A Prayer, for Hell [And the Portrait of Ms Alexandra Rice]

A Prayer, for Hell
[And the Portrait of Ms Alexandra Rice]










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Advance: before you get into this story, let me first present a little history of it. The name of this story was originally: “Agaliarept, the Henchman,” back around 2/2004, then I added the subtitle to it around 4/2005, “And the Portrait of Ms Alexander Rice,” and now it is of course what I consider it proper name, “A Prayer for Hell,” added 26 December 2005. But the story goes back to l986-87 when I was visiting an old folk’s home in North St. Paul, Minnesota. I went there to talk to the old folks, about Christian things. As a young boy a lady by the name of Mrs. La Rose, used to take me there as she visited her friends, and so forth, so I did likewise, especially during the years I was working on my Masters Degree at the University of Minnesota, in Counseling; thus, I not only needed the experience of counseling, but a little evangelism didn’t hurt.
To make a long story short, this story dates back in part to this time period, and to be moderately honest, the main character in the story is the true blue person I spoke to. The dream I had afterwards came many years later, and I wrote it down in 2004, and now you have it for the first time in print. It’s been a long time coming, but for some reason I felt it was time to finish this overdue project.





At Hells Gates

She looked, looked, and looked:
Down, down, upon the tireless tide,
Of deadly souls, walking on by—

What of life: These lives want of me?
What does this soiled land command?
Lost, tracked and merged in spies—

Even in death, someone profits, yes:
It was the winter of l988 she died,
No green grass, only ash dark skies

She looked, looked, and looked:
After her final winter’s breathe, she
Looking upon the ludicrous…

#1043 2/2004


1.


The Meeting
[At the Old Folks Farm]

“If I can’t be with him in heaven, I’d rather go to hell and be with him there!”
‘Twas, quite a statement, said I, to me—she just burped it out—up and out that is, like a wedged chicken bone in her throat. With her not so aging, sparking—bluish-green eyes—as I made my rounds at the old folks home, in North St. Paul, Minnesota, which was converted from a farm long before I can remember—it was the summer of l986 (or thereabouts). As I walked through the hallways, narrow they were, with there high ceilings, a brief spark, a cluster of moans, lights going on and off in the little cell-rooms to the right and left of me, many of the old folks, convalescents—not so old, sitting in wheelchairs in their rooms, the hallways, silently followed me with their eyes, desperate to find a new sunset, yet they were mostly gone for them now—likened to old pieces of leather their skin was, aging old leather, old tarnished wilted leather, burnt by the sun: weather beaten by the long winters of Minnesota. They knew I knew they were going, about to go on that last and everlasting journey, the land of thirst for some, where there is no water, yet, for others it is still the land of thirst, where there are waterfalls and lakes all about.
Yes, there they sat, roamed the halls, these old men, with old broad shoulders, once exceedingly active throughout their lives, now strikingly still; the last lost world for them. What would I say, I asked myself: should I be given the chance to remain in this lost world or travel over to the next? I can say what I think I’d say, but my time has not come, so how can I accurately say anything, yet I’d dare say I’d chose this, unless I had strong shoulders and a clear head for thinking, and mobility, and knowing where I was heading in the hereafter, that would all come into place; but this day I was there doing Evangelism work for the most part; praying with whomever wished to pray; —asking whomever wished to be asked if she or he, or they would like for me to come and ask Jesus Christ into their hearts, their lives—to be saved.

—Before I go any further, let me introduce myself to you: DLS, that is me, nothing fancy, no PHD in front of my name, and no pious name in back of it just a plane folk from a nearby church doing some evangelism work as I had often did back in those days, I say those days because it is now of course, eighteen-years past (or perhaps more now). The woman I am about to refer to in this story is Alexandra Rice: Ms Rice a lady of about 39-years of age—not old by all means, yet with no means of support, and with a deadly illness. Point of fact, some of her fascination was possible due to that fact she was not a pal to anyone, other than to the memory of her dead father, this of course was the first item I had to digest to get along with her, for she simply laugh at those who attempted to look down on her, and it seemed many did.
As I was about to explain, this Sunday evening walk through the darkening halls, fragments, noiseless as they seemed to me, seemed to emit some shadows, that is, they gave me the impression to be leaping as I approached this woman. Not that she was demonic by any means, not by far, not at all—that is not what I mean to infer: this is just the truth of it. As I continued to walk I noticed her thinly arched body, sitting back in a wheelchair next to her room in the hallway—with seemingly irrelevance. Someone asked:
“Will you talk to me?”
I didn’t know exactly where the voice came from. This was not uncommon for me to hear at old the folks home, I’d have to look about often to see who it was, where it came from, inside a room, down the hall, sometimes the voices were faint, or faded out so much that by the time they reached my ears, it was but a muffle. I try to stop as much as I can but I was—back then—an ordained minister and felt my first duty was to find who needed me the most, meaning, whom I felt needed to find their way to Christ quick—least they die and not have the opportunity to be saved.
Henceforth, airily I inquired to the lady in the wheelchair, whom I’d find out soon was Ms Rice:
“Were you speaking to me, mama?” looking at the blond haired [unkempt hair] woman with the big eyes, thick eyebrows, small lips, in her late thirties, little hands with bones protruding from her skin, so pronounced it was almost the first thing that captured your eyes as one focused in on her. Her neck was a bit longer than average it seemed too, and her wheelchair was stuffed with blankets and pillows, nothing else in particular.
“Quite so,” she volunteered with an arrogant but soft voice: the arch to her back seemed to rest a bit easier, as she allowed her spine to sink into the back of the chair, as if it was in pain for a moment and the pain had lifted, “who else is walking by?” she then announced a bit on the sarcastic side. As I looked at her, I knew the days were long for her, I could tell, long and wasteful they must have seemed, for she was penniless: flat broke, poverty-stricken to the bone, if life was not to her.
To be absolutely frank, no one is rich at the old folks home I told myself, no one at all, comforted perhaps, fed yes, bathed and put to bed, like a rainbow, no more no less, that is what came to my mind as I went to talk to her, shifted my knees to her level, for the moment. A brutal and ancient land this was. Night had come early, as they all do in the middle of winter, it was February, and when you looked out the window, it was a mass of darkness. Thus, by the time you got up, cleaned up, fed, bathed, you had but a few hours to look out the window, for surely none could go out in this weather, you had to wait for mid-spring, then possibly if you could walk you could sit on the outer rim of the building in front of White Bear Avenue, and watch the cars go by. If you were lucky, and a nurse, or an aid had time, they could bring you out, possibly forget where you were, and thus, miss your meals to boot: bathroom: but you got to listen to the birds, and watch the squirrels, and yes, oh yes, the everlasting cars go by.

