Infernus

Lo! There were e’en the beginnings of great gray wings that the son was unaware of and the father could not tell him. The father saw them peeking through the flesh of his shoulders.

“This is a participatory exhibit. All of Infernus’ multicolored demons have had their worst field day with this idiot child, and their unholy ilk.”

The son kept filling the preacher with his ever-growing member and shouting the sand-written message into his ears, as many have done many times. “All men will know you are my disciples if you love one another!”

The father watched with unguarded glee and pride as the son tried to break the bones or the chains with his powerful muscles and practiced zeal. It was a furious attempt and he didn’t fail for want of trying or desire.

They approached another sand pit.

“This being,” said the father, “thought he had a program where he sat on the world’s thrones and pontificated on the causes of the world’s demises. The beings he blamed for its problems were people that were (as you might have guessed) unlike him.” He laughed. “Look at what happens to him always.”

The televangelist was repeatedly being struck in the back of the head with an axe by a roasted, blackened man. He was fixed where he could not look left or right, only straight ahead to a bleeding wall where this was inscribed in light:

’The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it?’

The man was trying to reason with his abuser. “Oh my — ahhhh! It was others! It wasn’t me. I did have a right to speak for the creator and say who caused the world’s downfall! I did have the right!”

The man paused his axing, and said between laughing, “You are living proof of the veracity of this poem. And you still do not understand its meaning. Ahh, you are to be pitied more than the fools that die in the streets. At least they know they are dead, or wrong, or poor. You seem to know naught.” And he heartily began axing the man with even more vigor than before.

The red demon turned to his son and said, “In the other world, he fell well.”

And the son laughed quietly to himself.

* * *

“My son, look at this pathetic wench.”

They had entered a small cave.

“What appears to be happening, Father, is that three faceless toddlers are endlessly torturing an adult-type person with breasts. There’s much more to it, though. Let’s take in what we are seeing.”

The first thing the son observed was a child-like thing holding a raging torch of fire and oily black smoke under the chin of a quivering adult that sat on the baking floor, unable anymore to even pretend to escape. Large breasts trembled. A solid flame engulfed the adult’s head and sought to consume it entirely, but could not. The child-like thing with a skinless face turned toward the two visitors, giggling softly, and showed them the tableau for their approval. The father and son nodded. It, in turn, was pleased.

“If it runs,” said the skeletal child, “we continue unabated. It just gave up many [days] times ago.”

Another toddler, its epidermis also vacant, had long brown hair that seemed to have a life of its own in the heated air. It [she] was plunging a long carving knife into the back of the hopeless adult. This little girl-thing seemed to grin at them with her lipless mouth, and the visitors nodded their approval of her. [It] she was pleased.

The third toddler never seemed to notice the visitors, continually bringing a baby-sized hammer down on the unresponsive adult’s knees.

“This foolish woman creature, in her belief that the dream world was real, murdered these three children there. She beat one to death (so she thought) with a ball peen hammer, killed another with a huge butcher knife, and baked the other one alive in the oven. She tried to kill them there to avenge herself here — give this existence meaning. As if it had any meaning. She stripped all their faces off and thought she was done with it. She only feared her reality. It will never stop. Death is too good to her.”

They both laughed as loud as they could over their own screams.

* * *

In their wandering, they came upon a lake of diamond, one flat solid body made of a precious jewel. It was absolutely clear. As they stood on its surface, they could easily see the bottom miles below.

“This is the lake of the seven thousand, my son. Notice how you can see bodies below these bodies near the surface? And bodies below them all the way to the bottom?”

“My father, are they dead?” he asked, hypnotically staring at the wide-eyed bodies of all the people stacked, seemingly, one on top of the other, all the way to the bottom.

“Look at me, son. Think about what you asked, ‘Are they dead?’”

“Oh,” he said, humiliated.

“The lie of death is one of the most cleverly guarded secrets until now. Since all are here now, and hope alone has died, there is little reason to support the lie. So what is the reality, my son?”

“There is no such thing as ‘Death’?”

“Yes, good. Now look at these. They are frozen in the diamond lake. But they are all mortal. How can this be? Those that drown state that right before death swallows you, there is a moment of panic that takes you that is so profound, so horrid. It occurs right before the surrender that everyone experiences where ‘going over’ is pleasant. If that were to happen here, Infernus would be a joy. No, these all experience that profound, soul-stripping panic I was just telling you about. All of them. Yet, they cannot go on; they must endure the most hideous pain for billions of infinities [one billionth of an endless microsecond].

“Now, if we were to jump on the absolutely balanced surface of this solid lake, it would quake the bones of every occupant. At least that would be a different set of circumstances for them to deal with.”

“Let’s, Father!”

“But all the bones would break simultaneously.”

“And, your point being?”

So they proceeded to do that for many millennia with much glee.

* * *

“That is so horrible, and tasteless,” one student offered. “Why would you want to produce a book like that?”

“It’s the most honest way I could convey these concepts,” the naked model simply replied. “I am powerless to do it any other way. I commit my crimes on paper, some people inflict them on the world, and shatter the societal order. How self-destructive.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“THE IMBECILES”

The two entered one of Infernus’ many caves. To the son, it seemed that the father would be more at home with a crown of victor’s leaves perched smartly on his head. The father adjusted the crown, that had slipped slightly to the right and down. A rich purple robe was wrapped carelessly about his muscular body; his hand was around his throat to hold it closed. His downcast eyes surveyed the hideous death sprawled before him; the scars and scores of battle (or so it seemed). One arm swept the room in a grand, all-encompassing gesture.

“Look, behold these wretches that you see stretched upon the floor, my son. Their intelligence is so low that they cannot even stand. Look upon them and be glad that your dream of the dream world did not make you religious. It is this world that these fools dreamt to get out of their eternity. First look upon the wall and see what it says there written in the blood of one of them. Read it now to me and express your loathing of their low estate.”

The son could barely tear his eyes away from the imbeciles long enough to see the legend written on the wall in blood. It read, ‘You have the mind of the creator, so act like it!’

“What does this enigmatic sign mean, Father?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. One thing I do know, though, is that they thought they could dream that they