cracked open 
look a lot like the boulders these people are pushing around. Geodes 
commonly have a quartz shell lined internally by various crystals like 
amethyst, jasper, agate and quartz. Quartz is formed from silicon and 
raw silicon tends to come in the shape of a tetrahedron, which is a 
pyramid with a total of four sides. But these resemble cubes, which is 
more like the configuration of carbon. Any idea what other crystalline 
geological structures form from carbon under great heat and pressure 
like that found in the upper  mantle of the earth where these geodes 
likely formed?" 

Moe thought for a moment, his eyes grew wide and he slapped a hand over
his mouth to muffle the laughter. "Do you think they have any clue?" 

"There was a mad scramble to recover their very own rocks after the last
battle. I expect the same thing will happen after this one," I said 
over the background noise of  boulders clinking like beer steins during 
Oktoberfest. 

"So this battle could be as much about getting at what lines their geode
as it is a philosophical dispute," Moe mused. 

"And what better way to keep the greedy in their place than with a
boulder that promises all they ever desired?" I asked and was surprised 
that it appeared we were already approaching the next circle because we 
had reached the point where the lines were again turning to move 
parallel with the cliff. I had mistakenly presumed that this turn would 
have indicated the end of the fourth circle. It was merely the end of 
one round of walkers. 

Slightly beyond the line of hoarders was another line of people walking
in a much tighter formation. They appeared to be bound together by some 
sort of ribbon that acted like industrial strength spider webbing. The 
upper two thirds of their bodies were engulfed in the white stuff that 
bound them together and afforded them limited movement above the waist. 


"What is this, some different category of hoarder and waster?" I asked
as we approached and saw that we were again where two lines were 
meeting. 

"Yes," Moe said and then let loose with what might well have been a
string of profanities in an unfamiliar language while hopping on one 
foot. I looked at the ground and noticed the source of Moe's dance. 
Evidently he had kicked or stepped on a vicious looking metal dome 
about the size of a grapefruit adorned with needle-like spikes. 

I looked for a way to pick the thing up without spilling blood and as I
was examining the object a man in a stovepipe hat pushed against his 
entanglement and offered advice. 

"There's no good way to do it. If you hesitate they'll get the upper
hand," he said, reached down and grabbed the item. He did a good job of 
hiding the fact of the pain by not screaming but his face told another 
story. 

It turned out the gentleman was a Populist politician who had advocated
for many of the progressive reforms that had inspired the folks who had 
participated in the Haymarket Square strike in the 1870s. Evidently 
some of his opponents at that event were in the opposite line and as he 
fought with the white ribbon that kept him from being able to throw the 
object with any accuracy his bloodied hands turned the ribbon crimson. 

"A Morningstar," I said to Moe as we moved on. 

"What is that?" 

"The things they are throwing at each other. In the Middle Ages if you
found one at the end of a club, it was called a mace. If at either end 
of a length of chain, it was called a flail. An apt weapon for 
politicians, a very special breed of both hoarder and waster. They 
spent all their time in life trying to bloody the opposition, ended up 
with figurative blood on their hands, and find themselves bound by tape 
that has been colored red by their own blood." 

"Why are you smiling?" 

I declined to explain while I considered the propensity of politicians
from my own day hoarding a particular point of view and guarding it 
with such diligence that they were incapable of seeing any merit in the 
position of those on the opposite side of the aisle. Then they could 
waste opportunities, resources, and time with the intensity of a 
wildfire during a drought. 

I apologized for cutting through the line but no one really seemed to
care. Once we were clear of the rings of walkers we were able to 
concentrate on reaching the next circle, which was not much farther 
beyond the line of politicians. 

"Things will seem more dangerous in the coming circles, but the sounds
will be more bluster than cause for concern," Moe said. "And some 
entities are going to respond in odd ways to you, but there will really 
be nothing they can do about the One that travels with you other than 
react to Him as they are permitted." "You are referring to someone 
other than yourself." 

"Yes. You may recall hearing this place referred to as 'outer darkness'.
That was not just a metaphor. You are able to see clearly in hell 
because you carry a Light with you. Your eyes would otherwise fail you 
and you would be groping around in pitch black darkness." 

"I can hear you capitalizing nouns that wouldn't normally receive that
emphasis. Are you referring to the in-dwelling Presence that was 
promised to all believers?" 

He nodded and pointed to my hand. 

I took a moment to ponder the soft iridescence I had noticed back in the
vestibule. Visible evidence of the Holy Spirit? Why had I never...but 
then, the reality I found myself in played by different rules of 
physics, as Moe had already mentioned. Was this simply how things 
appeared when the veil was removed? 