—“Sure,” I doubtfully answered, as if a bomb was going to be thrown at me any minute. Within the next few minutes I listened to Ms Rice, she had no good luck in her life to be forthright, other than her father—she had lost most of the control within her life structure also; as a nurse found a chair for me, I then pulled myself up from my suffering knee, and we sat but a few feet away, myself thinking I might evangelize her. Although destiny would not have it quite this way, foliage, as thick as a forest, the Amazon seemed to wedge in our conversations as it commenced further and further down the line of discovery, the discovery of one another, as the hours turned into real night, and I could tell the loss of sleep on her face, yet she insisted to talk on, that is to say, there was always undergrowth to her words and she wanted to see if she could weather my remarks to them. And at God, there was much shrubbery she was throwing my way. But I listened. Asked if she want to come to Christ; that if she would pray with me, ask Him into her life, she’d be saved, thus, go to Heaven: cumbersome as I sounded, I was hopeful.
We talked for quite a spell unto the wee hours of the night, surprising the nurses allowed it, possibly in hopes of her salvation, or in hopes of her acquiring a new lease on life, or yet possibly to avoid a showdown with her, she could by quite assertive I had noticed, if not aggressive. Many things, things she brought up to my attention seemed quite cheerless, poignant and just downright sad. She had a profound devotion to her dead father though, who had been by her side for most of her life. She was quite angry at God, and possibly the whole cosmic universe for taking him, but I tried to explain the only other alternative was for Him to have either taken you both at the same time, or her first. Hence, it seemed logical, if not practical to take the sibling last. Ye, she didn’t understand my judgment call, my sense of logic, and barked at me with a hiss of revengeful snobbyness; and so I returned to what I had imagined a crisis over heaven and hell, to her salvation. She had made a weighty statement to me, one I had never come up against before by implying: if she could not be with her father, she’d rather go to hell, that is, go to hell and find him and be with him; or so, that is how I understood it to be. I was at my wits’ end to be quite guileless. And for the most part, was trying to find a way to escape her—God forgive me for that, but it is true, yet it was not my role in life at the time to do that, and so I stayed, somewhat helpless to her dark side. Had I a phone back then, a cell phone to be particular, I’d had used it to find someone to guide me through these hours of tedious and thorny flourishing mass of her bombardments of demands and displaced anger.
During this roustabout evening, it was hard not to like her, like her will to fight me, her love to find a way to her father, her misplaced anger would not allow her to reach out to the Lord; and would not be one of my achievements to bring her the word from the Lord, but one cannot help feeling relief and a sense of pride being involved with a lost soul, as once I was, and receiving and now giving the word, if not the world to her—but it could not be done.
Well, as the night lingered on even further, she frowned on most everything I brought to her attention—it was immense the flat affect she displayed for all the information that was floating about. I tried to convince her that her father might be in heaven, possibly be in heaven. She felt it was next to an insult to infer otherwise, but then she volunteered again her—almost challenging statement to God—
“…Should he be in hell that is where I want to go.”? Stubborn she was, but more-so than that I detected a line of anger, hurt, rebellion, revenge, yes revenge as in: I’ll sow you, or am I really talking about: pride? I know now, but it was in her face, her tone, and her speech, even in her eyes. And I got to believing her, and on the other hand, feared for her: should she get what she asked for God-forbid, and sometimes we do, only to find out we were not prepared, I know this to be fully true, for I had asked once for a gift of sorts, in a business way, only to find out I was not prepared, and made a fool of myself: preparation is most essential in most things in life, or so I’ve discovered.
She looked me up and down, in a downtrodden way, again I believe, trying to let me know: life had been unfair to her, surprisingly unfair [not to me], and why should God profit by her bowing to a spirit she knew not. In consequence, it was her father who was by her side: not Him, all those years. I might also add, she felt she was not close to God, not disclaiming him, or his existence, but not close, and therefore could not claim him for her savior, not out of hypocrisy, or insincerity: for this God I spoke of could not tell me where her father was, now what kind of God was that, but should He guarantee here or me, I could tell her, for instance guarantee me that the father was in heaven, then she’d do whatever He wanted, she’d even go to this place called heaven but on her terms. My heart bleed, for I knew if there were to be someone before God, it would never work, it was not the way life was planned. And at this very moment there was little life left in her, anyone could tell that, surely she knew herself, surely that is why she stopped, and I just could not come up with the answers. And should God tell me, had told me at that very moment where he was, then He would be privy to blackmail, and that was not the way He worked, or so I felt. And here I sat, almost an echo of evil to her, another person denying her of the one she loved most, her father, or so that is how I perceived it to be.



2.


Shadow of Death


I knew in the back of my mind she was only one person that was to die, just one, and if measured through out time that is not many, no not compared to the fifty-million killed in WWII, or the eleven-million alcoholics that may die this year of the cursed disease, or the more than four-million cancer deaths that may take place this year, or the five-million malaria deaths now seen around the world. No she was just one, but one I was involved with this one, if I was an angel, I’d have liked to hide like an anteater, with its long looking neck in the ant hill; feeling I had failed, but earthly people can fail. And I hope so can angels.
Had I failed or not failed, I did what I was supposed to, and my chief duty was to endure life, and so I did, and to Glorify God, and so I did, and forever more will remain wondering about her, but I did encourage her. I had learned suffering, which I have had my share of, programs us to help others, if not at lest soothe them. I had asked God at times why this or why that, in the suffering area, the pain area, and had always learned there was a purpose in it, if not to perfect the other person, or myself who sins. Maybe that was why I was trying to be a comforter, for I had received comfort from many, and from God, a recovering Alcoholic, with a diseased heart of sorts. For the afflicted, who better to learn the decrees of the Lord? But again, my purpose was done, and it was time for me to leave. I could give no more promises of heaven, of who would go, and who would not.



3.


At Hell’s Gates
[Nam-Myho-Rengekyo: the Dream]


The First Awakening


As Ms’ Rice drifted out of her fog of death to death’s reality, actuality: she noticed armed sentinels at frequent intervals along a muddy and shadowy dimly lit swamp-like area, with many incoming passage ways. It looked like an atrocious, wicked and primeval land; mammoth looking. The incoming boats from all sections seemed quite vigilant, everyone staring at the gates in the far distance, that is, everyone except the rowers in the boat, the demonic formed creatures—the inhuman dreadful looking primitive Neanderthals—figuratively speaking, but more truth then fiction to this. If one looked directly at this creature that gave his name as Botis the Great, his red lower jaw inside his jaw, one could see the roots of his teeth, small nasal openings, huge eye sockets, a slope to his nasal bone. His body was built like an ox; he had large brow rides over his eyes, built around his eye sockets, thus, pronouncing his facial profiled He had bony lumps in side his lower jaw, you could see them as he opened his mouth to push in whatever kind of oxygen was in the air, in the back of his mouth was huge molars, making his jaw a bit misplaced, and front mouth a little lopsided. His skull had a slope to its back, as if it had a big brain, yet it seemed to the contrary.

—Ms Rice was anxious to get to shore, to get to the gates, walk through them, to meet her father, all in the twinkling of an eye she wanted it to happen. But as she deliberated in the twenty-foot boot: a small craft propelled by a huge paddle, or oar by the Botis, with a sail in its center, used for windy days, the working vessel tugged along the forty mile river. An ancient boat it was by modern terms. The heavy log looking craft was going so slow thought Ms Rice; it would take a lifetime to get to shore, not thinking or imagining what really was ahead. Hides of small animals seem to cover portions of the vessel, either for design or waterproofing, or something. No one asked why, it just was. It may be assumed it developed over time to amuse he—in this case—Botis, or in other cases the captains of the boats; should they have such a title, thought, Ms Rice’s was thinking as she looked to and fro.
The timbers seemed pegged together, making it heavy and awkward to propel, and for the sake of the boat, Ms Rice, and the two women behind her were simply light cargo. It was little more than a huge dugout one might compare it to. The mast was tall and the bow wide, the stern was closed in, more so than the bow that is, for some reason, and the step were deep, secured under the floor of the boat. The boom was held steady and in place, but should it be released, surely a few heads would go flying into the mucky waters of this atrocious river of hell. The sail was tided down around the mast. You could hear the rudder and the false keep hit the sides of the boat, they were both loose. Ms Rice noticed a few of these demonic Neanderthals suffocating themselves underneath their boats by the rudder area trying to fix just that, as she seen others going in circles for not fixing theirs. There were hundreds of boats coming in and some circling around her boat: aimlessly: some slowly, others a bit faster a complicated formula at best thought Ms Rice (at this part of the story, I must give you my thoughts as Ms Rice’s, as it appeared in my dream to be).

