Hell's Father, a short story

Hell's Father (Opening)

(The complete story is available in the collection Seven True Lies, which you can buy, either in trade paperback or as an Acrobat download, from my bookstore.)

“How I shall admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs, and fancied gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against the Christians.” Tertullian, 160-225 AD

“Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.” Bernard Shaw 1856-1950

“I dreamed I was awakening from another dream—an uproar of chaos and cataclysms—into an unrecognizable room. Day was dawning: light suffused the room, outlining the foot of the wrought-iron bed, the upright chair, the closed door and windows, the bare table. I thought fearfully, ‘Where am I?’ and I realized I didn’t know. I thought, ‘Who am I?’ and I couldn’t recognize myself. My fear grew. I thought: This desolate awakening is in Hell, this eternal vigil will be my destiny. Then I woke up, trembling.” Jorge Luis Borges, 1899-1986

Tertullian awoke with a start from yet another nightmare. Damp with fear, then, by small, stirring degrees, relieved as he realized he had again managed to escape.

Day was dawning: light suffused the room, outlining the foot of his bed, a high-backed chair, a writing table, a water carafe, empty now, a roll of papyrus which, he knew, held his unfinished exposition of Hell. But for all these things, the room was unrecognizable. He looked around again, tardy sleep lingering, making the room shift slightly each time he blinked, and thought fearfully, “Where am I?” He realized that he didn’t know. Had no idea. He thought, “Who am I?” but could not recognize himself. Looked at his hands: not his hands. Looked at his feet: not his feet. His fear grew. He thought: This desolate awakening is in Hell, true Hell, I am arrived. This eternal vigil will be my destiny. I have come to stay. I have built myself this cage. And his lungs, desperate for air, raced with his heart.

Then he awoke. Trembling and clammy he threw his eyes wide open to the dawning day, light suffusing the room, outlining: as he looked down, the foot of his bed; as he looked to his right, his high-backed chair, his writing table, and upon it the water carafe, not quite empty, and beside that, the roll of papyrus he knew held his as yet incomplete exposition of Hell.

Remembered: his exposition of Hell.

He heaved himself up onto his right elbow, then sat up all the way. Touched his face and recognized the jutting chin. His chin. The now stubbly, harrowed cheeks were his too. And his hands: were his hands. His feet: were his feet. Even so, he rolled the rough hem of the blanket between his fingers to feel the coarse fiber almost like sand against his skin: yes, this was his blanket, and this was his skin. He rubbed the blanket against his cheek, then across his forehead, to make sure he was truly awake. He was. He took in the walls, bare and not clean, to make sure this was his room. It was. He shifted to hear the blanket rustle and the bed creak in protest, to be sure he was in his bed. He was. To make sure he had woken up into life, and that this life was indeed his. He had and it was. And only then did he feel safe.

The morning air was cold and he hugged the blanket around him against it. Warmer now, he shifted to lean back against the stone wall, closed his eyes and began to drift; but righteous duty forced his eyes open and he took in the window and the dark blue sky beyond. Cloudless and young. Turned his head. Saw again the upright chair, the table, the water carafe, the papyrus that held his pronouncement on Hell: God’s triumph over mortal vanity. Work to do.

He swung his legs to the right and rose with difficulty. Stiffly. Let the blanket slip to the floor. Audibly. Like sand upon stone where it fell. He was very tired after one, at most two hours of rest. He shivered, hungry for sleep, but he had no choice. He must finish his task. His Hell was incomplete, detail-poor, not yet painful enough. Insufficiently deterring. Two steps. He sat down at the table, shivered again in only his nightgown, then stood to retrieve the blanket from the floor. Wearing it now like a mantle, he sat down again and with sandy eyes read what he had last written:

“How I shall admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs, and fancied gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against the Christians.”

His vision of the eternal abyss rekindled, reflamed. Yes. Yes. He summoned some saliva (with difficulty) and moistened the tip of his quill on his tongue (leaving a dark patch and a bitter taste). He dipped the point of the quill in the ink saucer, and began his day’s labor. Thus: “So many sage philosophers blushing,” he wrote, “in red hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ;” his words already tumbling, easily, one after the other, down from height, “so many tragedians, more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers . . .”

Here he halted, quill poised, still, and remaining still: so many dancers.

And, starved for sleep, part dreaming perhaps, he saw them again, dancers veiled and alluring as they sprung to life before him with long, beautiful legs, and hair cascading upon bare shoulders to a fresh stirring in his loins. All these many dancers. And again he knew the Devil, that darkest of Angels who lived not only imprisoned forever in True Hell, the three hundred and sixty-fifth descending from earth (itself three hundred and sixty-five descendings below True Heaven), but now also in his loins. These many dancers. He could not proceed. Not now, not re-infested. Not touched by Him. So many dancers in his loins.

He slowly returned the quill to the table and closed his eyes. He forced himself to think of other things. Of his cold feet. Of his empty belly. Of his parched throat, and of his, so much the worse lately, painful back. Of the coarse blanket, rough and warm upon his shoulders.

Then his thoughts turned to Montanus, his mentor. Turned to the pure, if dangerously outspoken, Montanus for guidance. But his thoughts never reached his lessons; instead they faltered and veered and stumbled onto long and lonely Asia Minor roads, and upon them saw Montanus and his two young female companions, Prisca and Maximilla. His dancers. For they had both been dancers, had they not, before Montanus found and rescued them from who knows what fate. Long and lonely Asia Minor roads, and upon them only Montanus and his two dancers throughout the long hot days, throughout the long cold nights. How had he managed not to sin? How had Montanus managed to foil the Devil?

But he knew how. This is what he had done, or so he had heard, though Montanus would not corroborate: To foil the Devil and to avert temptation, Montanus had convinced a backward farmer to castrate him. Just like you do the bulls, my good man. Yes, tongs. And paid him well for it.

Perhaps, yes perhaps that was the way.

Some say he did no such thing. Would have been stupid to, what with those two girls about (snickering as they say so), but they lie. He did such a thing. Must have done. How else could he have survived? The long hot days. The long cold nights spent with his two young dancers always within reach. He must have done it, or his journey would have been one of sin, and Montanus himself would have been a candidate for Hell, still unfinished before him.

Perhaps, yes perhaps that was the way.

And he thought, not for the first time, perhaps, yes perhaps this is what he should do himself. To once and for all drive the Devil from his loins and firmly back into Hell where he belonged. He fingered the quill where it lay, but did not pick it up. He fingered his testicles instead, applied modest pressure and was re-amazed, as always, at the intensity of the pain. Perhaps not.

He eased the pressure. Castration would be unbearable. Unthinkably so.

Another thought, and a strange one: Hell as forever castration? “No,” he said aloud, with a flicker of a stubbly smile: that would be unrefined. Would not be of him, not juridical. Nothing lewd about his Hell. Nothing to stain the clarity of its torment.

He looked up at the voice of the bird. Turned. Saw it flitter across the open window. The sky a lighter blue now, dawn almost arrived. Another bird started up. A horse whinnied, a mule answered, coarsely and out of key. He was starving. He stood up, stretched his back, wrapped his blanket closer around him, and walked over to the window. His eyes took in the trees below and the sky above, followed the flight of other birds, their dance a sheer tribute to life, and he finally, as he drank the morning with his senses, managed to leave his so many dancers as so much ink upon papyrus behind him.

The complete story is available in the collection Seven True Lies, which you can buy, either in trade paperback or as an Acrobat download, from my bookstore.

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