The thought of the Helper Jesus had talked about in the upper room being
with me in a spiritual sense, some ethereal presence that hovered 
nearby acting as my conscience at appropriate moments of teachability, 
was for some reason a little easier to handle than a presence that had 
somehow bonded with me on the cellular level. And that discomfort had 
more to do with me than with the One who walks alongside me. I found 
myself thinking about every instance of sin in the recent past, and for 
some reason the recollection was particularly acute at the moment. It 
was like quickly flipping through a circular rolodex while being able 
to absorb every detail from each card. The notion that one member of 
the Trinity had been physically (?) present for each one of them caused 
my stomach to churn. 

As we approached what appeared to be another drop off, I realized the
rise in grade that I had expected was growing less extreme with each 
circle we advanced through. I attempted to get my bearings by locating 
the torch that was burning outside Mino's palace but discovered that we 
had moved too far down to see above the rims of earlier circles. I 
fought down an unexpected panic stemming from having lost my one point 
of reference. Not that the torch could have done me any real good, but 
as long as I knew where it was I was relatively certain of where I was. 
Now I didn't know how far we had wandered off our straight-in course. 
Odd the way the loss of that one point of certainty affected me. I felt 
like I had been dropped alone in the middle of the ocean on a night 
heavy with clouds. 

The memory of Carl Sagan waxing eloquent about the condition of humanity
on the "pale blue dot" suddenly seemed more depressing than inspiring. 
But the fact of the afterglow I bore served as a reminder that not only 
was I not lost in the vastness of anything, but that I carried the only 
source of comfort that could possibly matter with me. And that 
assurance would come in handy when crossing the remaining circles. 

A short distance clockwise of us I saw a vertical flow of water spilling
over the edge of the cliff. That would indicate the Acheron resurfaced 
on the outer rim of this circle and then fell to the next. There was a 
chunk of flotsam in the river between where the water percolated up out 
of the ground and the edge of the cliff that took much longer than the 
current would have indicated it should have taken to reach the brink of 
the falls. And when it did, it fell much slower than it had any right 
to. Then, about a third of the way down the waterfall, the flow fanned 
out to ten times the width of the flow over the edge, looking very much 
like a cloud mid-way down the cliff. I pointed it out to Moe who seemed 
less than curious. 

"How can this not seem significant? I mean, there must be a reason for
the way the water is falling." "Jerry, from my perspective, things 
simply are what they are. There may be a sound and reasonable 
explanation for why the waters do not fall straight down, but in the 
face of an eternity in hell, it really doesn't matter." 

I agreed that he was probably right but I wanted to know, so I walked in
the direction of the falls without my guide. I located a rock and 
slipped it into my pocket. When I got maybe ten yards from the falls I 
dropped it over the edge and it fell just as slowly as the junk in the 
river had fallen. When it reached the point where the water fanned out 
it began a wide horizontal arc whose apogee reached beyond the falls, 
out into the void, well beyond where Moe was standing and then back to 
its starting point. It continued that spiral descent with the diameter 
of each orbit noticeably smaller than the last until it reached the 
bottom of the cloud, at which point it fell like the warhead of a light 
anti-tank weapon leaving its launcher until it disappeared into the 
layer of mist that hid the river from our direct view. Interesting. 

"Are you finished?" Moe asked. 

"Yes and I feel better about our journey as a result." 

It was clear from the tone of his voice that he didn't really want to
know the answer to his question when he asked, "Why?" 

"I don't suppose you know what a Lagrange point is..." 

"If I say no, you will still explain to me what you feel you've
discovered, won't you?" 

"Yes. There are five locations around a planet's orbit where the
gravitational forces of the Sun and that planet interact to create a 
point of equilibrium between those two gravity sources. These locations 
are known as Lagrange points, named for the 18th century Italian 
astronomer and mathematician who worked out the equations that 
explained their operation. Since you died before we started putting 
objects in orbit around the Earth, this will probably sound rather 
foreign to you." 

"I've heard about things being placed outside the atmosphere and the
cost involved from a man named Bill Proxmire and could never understand 
why the money wasn't used for better purposes." 

"I think it's a combination of one-upmanship and attempting to answer
the question 'can it be done?' Can we send men into space and return 
them safely to Earth? Can we go to the moon? Can we..." 