She knew she had only been dead less than an hour, maybe, possibly less then thirty-minutes. She was simply whizzed away, and found herself in this rat-trap of a boat—tarnished black wood, scooted with layers of black grime, as if it was once burnt like a tree stub: the wood was thick like Noah’s Ark, and, with its dark thick wood, it carried within its blemishes a long and arduous dark history of providing passage.
She continued looking, observing, cultivating with her eyes, her senses steadily ahead, heading towards the waters edge across the somewhat looking river-swamp—its long belly swamp type roots catching the boat like a spider web to a fly. Her little hands hanging, gripping the thick wood to her right, as if she might fall into this muck. Her body was still in some kind of extreme shock, transitional stage, yet it was not ill like before, it was not constant pain either, nor was it in need of rest. The form of her body was akin to roots of deep paleness, as if her veins were full of nothing warm, just cold icy water, decay, a waxy-decay upon her skin; her eyes, iris—pink, pink and yellowed with heavy eye lids. As she looked over the edge of the boat, it was all mucky and slush: muck, manure and more sewage. Her lips showed no smile, but then, they never did much anyhow, except when her father was around, but she didn’t take note of that, but Botis did, as he turned around to spy on all three, she, Ms Rice was the only one unafraid, at least the only one to show no fear, as if she was prepared for hell; as if she was in defiance of Satan and God themselves, and if she could defy God, why not Satan, and why not Botis; a great pride and selfishness curved with her and was there within her now, her now dehydrated, wrinkled face: light that once was inside her eyes were put out like a candle, where there was really not much light before, there was no light now. Her destination was nearing, nearing, closing in on her; soon, very soon she would find herself in the lost rainbows of eternity: nothing colorful would exist again, not as it had anyway. If a dream or nightmare could be melted and put into a film, this would not be possibly for what she was going to witness.
“Gate #642, straight ahead,” said Botis with a sneer, as if it meant anything to anyone other than him. Thought Ms Rice; even down here they have the number system. It was written in some coded form, a secret language. When she looked in back of her, she noticed now there was no passage-way out, or at least not in sight; everything was turning into fog, it was all fog, and dispelling mist, a soot kind of mist; it seemed as when the boats appeared down the tributaries, they disappeared when you looked back; thus, there was no looking back that made sense, why look back, this was it, whatever lied ahead.
The vessel continued on its way forward with Ms Rice gazing horizontally, noticing the boats in front of her, and along side of her, here and here and everywhere, somewhat disarming her as surely it was meant to do. The sky had turned to an ash color now. As the boat got closer to the dock area, Botis started stomping on the floor of the boat, as if he was preparing himself or a high, in the vein of a drunk, sex addict, or gambler who just won a pot of gold. It might be said, he knew she, Ms Rice, was being tossed into a world without etiquette, hope, and no savior, he was waiting for her facial expressions, yet she gave none, a poker player she was he thought, but she had not yet tasted its push, its fire.
Stunned were the other two women, but it didn’t seem so for Ms Rice, and that was Botis’ main desire at this particular juncture, yet she was still concentrated on one fact, and one fact alone—one reality only, no other: her father, then maybe she’d be stunned, but for the moment she wasn’t
—It may be said, or guessed upon, or even told to you—but do not believe them—that the hordes—the heap of hell, delight in talk, especially to each and everyone a stranger [passenger that is] as they enter the dungeons of this forbidden river, this god-forsaken land, but if so—if you do believe and if what I say is a lie, it wasn’t the way Ms Rice would have told you, for no one spoke a word to her, or the other passengers, not one word, except for Botis indicating what pier they were docking at.
As Ms Rice looked about the boats peered into the seamless river: where it seemed to have no beginning, but a dreadful end to it, all were stricken with tragic fright—fright that froze you to where you sat: wanting to run but couldn’t, yet Ms Rice wanted to continue even if she was given an exit pass she would not had taken it, for it was not fright that stopped her from talking or mentally thinking about what’s ahead, it was anxiousness, wanting to see her father. Even the smells that came from the other side of some mountains, mountains she could not see, but she could smell the burning from them, the smells of burning flesh, strong smells of tissue, didn’t deter her willpower to go seek her father in hells hottest waters, chambers or beds—whatever. Aimlessly the others looked into the eyes, tried to anyways, to look into them eyes of the few that passed by, getting mostly their profile views in other boats; glances across the from boat to boat in the dreary river. They were like fossils of stone carved into granite forever and ever, their faces. No beauty just faces upon faces, one might say: killer faces, criminal faces, faces that reminded you of this and that, faces in the newspapers, famous faces, faces that thought they had it made, all naked faces, hopeless and helpless feeble faces.
Even Christian faces yelled to the dark heavens, the ash sky, with hand and fist saying:
“I was a Christian, why am I here?”
Almost demanding a retrial and there were the Muslims saying, screaming: for Allah I did this and that, I killed in your name [as if God needed an assistant to do his dirty work], and where is my reward, this cave of antiquity, this river of filth, where are my beautiful women. For the Jew, they also cried and wept, saying [while hiding their faces in their hands]: we are the chosen ones, the people of God, the gifted and the ones who walked with Moses, and Abram, and look, look at this, this is not the Promised Land, this is what I get. Oh yes, this day the bells of hell were ringing. Scholars and soldiers, and priests, kings, Hollywood Stars, the boats were full of a good sample of the whole human race, and Ms Rice.
By and large, the looks on and of most faces, had utterly died an undignified death, it might be said—for Ms Rice, she was thinking it, most of the folks in the boats did not die of old age [or a degenerative illness related to old age], rather an assortment of degenerative illness’ and accidents and suicides, such as cardiovascular disease—that might have been but were not linked to old age, older than seventy that is: cancer, strokes, diabetes, heart attacks, war, drugs, complications and other disorders; many were problematic cases that received very little medial care, and in some cases those who received too much. In many cases it was within the power of society to keep them alive, yet human life was devalued, and so came about an early death, in many cases: let us not over look suicide, in the name of god, hangings, executions, and so forth, on and so all in the name of society.
They were all in the boats, many protesting; —the henchmen laughing, laughing themselves silly, hysterically amused: some even holding their stomachs as to get more air as they ecstatically laughed, some pounding their fists on the boats ledges, unable to control themselves, but not saying anything, not any distinguishable syllables, or words that were understandable. They had learned not to argue, lest they lose their amusement.
Soon she told herself, she’d be at the Gates of Hell, convinced she’d see her father waiting there, or if not, she’d surprise him by finding him shortly thereafter. The reuniting would be a celebration, yes, yes indeed, a reunion in hell, on earth or in heaven; it would be a celebration to the utmost.


4.

Fifteen Billion


As Ms Rice disembarked the boat, jumping into three feet of grimy water by the dock, suckling around her legs like acid eating metal were insects, then making her way through the thick green roots and foliage, the undergrowth of the slimy river, she pushing her body forward comparable to a car being pushed in snow by another car, even getting ahead of the subdued Neanderthal’s, she reached out to the banks the stairway to the pier, as she set foot on the first step, pulled her body upward, dark soil, mud mixed with slim, possibly residue from previous passengers, thus, she grabbed onto the wooden beams leading up to the upper dock, some several steps up.
There at the top, there standing in the dismal of the new experience, the event that was to take place, her new home of homes, her everlasting abode, was no music playing, no one to great them, no relatives like at the airport, or at Christmas time, knocking at your door. The two folks that was in her boat with her were standing stone-still, still in the boat, shaking from their knees to the top of their heads, as Ms Rice walked dignified, and diligently to the gates, she turned about, stubbornly looking at the two women in the vessel, whom now the Neanderthal-creature had to push to get out of the boat, whom would not budge before: now tears were coming down from their eyes, screams, biting of the gums, their teeth chattering, they were now trying to get back into the boat seated, the Neanderthal simply looked at them jump back into the boat—, tirelessly they sat in the boat as if they were going to go someplace other then here, as if there was another destination. They even tried to pick up the giant ore, but it was too heavy, way too heavy for them. Now with the two giant guards at the gates [Buer and Gusoyn] the Neanderthal [Botis] all started laughing as if the show had just started, but the three couldn’t figure out Ms Rice’s plight; somehow they expected something else, yet they were quite interested in where it all would lead.


Attack of the River Rat


To the side of the dock area was a small mound, cliff, a woman had just been raped, and a guard was standing over her as if others would come and have their fun sooner or later, she was no more dead then dead could be, in hell, but the scorn of dying while already dead was taking place, she was the sleeping dead, possibly trying to disassociated from the happening. No one was bashful, and if anything, it was—or could have been the place for other rapes, to show the new comers you were helpless like her, as her, kind of a slap in the face before you actually reached shore, took your first step on the premises land, the land of hell, for there are two lands promised, is that not true.
Not far away, a fifty-pound river rat, being eaten alive, did attack a new person who had just come ashore and then the body regained its shape to begin all over again.




Rape in Hell


The gates were towering as was the two towers next to the gates, possibly a hundred feet high were the walls where the two demonic beings looking overhead, looking down from the wall, by the side tower downward to the incoming—the new residents, passengers, tenants if you will, smiling, not, nothing else just smiling and laughing. Yet the one Neanderthal continued to laugh hardier, and mock the two women who would not leave the boat. The plight of Ms Rice was more on the interest of the two looking down from about, Buer and Gusoyn. No one had coats or shoes on, nothing was on their bodies—that is the passengers, the guards hand only belts on, clubs and knifes and swords on their belts, whips and other instruments of torture, and they were all naked other than that. The two women were covering their private parts—as if they could be covered for eternity, but the Neanderthal knew it was just a matter of time before their hands would drop—they always did, and modesty would melt like a burned out candle; they would uncover themselves—helplessly uncover themselves, and join the nakedness of this awful world they were entering—it was the norm, it was as common as the ugly faces they were seeing, and soon the ugliness would be common too—just like those who proclaimed Picassos painting to be ugly, so commonality would prevail, and ugly would be the norm; thought Ms Rice, thus, everything would be nothing more than shared aims, how despicable.
The two demonic beings looking down now were spitting black gook onto the new-comers—snot and slim droppings from their mouths and noses, Ms Rice got some in her face, but she simply wiped it away, and gave a smirk back—she got another wad of spit that covered her eye, evidently they didn’t like the smirk, but it didn’t faze her that time either. That in itself was cause for disharmony; the two looked at one another in wonderment, as if to say: what now.


Gusoyn, Agaliarept’s Assistant


As she entered the gateway, and walking through it, she now could hear the chattering of a busy city, a most strange metropolis people going in, but no one going out, that is, no one was around her though, but nonetheless, she heard it—somewhere in the distance, the voices were coming, drifting out to her more than around her she took note of, as if they were a mass of echoes pushing their way to her, fighting to get to her, possibly around the corners of the passageways around the building in front of her, the old stone temples at Uruk and Babylon, and the structures along side of her were the walls, to her left back side was the huge gate, lofty gates with its even higher towers attached to the gates—Opiel was the one to open the gates she noticed, so a man called him that as if it was his name, again saying,
“Hurry up gatekeeper, Opiel—, get them doors open…” and he did heave those gates with his massive arms.

—She did not hurriedly surrender her will, as expected by the custodians of the gate, the wall guards, the eyes of the night that seemed to follower her every move. It had been something like two hours since her death, or at least that is how she calculated it: there was no time per se in this dreadful environment, no clocks. She noticed a few of the demonic creatures scratching their necks; —thought her: chaos survives; miserably it does, looking up to the muscular sky, thickest now since she had entered this underground world of sorts.
Actually now, she was standing inside the border area of the Gateway City—as it would become known to her, some fifty-feet inside the gates that is to say, where people were coming and going, for the most part, the passengers were not returning though the gates, but still there were a number of people walking around this Gateway City, now looking, gawking at her, inquisitive strangers for the most part, demonic beings, even a few rats stopped to peer at her newness to this acropolis, or so it seemed as they came from around the corners to see who was coming through the gates, but no one meeting anyone—no one even talking to anyone. If only she had known. Not many walked back to the gates of hell, the gates she walked through, although they’d stop by, stand at a distance, and walk through this long stretched out walled city of sorts; it was only a reminder of when they walked through them gates thought Ms Rice.
Then strangely enough, she thought out loud,
“Where are the fires? You know the legendary fires of hell…?” The fires of hell she so much heard about when she was a child in church. She didn’t know hell had its degrees of intimidation, as heaven had its rewards for meritorious service on earth. But, as someone once said: all in time, accordingly, she would be educated in the fineries of the establishment. And so chatter or not, she looked to and fro, for a direction to go, ‘Ye,’ she commented, to a walker by,
“…Do you know of a…” and before she could finish her sentence, the man, longed legged, heavy looking mustache, with handle-bars, looked to be from another time period almost, simply said,
“…Mind your own business,” and continued to walk aimlessly, as if he had no direction, just walked, or if he had a direction he was doing some kind of checking, inspecting, but nonetheless he spoke to her, she was hopeful now; —but time she had, and so she didn’t feel slighted, surely she’d find someone who knew her father, and perhaps this stranger would make his rounds again and she’d get to ask her question.




Interlude



The Dungeons


As she walked about a little ways, she heard moans and cries, and simply just noises down in one of the street cellars—or possibly it could be mistaken for a street gutter of sorts, it had bars on, down deep, deep in one of the callers by a side street that lead out into the mass of people, but not quite out into it, just before it, it was but a few feet from the mass, but yet prior to the mass, as it was an area of torture she noticed as she knelt down to the rock hard payment, looked between the bars. Potential she conjured this was a chamber of hell, as was the mass of people beyond the gates.

The King of Hades
[The Second Death]


Oh those faces I’ve seen:

Tracks of tears
Ribs bending
Nose, slim, thin
Thin as a needle

Shoulders sharp
Hands like stone
Fingers and feet
Like old tobacco

I seen the:
Great, young and wise—

Two deaths seen
Heaped together
In Hades regime
Old smoke residue

You are no better than the
Beggar or the fool here…

#1040 4/2004




The Dungeons and Torture



As she, Ms Rice looked down, down into the cellar, between the bars there was a man standing in a birdcage type apparatus, in a notorious way—her mind shifted to and fro, was this purgatory? This area of Hell, was it purgatory? She asked again. Who was this man who walked by her, The King of Hades? Perhaps, he walked like he was an evil sprit of sorts. Many questions came into her mind. Some of the several people she could see in this torture chamber, their fingers were being squeezed, and knuckles also, to a high degree of pain. She was learning a spirit form could have pain just as well as a physical form. One man was on a bedstead, feet hands neck clamped tight onto the wooden plank (his neck, wrists and ankles brushed, discolored, held secure to the bed by wooden clamps); thus, your were subject to rules, and judgments and leaders like any other place. There was no such thing as death, only dying, and perhaps down here, one could die and die and die and die forever.
Another person was suspended by one arm over a horizontal bar, the other arm passed down under both legs, thumbs under the knees the whole weight of his body was under his armpit of the arm that passed over
the bar and onto the toes which were allowed to touch the surface. Ms Rice wanted to cry but she held it, what had they done on earth she thought. What could they do to her, whatever it was; they’d do it she presupposed, if they could. For the moment, she simply needed to placate her nerves, for some reason this place wanted her to know they were in charge, but why not just do what they could to her. Why show me, spit at me, just do it, was her thoughts.
Said Ms Rice to herself, out loud looking at these sufferings:
“I have got my desire in death, a heart twisted indeed I had, covered with iron, I was, was I not,” she shook her head, her heart becoming a little softer, yet she wanted her father: farewell she said to everything good, every good thing she ever had, and started walking about again.