"I see," Moe said sadly . "I was a space kid in the 1960s. At one time I
knew the names of every astronaut in the space program, which missions 
they had flown, the particulars of each mission, and what each mission 
patch looked like beginning with Gemini 3 right up through Apollo 17. 
Though I was not an engineer, military pilot, or flight controller in 
mission control, I was able to enter into that world to a very minor 
yet real way based on associations I made with the space program in 
part by educating myself and in part by using my imagination. I could 
understand that going into space must be a wonderful experience even 
though I was never likely to do so myself because of someone 
else's...in my case Gene Cernan... who gave a talk at my school 
regarding the Apollo 10 mission, retelling his experience. But now that 
I've lived several more decades, I think that for all the excitement 
generated by the space program, we might have made better use of the 
resources it consumed." 

"Alright, I'm interested now," Moe said, though I doubted it. Sometimes
I got the feeling that he was merely tolerating my observations. 

"Okay, but first a little bit about orbital mechanics. The closer an
object is to the Sun, the faster it will move. For example, Mercury 
makes a complete trip around the sun in three months, Venus in seven. 
So, any object going around the Sun in an orbit smaller than Earth's 
will soon overtake the planet. However, there's a loophole: if the 
object, say a satellite, is placed directly between the Sun and Earth, 
Earth's gravity pulls it in the opposite direction and cancels some of 
the Sun's pull. With a weaker pull towards the Sun, the satellite needs 
less speed to maintain its orbit, so it can slow down.  If the distance 
is just right the spacecraft will travel slowly enough to keep its 
position between the Sun and the Earth. There are similar points on the 
night side of the planet and  ninety-three million miles directly 
opposite the sun, but these positions are only moderately stable. The 
SOHO solar observatory has to fire thrusters on a consistent basis to 
keep it at L1, the Lagrange point between the Earth and the sun. 

"For my purposes, the important Lagrange points are L4 and L5. These lie
at points sixty degrees ahead of and behind Earth in its orbit, close 
to that orbit. Unlike the other Lagrange points, L4 and L5 are reliably 
stable. An object placed at this point is kind of like a ball placed in 
a large bowl. It may wander around the bottom of the bowl, but it will 
never drift very far in any direction and if it does drift will orbit 
around that Lagrange point until it returns to dead center of that 
point. 

"This discussion has bearing here because when I dropped a rock over the
edge it behaved like an object close to either L4 or L5,  attempting to 
come back to the center of its LaGrange point as it fell. I'm 
suggesting that there is something like two competing gravity fields 
that are holding us near their midpoint, in a sense guiding us on our 
journey. I have noticed an uncomfortable sensation kind of like vertigo 
whenever I move away from the direction we are going. Felt it most 
strongly when I wandered over toward the falls," I said and walked 
toward the edge of the cliff. If we were indeed being lead on our 
journey, the path to follow would be near the midpoint of the competing 
gravity fields, which would be where the rock had come closest to the 
cliff. 

"Let me reiterate that it doesn't make any difference in the face of
eternity. However, your feeling of dizziness is in keeping with Dante's 
experience. He swooned several times early on in his journey. Maybe his 
loss of equilibrium was caused by wandering from his intended path. 
Also,  whenever an option presented itself to Dante and Virgil, they 
turned left. I always presumed the path leading deeper into hell was to 
the left when a choice was available because of the status the left has 
always had compared to the right. Even in Virgil's Aeneid the path to 
the left led hell-ward while the one to the right led toward heaven.  
And Ecclesiastes states that  'A wise man's heart is at his right hand; 
but a fool's heart at his left'. Maybe they were being led on their 
journey as well." 

"You might be onto something there," I said and followed him along the
ledge that led downhill and to the left. He moved downward with what 
seemed a fair amount of confidence while I  inched my way along, 
clinging desperately to the wall. Two thirds of the way down the path I 
paused to look back at the cloud and was stunned to see water falling 
from above into it but nothing leaving the cloud. Then, an instant 
before I asked my guide a pertinent question, a slug of water fell from 
the cloud with far greater force than Earth's gravity should have 
allowed. 

"It churns up the river below as it does that and is the reason the
river is shrouded in mist," Moe said. "Aerosolization. I had presumed 
the cloud was simply fine water droplets being drawn away from the main 
mass of the falling river by the gravity forces at work, but now it 
looks like something else is happening in the cloud. It's almost 
behaving like a capacitor of motion, absorbing the force of the water 
falling from above until it reaches a point of discharge and then 
releases the water and the collected momentum with the force of 
Jupiter's gravity." 