5.


The Tall Man
[Agaliarept]


Un-halted, Ms Rice was the talk of the gate-guards, as she walked forward looking about, prodigiously, as if she owned the place one might say: as if to be thinking: how often does one die, let me digest this: for it did happen quite sudden and did it happen, and stubborn was her make up, the mystery of afterlife now is at hand—she accomplished, like the dinosaurs, and the Inca’s and the Maya’s and all the ancient civilizations that what went before her: Greece and Rome and those to come, America yes America will one day be simply a bygone Atlantis. As she forcefully looked up in the sky, forcefully because the air is thin, carbon dioxide in the air, dropping the amount of oxygen, just enough to make it annoying, she admitted, death does have its on character especially on this side of the realm
—next, she sees a side street to the left, so she turned her body, shifting it slowly, to walk on it, hesitantly, for it was a strange and new environment, but willingly and ultimately found herself in a plaza type area with in a few minutes. There she found for the second time in sight that tall-clothed man in a black hideous gown as if it was as old as time, and he himself looked a bit youthful in comparison, youthful only in the respect of being in his late forties, yet he looked from a strange time period. Her second glance made her aware of his face and his look of impatience if not of importance of some kind with that John L. Sullivan mustache. She was long in response to his stare, and then he said,
“…you will stay here forever—but after time, you will find quiet, possibly quiet, and peace.”
She continued to stare, she wasn’t looking for quiet, not yet at least—she was looking for her father: it almost seemed like he knew something of it, of her quest, maybe an intuition she had of him, but something showed in his mannerism of her needy subject.
“So then,” she said, airily inquiring, “can you tell me where my father might be, should I give you his name…?”
“Ah!” said he, in an aesthetic tone, “…arrangements, you want me to make arrangements for you to find your father, this is what you want—correct?”
For a moment the tall man just stood gazing at her,
“Do you not care to ask me for my name, it is Odagled—make note of it please, if you’d care to know, that is,” said the tall man again, now with a dog-face look, “what think you,” he asked in a crying voice.
“I want to see my father,” she replied with discontent having to repeat her request, “what more can I say, you already seem to know this.”
“My O my,” volunteered the tall man with a playful and doubtful voice; then added, “I think he desires not to be known, that is—as you say, in plain English, he doesn’t care to see you.”
With seemingly unimportance, she angrily replied:
“So you say, but I don’t believe you.”
At once this tall man with the name: Odagled, described her father to her—to a T, then pointed to the fifteen-billion people that were gathered around the corner, as she stepped up to the corner where he had been standing, where she could not see around it before, her heart fell to her knees, the mass of people were like an infestation of a giant ant city—a heedful locust, everyone bushing, talking, yelling, screaming, doing, looking, looking, staring, fighting masses upon masses.
Said he with a smile,
“If you get entangled into that mass, you will lose your sense of direction, for possibly a few hundred years, and when you find yourself out of it, you will seek quiet; it is pointless to go beyond this corner; you may never find it again. And beyond the masses are the fires and the freezers of hell—that is to say, beyond the mountains. This dear lady is the best you’re going to get. But should you want to go farther, be that of your own free will, but you will never return through the fifteen billion who remain here, beyond the gates. You see you are only at the gates of hell, not beyond them.”



6.



Hell by Request

And so the powers of darkness
Through her death—
Summoned her to the gates
At her request—
And so it was,
And come to be:
Hell—her forever temple:
A memorable tragedy…

#1041 2/2004





She Spots her father


Odd and drastic did she look, helpless, but she weathered the moment. A furnace like heat drifted to her from the mass of people beyond the Gateway City. It was what you would call daytime, and the sky took on a glacial white cold look—paler than bright or white. Cape Cobras with their venomous mouths wiggled to and from the mass of people up to the Gateway City, but not beyond. As she stood there flies feasted on her, trying to get into her eyes, ears, nose, she moved a foot back, and they stopped, again they did not enter the forbidden zone, or so it seemed, the zone was forbidden, it was were this tall man wondered aimlessly though.
There were those from the mass that found their way to the city, to walked up toward the safe zone but could not get into it, to the edge of the Gateway City, and stood staring those like Ms Rice, and the Tall Man; now some even started prolong staring at Ms Rice, they had ticks and virus’ [like boils] all over their bodies; yes the bodies were of spirit, but none the less, with shape and form to them were un-descript. The ticks and ants were attached to them, even so their heads being eaten away, they paid little attention to it, to get them off, to shoo them away: most likely, if they were after blood that they would not find, I suppose they would go on their own. And it seemed the droppings of mammals were on the floors of this hellish world everywhere. Mosquitoes swarm the rim of this city like a nightmare: big bull mosquitoes—with their high pitched droning sounds, how could anyone get rest she thought, and if they could, it would be insomnia at its wildest; the buzzing alone would not allow it.

—“Ms Rice,” said the tall man, with a most pleasant and arduous voice. She turned toward him, as a layer of dust filling every opening of her body to include the environment, which was settling over the masses. Said he with a thunderous voice the second time, for “Ms Rice,” but she was so taken by the cloud overhead, she was mesmerized for the moment, disassociating from anything in particular,
“Yes, yes,” she acknowledged, as she swatted away flies; there must had been a thousand verities of flies, again some entering the premises, most not as they’d make their way to the boarder of the river city, the city by the gates, Ms Rice’s home new city home.
“I think I can help you with your mission in—[pause]: I want to say life, but it is better put, here in death. You want to find your father, and I, yes I can help you with that very thing.”
Said she: “How so?”
Said he: “First things first, even in hell we have our business to attend to, and, what would say you, if I could produce him immediately, and not with a vision, but in person, would you (he stepped now within three feet of her), I say, would you, I say would you give your right to live in the, what we call here the: ‘Gateway City,’ here in Hell; would you sell it to me, make an agreement with me?”
She had not seen her father as she came through the gate, henceforth, she thought, surely he must be in the mass, or beyond.
“What is beyond the mass sir,” she asked with a pitched and zigzagged voice, one that was anxious, and getting tired of being anxious, vivacious—
“You see Ms Rice, beyond the mass are dungeons, and fires and cold caves, and mountains, and Hell has its whim’s, degrees, its secrets. Yes, oh yes, you are at the best location to say the least, but as you see, you do not get here what you want, what you asked for, came for, and that is why you came, to see your father—is it not? A rhetorical question at best, you needn’t answer it, I already know. Beyond the mountains lies the fires, and all the pests a dead life can offer a soul, yes they have them here by the gate and one-hundred fold more in the mass, but god-forbid should you even go farther into Hell, you will melt, be frozen and decay all at one time—.”
“What then,” asked Ms Rice “lies beyond the river?” He hesitated, for there was a dark mist that covered, or blocked entrance into the other side of the river for there was another side.
“You mustn’t worry about that, it is barren land now—, well not completely barren I suppose, but not used much anymore, and for us, you in particular, you will never go there, it is not for us to be, yet if one looks from the tower [now he pointed to the tower, along side of it were the two men that spit on her, one fat and short, the other broad shouldered: their backs were turned to her] from up that tower you can not see the other side not really, you see just the water, and not much else, and it will bring your eyes pain, much, much, much pain that will last a thousand years: it is cursed land, yes oh yes, more cursed to the brain and eyes than all the terrors and tortures of Hell, the other side is a little belied-dungeon. Not much to see, it would only make a person more dreadful, but back to your father now this is the subject at hand, what say you to my deal?”
She looked hard, and harder into the mass thinking: she could find him, it would take forever, or just about forever, but that she had come here for that purpose, and here, safe as safe can be in a prison she had no one, their she’d have a mission, at least it was not as thorny as the waters of the river, so she comforted her decision with, and said,
“Ok, yes, yes, do please, tell me and show me where my father is!”
At that request his body got somewhat contorted, his smile dispelled,
“So be it,” he now said with a tone to his voice as if he was a lawyer, giving her notice: “so be it,” again he concurred.
She held her breath, her mind felt as if was made up of tumbleweeds, which were dancing around in her head; her stomach, she was excited and marred at the same time, and her stomach was cramped. The agreement seemed to appear out of nowhere, and given to her in a heartbeat: she signed the agreement, even her picture was imprinted on the ancient scroll as she put her last line to her name in everlasting-ink, then looked at the tall man for guidance:
“Follow me, “he commanded, his voice had changed, he seemed now to be in the authority box of sorts. As she followed him, she knew she was to be placed in this massive living dead—this heap of shadows and bones and the locust of the dead world, all would be infested around her, where it was now eighty-degree Fahrenheit, it would soon be 120-degrees or more, and the farther in, the hotter. Now his long arm pointed to the two gate guards, in particular, the one who had spit on her, she had never seen his face only his back side and never gave him a notice when he had spit, but she would in a moment,
“There!” he commanded, “look there, that is your old man, your father, he has made a deal with us to guard our city, to spit on each and everyone.”
The man look about, caught her eye,
“My god…” she said, “daddy…” and a smirk appeared on his face.
“Yes,” she said, “yes indeed, it must have been him, my daddy, but…but, why?” his face was a bit heavier, but it was him all right, she figured.
“Yes,” she repeated, “…he spit on me,” then he turned about, to pay her no attention, as if his job was more essential, as if he did not want to miss out on spitting. Not even saying a word to her. She was crushed, mentally and internally crushed.
For the moment, she was dumfounded, shocked, in disbelief, it was her father, in a huge body, but then everyone and everything looked so lopsided here. But it was her father nonetheless, how could he have changed to such a pathetic demonic ass she pondered. Then as she stood their in disbelief, depression and despair seeped into her character, she murmured: ‘…you mean to say he made a deal with the chiefs of Hell, and part of it was to defy me, to look the other way, to spit on me.’
For the first time she cried, the first time in perhaps a long, long time; as the tall man arrogantly commanded two beings to rustle her away: hence, grabbing her in a moment’s time, as if time was of the essence and flew her, likened to a dead fossil, wrapped around the flying demons forearm to the center of the mass of fifteen-billion. Like a drunken chicken, a tattered rug, he dropped her some fifty feet to her destiny, to her new abode, her face turning red and cracking from the dry heat almost immediately.




7.


Tearless Eyes


Captured now in the mass, the heap of human souls, the spirit-flesh looked as if they were all dead corpuses; —the sky cold and dark, as if the sun was hidden, and spider-like root legs seemed to lace the orb above them that was called a sky, but was more likened to a mammoth cave: yes, the corpuses were alive-like brownish-green iron on dead skin, deadly alive, all horridly waiting for nothing to happen: she [she being: Ms Rice] tried to penetrate her freedom by moving within, into the bodies, the massive sardine like bodies all around her, trying to get beyond them but she simply got pushed back: pushed, and pushed, here and there, to and fro, every which way. What she didn’t know was Agaliarept was peering through all the miles and miles of souls, piercing each one as his eyes penetrated the heap of bodies, like a bee hive, like an ant hill, the mound, the bodies stack one on top of the other, to where Ms Rice was—had she been mortal, would have been suffocated.
With this henchman looking mustache, the discoverer, the King of Hell, knower of all secrets, the title that was given to him, by none other that Satan himself, this Commander of Hell, commander of the 2nd legend in Hell, Grand General of Hades, looked at Opiel, the gatekeeper, and then his demonic assistants, Botis, the one who rowed the boat with Ms Rice, in it, to the pier, and he looked up on the gateway, where Gusoyn and Buer were, the ones that greeted the new Tenants, as he called them. Buer, was the one who portrayed to be Ms Rice’s father, for again, Agaliarept, he knew all the secrets of the mind that did not trust in God, and with wit and cleverness he could take what could be stolen, but cleverness never dominates in the long run, but only leaves a man open to pitfall in his own character, so it has been said, but only said. And so like a soldier he kept his eye on his command, and she was part of it.

—Tall and short nude bodies, dead corpses if you will, dead spiritual corpses, in vivid, drab color: she stood without thinking. Her hair began to stir and stand upward, upon her head with terror: this was real; thus, shock and disbelieve had dissolved. There was no one to call on the phone for assistance. No one to come and rescue her; it was more than a novel of fiction. The book could not be closed, or even burned, nor could she turn the pages to jump ahead to see what was beyond this moment. Nor was God here, it wasn’t a place God stayed; it even wasn’t a place Satan liked to visit unless there was an extreme need.
“Nothing, nothing at all can be done,” she murmured—and cried—but her body was tearless—; her eyes, no water could form under her eyelids just dryness. Again her scalp, her hair on her head stirred with an icy-cold terror, reality was hitting her. Her spine was cold as Ice: like dead roots frozen in the ground. She told herself: I can, I must refuse to be afraid—and fearful, but she was. She knew quite well there was no more to be done. It was ok, she told herself, ok to feel fear, simply do not admit it though, once it is digested you would vomit it back up, surely she thought, it would come back up, and up and out, and one would only die again, slowly, over and over and over.
As she stood there, not knowing the eyes of Agaliarept were piercing through the hoard of souls to her, right to her being, but she sensed it, or sensed something, for she felt everyone was simply waiting, waiting for her at the far-off end [right where Agaliarept was]. She told herself: there was no such thing as getting back to safety, but why then did she think bout it, this was Hell, and one does not have the right to such thoughts, so she told her spirit body.
Then unexpectedly the night got to be a trifle grayer, got a creeping fire-red and orange tint to it, with fire flies all about, everywhere the locusts were coming out to feast on the shadows within the night, the spirit forms that laid all about: more or less, she could feel them, see them, her sensitivity was their be it physical or psychological, the creatures were—if anything—were annoying, but that was their nature, their duty for existence. She came to the conclusion there was no sense in taking questions or notice of her feelings it would only produce misgivings. It was best if possible to remain in a comatose state, if that was possible, really—really doable, it would be a blessing.
She had thought: why did I not want to go to Heaven? Perhaps it was where you worshiped the King all day, or part of the day, and that was too much to do. And here, you paid for your sins. In both cases the body didn’t die. But she heard their was 72-kinds of death, could she not find one that was called: comatose, and never think again, be in some kind of frozen existence. Then she cursed that she was even created.
Yet she agreed with her thoughts, her only way of escaping this extraordinary clutter, her thoughts her whimsical thoughts they were her salvation she come to believe—: yet, a person ought to feel something, and her father came to mind: she had yet—and maybe never would forget the final look on her father’s face, the look he gave to her—the look that put a morbid look on her face as he stood on the tower. And that man, that tall man, who really was he? Did it matter she asked herself; I mean really, really matter? Then she remembered something the man from the Old Folks Home that was said to her: something catchy: ‘Know what is before your face and what is hidden from you will be revealed to you”; this man Jesus said it, so the counselor had said. Then her father’s smirk came back to her, and she couldn’t ever remember him smirking before, that is before this previous smirk: and a giant capricious smirk it was; never-ever could she remember him smirking, which was bewildering to her, yet so much had happened in so little of time possible he could had been brain washed to work with this underworld for privileges—although it wasn’t like him. And her all pure foolishness came to mind—her resistance to everyone and everything, and all the things she said, but then who knows when and where foolishness will bite she mumbled to herself.



8.