"Perhaps," Moe said, turned and was swallowed up by the mist rising from
the river. I followed him down into the cool dampness and presently 
arrived at a four foot wide quay of sorts ten feet above a very angry 
river. Again memories returned to my honeymoon, specifically the white 
water river walk along the Niagara Rapids just downstream from the 
falls (though here the water was a brackish brown). There was a similar 
roar from the water near the cliff, but a hundred feet out from the 
quay the waters stilled with surprising suddenness at a point where 
reeds, rushes and arms (?) began protruding from the surface of the 
water. 

Soon another sound became audible above the roar of the river and that
was the angry shouting of people. At the base of the quay, half in and 
half out of the water, pairs and groups of people attacked one another 
with maniacal severity. Just downstream of the conflict I noticed that 
the water foamed with a red-ish tint, not black like the rest of the 
river. Whatever the disagreement, it was sufficient to justify drawing 
blood. Then I remembered where we were. 

"The wrathful, no doubt," I remarked to Moe who had crouched down to
look out across the water below the level of the mist. 

"Yes and beyond the river Styx, the vast marsh Styx, the place of the
sullen." 

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" 

"I'm looking at a tower on the wall of the city. There are two torches
burning. A signal has been sent. We are expected." 

"Signal? To whom?" 

"Phlegyas. According to the traditional version of the story, he was the
tyrannical king of Lapithae whose daughter was raped by the Greek god 
Apollo and in justifiable wrath burned down the temple of Apollo in 
Delphi. Naturally Apollo killed him for his indiscretion and he has 
ever since ferried those bound for lower hell across the circle devoted 
to those who allowed anger to be the defining trait in their life. But 
in your approach that relies on revelation over mythology, a special 
creation who not only transports the damned but who also personifies 
wrath, as the Greek back-story would suggest." 

"Moe, I only discount the mythology angle insofar as you are using the
modern interpretation of the word, in which the subject of discussion 
is treated like a fairy tale, a made up story, something with no anchor 
points in reality." 

"Ah, you have a deeper understanding of language than I would have
expected." 

"Yes, mythology, properly applied, refers to a common or shared
historical experience. So in this sense, all of scripture and then the 
history of the Church could be referred to as a mythology, the shared 
historical experience of the entire family of believers from Adam to 
myself and to all future believers. It has always galled me when people 
would say with contempt that I 'believe in a myth' when those words are 
in fact an affirmation of the historicity of that faith. But that's 
just..." I began and then stopped when something well into the marsh 
caught my attention.  Whatever it was was moving very fast, forcing a 
plume of water into the air ahead of itself. "Moe, do you see that?" 

"Phlegyas' ferry. Though his function is similar to Charon's, his
personality is not. As I said, he is the personification of wrath, 
anger, so you would be well advised to not speak with him if you can 
help it. He has seen me before and will not be happy that I am here 
again. And he was none too happy to give Dante passage, so the fact 
that your heart is still beating will not endear you to him in the 
least." 

The boat approached silently but the stealth only lasted until it made
shore. It came to rest atop three of the people struggling together at 
the water's edge. There was no fear in those beneath the boat like the 
attitude of the people I rode with in Charon's ferry. Curses and rage 
flowed freely from the tongues of the apoplectic under the boat. 

Phlegyas, an ancient figure in a fine robe and modest gold crown, whose
proportions were similar to Charon's, leaped to the front of his boat, 
planted a foot in the chest of a man on the shore, used him 
unsuccessfully as a springboard (I heard ribs crack), yet leaped 
halfway up the wall and pulled himself up to our level with an 
arthritic hand that had found a grip just over the edge of the quay. 

In one fluid motion he was on his feet, grasped Moe's robe and had
pinned him to the cliff behind us, Moe's feet dangling four feet in the 
air. 

"I know you. What are you doing here? Do you think I go to all the
trouble of dragging your shadow to the other side of the swamp just to 
have to do it again someday? It's a one way trip to the lowlands, and 
you'll not be coming this way again. I'll make sure of that. And 
this...what is this crap?" Phlegyas asked after briefly regarding me 
with an evil eye. "There are regulations, rules against this sort of 
thing. He shouldn't have been permitted across the Acheron let alone 
get this close to Dis. And you'll not be riding in my boat. This is not 
Charon's tub! You'll swamp me for sure. Do you have any idea the 
paperwork that is involved in requisitioning a new boat? And that's 
just for placing the order. Then there will be favors that will be 
expected, bribes will have to be negotiated... Do I look like I have 
time for all that? You're staying right here!" 