Night over Hell


The sky was now misty, blotched with orange and purple mist, with holes in them, holes that filled the weighty looking sky as if it was sinking. Cloud-vapors settling close overhead. This only made her feel lonelier, yet a moment of peace came with it. She pondered on the old gossip everyone used to tell her: no one goes to hell Alexandra. Or the other great philosophy: Alexandra, you should know better, there is no such thing as Hell. Everyone pretended to know God and the Bible, and his ways, but no one could quote a scripture, only some cheap advice that happened to pop into their minds. Someone said: if God is good, he wouldn’t create a Hell, would he? I suppose one might say: why wouldn’t He.
She used to think about that with a light touch, and say to herself: Why would everyone, no matter what they did, go to heaven? They don’t deserve that either. Thus, where would they go? It doesn’t make sense, and then one has a license to kill by God if there was no hell or no reward if there was no heaven; do as you please to his other creations. Alexandra was no perfect woman, but she wouldn’t destroy a painting she had made, and get mad if someone tried to do so. And if there is no heaven or hell, maybe there is no earth either, and we’re all just a dodging-illusion. Is not seeing believing and if so it is not too late to prove my point now why would some one teach me wrong? Why not, misery like company, just add a little of: out of sight, and out of mind to the salt, and you got a believer

…inconspicuous, she stepped over several people to make her break, her drive ahead, forward—, evidently the only peace these people would get—she concluded as she stepped over a few more souls that had piled onto one another, several high all around her, yet she found some empty spaces around to walk forward on and through [as she did anxiously]. Things seemed so different, perhaps she should have listened to the young man at the home [so she pondered on as she stepped over more bodies], perhaps just perhaps, but again them were more ‘iffing,’ she concluded, and that would not do. Was she to become the savage and carnivorous creature she saw, like her father? This was not in her veins. She pushed on, stepping over and around people: which was the job she had set herself, her mind and body to do, for the moment and walked and walked and walked to where she found herself peeping at the gate, the very gate she was before at; how interesting she thought, to end up right in front of it again, and there was Opiel: the gatekeeper, she recognized him. Yes, yes, this was her gate she cried with a long, long sigh from her stomach. Then she looked again, and coming around the corner, the corner she had looked beyond once which seemed a long time ago, and there was the tall Agaliarept: the man of secrets, and the one who could take them from you, yet he was only a tall man to her; one that she knew, whose face was familiar.
Said he, with a smirk:
“Each day and each night is a year down here you know, yes, you have been walking almost a year and you stood still for almost a year thinking.”
His yellowish eyes almost froze her in place, but she moved another foot closer. The closer she came, the more red spots appeared on his face, like an anxiety attack, he was ecstatically angry, but trying to hold it—. Why, why thought Alexandra, why should he be angry at her stepping forward? And she remembered what the young man said,
“Know what is before your face…”
“Most people take advantage of the night, for day is when the yelling and the screaming, and the thinking goes on,” she shoved her spirit body another foot forward. He was smoking a pipe, and almost choked on the smoke as she had done that, meanwhile she struggled with the forward thrust—but kept trying to push and push ahead she did. The tall man now was staring at her intensively.
“God gave me the right to be in the gate area, who are you to take it away? (She thought where in hells name did this come from, my mouth?)” The tall man now looked away; it was like he was pierced in the heart. No one ever had spoken such way about God in hell, or demanded their rights.
“God indeed,” he murmured, with his teeth clenched, “why must you use his name here,” and there he pardoned her, allowing her to regain her rightful place. As bewildering as it was to be swiped away to the Mass, it was likewise the same to be placed back into the Gateway City.




9.



Hades River




She was not happy, and longed for her father, the father she knew, and she longed for her Old Folks Home she had not thought she’d grieve it, put I guess in Hell you do grieve, had it been in heaven or its equal, possible the grieving would not had taken place other than wanting to insure all was well with a loved one left behind, but she left no such things, people behind, all she had was a wheelchair, and a memory of her father;

as they’d call it even though she was but thirty-nine years old when he had died, died from a neurological disease; to here the home was a convalescent home of sorts. She had never married, and had no siblings, and so very often had no one but her surrounding environment to appease her: she longed to be by the gate now it was surprisingly a relief to return to it. She now realized in the past she vehemently abused people, making all them bitter within her life, other than her father. But that didn’t put her in Hell she knew, it was her attitude, her prayer you could call it. She could only construe, she was the fool; she even came to an understating, that if a woman wants to make a fool out of herself it is best to let her do so, least you get entangled into her web for the spider to eat you—and so in the long run that is exactly what people did to her, allowed her to decay into her own—onto her own intrinsic island. Blind she was, blind and wanting to go home—but death was her home: as death must come to each and everyone, it came to her, in the city of death, the Gateway City: it is not death that hurts, but constantly dying.
The city’s Tall Man, it was better to be exiled here than within the masses of the horde, she thought, for outside the Gateway-City, save for the fact she could not fall to sleep and never wake up, she died hour after hour, not even knowing it was a day to an hour: barer it could be worse she told herself, for beyond that was the fires, the everlasting fires, and somewhere around that the frozen chambers for the many kings that abused the masses with their powers and wills for grandness beyond the gift given them by God.
But then there were many things she didn’t know about this underground city, this core in the earth, this ugly supernatural, spiritual world of a cave of sorts, island in the earth, whatever, wherever she was, it was a hell; here they were all barbarians.

—She now looked up where her father was before, looking at the same back her father had before he turned to her with that smirk; she stared and stared and stared, and finally he turned: it wasn’t her father at all, it was whoever it was—the other person. She now put two and two together: matter of fact the two men [Buer and Gusoyn] were the ones who had spit and fooled her, Buer being the one who changed his face and spit at her, changed shapes to fool her; but why? ‘Sure, to sell my place her,’ she finished. And Buer, who had looked like her father, she discovered now looked different so very different, again she did not look, think she did as she had always done took the man view at face value, the Tall Man. He had what was called shape-shifted, things demons do, were designed to do, can do to fool a person—but she didn’t learn about demons, didn’t believe in them: before. Again her face turned morbid pale with horror.
“Of course,” she whispered to herself again, “of course, the tall man was by nature a liar, like the two demons’s overlooking the stone walls; that she referred to being the second guard, Buer [who had done the shape changing to fool her, for it was the nature of the demons to ensnare and seduce the enemy, mankind; and Hell didn’t change a persons nature, it just brought it out more]. Now she realized Buer was rather stout and short and silent, now that she looked closer [Gusoyn being the polar opposite]; his hair balled in the back with a thick red neck, gray eyes, and an odd looking mouth, he spoke not a word, fat as a cow. But another observation she had was that demons seem to have eyes and mouths that were grotesque, alarming, all of them.
—As Ms Rice walked about, everything seemed so easy now, no fuss, no one seemed to bother her, any policeman, or authority; everything calm seemed to run by itself within her spirit body: no supervisor class, and no boss. If anything, that’s were it was for the moment. The river to the left of her made up a trillion drops of soot-covered water. She now stood by the gate, the solid stone walls that lead to the gates, in her undisputable spot; listening to the grumbling of the guards on the ledge above. Thought Ms Rice, standing there absorbing everything: a person needs to know what they are up against; otherwise that person is just a washout. She was a bit prideful at the moment, prideful that she had figured out the game a little better, with a little help she admitted, her fate, and made it back to the ‘Gateway City,’ not much pride, but better than what she had before.




10.