I could almost feel my eyebrows curling from his rancid breath. Another
place another time, he'd have made a fine drill instructor. But I was 
not enjoying the prospect of my journey ending here and I looked Moe's 
direction to get a sense of what thoughts might be brewing. 

"We have the proper clearance," Moe said and pulled something from
within his robe. Phlegyas snatched it from his hand and examined the 
worn looking paper for a long time. 

"I can't make out a thing. Whose signature is this?" 

"Jerry, can you give us a hand over here?" 

"That's better," Phlegyas said when I moved close enough for an extended
hand to illuminate the document. But once he realized what the light 
source was, he lost all interest in whatever document Moe had produced. 


He grasped my hand and held it to his face, flipping it over and back,
nearly dislocating my shoulder with the first twist. 

"You do not have the stench of death about you. In fact you are aglow
with life." A thought crossed my mind but I directed my words at Moe, 
trusting that he would know if my thought was appropriate to the 
situation. "Psalm 139?" 

Moe nodded and said, " 'Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where
could I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are 
there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there!'" 

"I know what the glow portends. I know what he is. I suppose now I must
allow you passage. You know you will put me behind schedule. I will not 
be able to make the return trip with my usual dispatch," he said. As 
his shoulders slumped he turned and jumped off the quay. The next sound 
seemed to indicate that he had landed on someone. I looked down at the 
fifteen foot long flat bottomed boat and saw Phlegyas sitting 
dejectedly by what looked like a tiller. 

"Kind of looks like he personifies sullenness as well as wrath. So what
is this document you were showing him?" 

"Just a piece of cloth I picked up somewhere that has the look and feel
of parchment. The point of that was to engage him until he noticed your 
glow. We had to let him figure it out on his own or he would have been 
consumed with rage that we had tried to force him into a course of 
action and we'd have been left here to negotiate the Styx on our own," 
Moe said and dropped lightly down to the water's edge. 

I grabbed the handhold Phlegyas had used and lowered myself over the
edge, which got me four feet above the river. I dropped down, landed 
with a thud, which drew the attention of the wrathful souls nearby, and 
climbed into the ferry. 

"Push us off, but sit in the center seat," Phlegyas ordered before I
could get both feet in the boat. I shoved much harder than was 
necessary and nearly ended up face down in the black water before I 
hopped into the ferry and got in the seat. As I settled in, I saw why 
the return trip would take so much longer. Phlegyas and Moe had not 
caused any additional displacement of the boat in the river, but I had 
caused it to ride to within an inch of swamping the craft. 

As soon as the old man had oriented the boat back in the direction of
the tower he stooped down, grabbed something and turned to me. 

"You can use this to bail out the water that washes in. I insist you
take responsibility for a problem you will cause," he said and handed 
me an off-white bowl that was too oversized to fit comfortably in the 
palm of my hand. I studied the bowl inside and out, dropped it and shot 
a look at our pilot. 

"Problem?" Phlegyas asked with a smirk. 

"This used to be someone's skull." 

"So it was," he said as he repositioned a pole in an ornament that
resembled a fòrcola, the oar lock at the stern of a Venetian gondola. 
What I had taken for a tiller was really an oar that Phlegyas moved 
quickly back and forth, rolling clock and counterclockwise as he did 
so, an action that resulted in forward motion. But we were moving at a 
snail's pace compared to his speed on the trip to this side of the 
swamp, meaning that he must have been a blur of motion when he was 
moving at full speed. 

He took some time to get us away from the falls, into calmer waters I
suppose. As he did I observed the near shore and saw that the wrathful 
moved like the river, heaving, cresting and falling, only it was the 
individually wrathful rising up against, exploding at and then pouncing 
upon other wrathful souls. I shook my head at the senselessness of the 
exercise and it seemed that our pilot took note of my attitude. 

"You take offense at those in this circle?" he asked as he stopped his
sculling and the ferry began to slow. 

"Not offense. I just don't understand why they persist, why they can't
let it go." 

"Because it is what and who they are. I have a surprising amount of
insight into this topic, if you don't mind me sharing," he offered as 
five gallons of foul black water slopped over the bow. I took to my 
task of bailing, and as I did Phlegyas continued to wax eloquent on a 
subject he seemed all too familiar with. 

"There is a sense in which anger might be considered the deadliest of
sins. At its heart it destroys relationship with and trust in another. 
Particularly harmful to those in family relationships such as that 
thing you believing types refer to as the church," he began. 

"Yes, but there are also times when anger is the most appropriate
reaction to a situation," Moe said. 

88


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