The Walls


She was not going to be fooled, no, oh no, not again, she was not. She would have liked to pull out the teeth, or better yet, fingernails of the two zombies that tricked her, along with the tall man. But it would be a long ever-after, so it was best left alone, she figured. Again she noticed the two assistants to the Henchman spiting gobs of slime on the newcomers. What an awful entertaining dilemma, should you just stand up there and do nothing it might be worse though, so was her thinking. New hell bound figures, shapes; strangers were coming in by the truckloads she deciphered. Every hour on the hour, throughout the night and day this was happening.
She stood there looking at the gates, the two huge wooden and iron gates: and the two robust solders, that is to say, one being a little on the fat side the other being muscular but with a little head in comparison to his body, with kind of a big ass: these demonic beings looking over the wall by the tower, the tower that was attached to the walkway of the wall, some twenty feet thick. It reminded her of the Great Wall of China, with its towers in-between sections. She now had felt relief, at least in the gizzard, as if an arrow had lodged itself in it, or bullet, and she had just passed it on through, and up and out of her throat, and coughed it up and out: for in comparison to the mass, the heap beyond the gate city, this was a jewel in the raw.
She remained standing for awhile, like a lost being, a whole lot of lost I suppose you could say, like being on the dock of San Francisco looking out towards the Golden Gate Bridge, where once she lived, before moving to St. Paul, Minnesota. But here was not San Francisco by far, it was what it was, no place on the surface of the globe could have described this place. Thus, she’d remained a mental piece or ornament—in a dark infested gulag of a wonderland: watching the new, strangers come in, no one ever leaving except the demonic forces—and like it had happened to her, they: the new ones, were switched away to the masses or beyond.



11.


Looking Over the Wall
[And Huwawa]


This entirety, all that was in front of her, all that dragged behind her in her new frame of mind was no longer suppressed: there was no way, she indigently mumbled: no way to get used to this: she was no longer in pretense, or disbelief, she was in reality, but with some kind of raw hope, hope that leaves one once, denial is settled as an issue.
The view of the harbor was right outside the gate, right over the wall, she could see it as she also witnessed a colossal size being within its waters, they called him Huwawa, he was the, the guardian of the river, he walked up and down the wharf area, and out into some of the deeper waters, for he was huge, as huge as any five men possible more. Thus, if he saw a body-spirit trying to get away, he’d pick it up, and throw it in a nearby boat. Oh yes, some jumped the boat trying to get away, scoot to never-never land, to sink to the bottom of the river—sink so no one could find them, even hide in the rock structures, but they floated back up sooner or later, that also was no place to be for eternity; —but it was not the boatman’s job to race after them either, yet he’d do so if he was bored.
They simply would drown a million times in the water—it was painful hiding in the depths of the water, painful in their forms, and Huwawa would eventually find them. Huwawa had a face twisted in coil form, or so it seemed to Ms Alexandra Rice as she stared from a distance at this ancient creature of sorts. Surely she completed, from the top of the wall one would have a better view, that being, by the tower gate which was attached to the gates and the wall walkway: ’yes,’ she mumbled, ‘…it would be sensational—: but if she was to get, ‘get used to it here,’ she might as well start somewhere up on the wall, which seemed plausible.
Said she to the wall guards, Buer and Gusoyn [Gusoyn, somewhat feministic, strong looking and with strange ancient hawk feet, gay as gay could be],
“If I’m to get used to this horrid place, is it not better I do it from up here? I mean if you do not object.”
She thought that sounded like a rational question, but nothing was really rational around the dark prison under the earth, in the earths crust, someplace, where cold and heat live close to one another, and have their own separated chambers for the dying, or no one is ever dead down here, only constantly dying. Buer, grunted with un-vivacious sounds, the one who played the nasty joke on her. Both guards looked at one another: strangely, rowdily, eccentrically as if to say: we’re too busy to throw you off a hundred times a day, so do as you please or at least to a certain degree.
Said Gusoyn, “Sure,” no more was said, a man of few words.

—As she peered over the wall onto the people coming out from the boats: looking at all the ferryboats [although they were not ferryboats, rather passenger row boats, some sail boats, others vessels of different kind]. The boots were coming in all directions to the many nooks and corners of the harbor. One boat she noticed got so close to another it hit the other boat, and broke the nose of the demon who raged with obscenities at the two passengers in the boat, with spite and slobbering spit flying on everyone, every-which-way; thus, accidents do happen, even in Hell.



12.



The Towers


There was an inconsiderable amount of yelling in the harbor this day, but once all the boats got back onto their normal routes—as if they were flight navigators, excitement subsided.
As years passed: several years that is, Ms Rice kept looking over the wall as did her two demonic acceptances, into onto, down and around, and about, and above the harbor and below, and its ongoing drudgery of bringing in more passengers--: the walls, the great thick walls she leaned over daily; the harbor, it extended a ways out, and down an incline from the gate and walls, into the forty-mile-wide river; it was indeed at times a picture of life, busy at its torments, no more, no less—just constant. The tall man, of whom she now knew, his real name was: Agaliarept, who said very little to her during those several years. But she felt something was in the back of his mind nonetheless: cramped, and stale and hidden in a vault, locked with a padlock for no one to see, call it intuition, or what you will, but she sensed it: almost knew it: but couldn’t put her finger on it, couldn’t quite touch it

at first, Agaliarept, didn’t think, or for the most part, didn’t object, that much of Ms Rice being left on the wall, peering over it day after day after day after day, yet it bothered him when she’d move a little closer to the tower, oh yes the tower, the mighty tower that was not all that far from her presence: matter of fact, at times it bothered him immensely. She was starting to wonder why no one ever went into the tower-wall, the great towers of the huge and long wall enduring wall, thick wall, the wall that had seen many of dictators: the morbid, the killers, the false prophets, the Hollywood bunch, the robbers the thieves, the ones that proclaimed they’d all meet in heaven, they walked through the gates just as the rich and famous as they always were— so they acted until they hit the dock and then everything became a fleeting thought, reality kicked in.
The faces on the heads of the strangers being brought in by the boats were always so sad she thought—no more riches to buy their way out: that would only do on the surface. It was a reminder of where she almost wound up for eternity (this area was not heaven by far, but it wasn’t half as bad as where she was); thank goodness for the reminder possibly; the phrase the young man at the Old Folks House, the Convalescent Home, for her had helped.

—One day, and no one can really tell which day it was for they were all day one’s, almost the same, in any case: one day Ms Rice was looking over the wall, and decided to walk closer to the tower. Looking up among its great height, she felt: what a grand sight, she’d be able to see so much more from up there, and then at that very moment, Agaliarept yelled:
“Ms Rice, today is your lucky day, I am going to let you walk for now-on up and down the wharf; you’ve not cause us any trouble here so let it be your reward.” Ecstatic with joy, she completely forgot about the tower rushing down to the lower level where the henchman was.
“Really,” she asked, asking for confirmation, looking into his huge face, wild looking mustache, hair that drooped over his forehead, eyes that were more of a triangle shape, and hair that stuck out in the back of his head like the wings of an airplane, and of course that wild mustache again.
Thus, as she went out into the dock area, it did occur to her—after all these years, several years to be exact, why now does such a favor come, demons do not do favors unless there is a reward behind it; yet, the tower didn’t come to mind as much as the act of kindness, and all was forgotten with the new adventure and freedom that lied in front of her, the new change.



13.


The Wharf


Yet with all its newness, and appreciation steaming out of her spirit-gray body, there were no seaside shops to window shop, or for that matter bars or cafes to rest one’s weary feet from long walks, no, oh no, it was a simple but productive pier: as dingy and dirty and rat infested trap as any on earth, and possibly worse. The river was quite wide, some say forty-miles at certain areas, like the Amazon, and still at other spots, possibly one to four miles. Hour after hour, day after day, millennium after millennium, the soot, dark grunge, and yellowish foam waves slapped against the wooden beams tied against the wharf, the dock area. At times the waves pushed against the earth so hard it rocked the whole pier, that was when—when (usually) when Satan, Himself was present, for seldom did he come down to this miserable domain, but when he did, He presented a pacific-titanic, awakening for all, an upheaval in the earth’s crust, making it swell, and everyone made noticed to it, as I’m sure was His purpose.

—Said Ms Rice in despair on her eighth-year in hell, her anniversary day of the 8th –year that is: she said, mumbling to herself: ‘I wish a wave would come, a hundred feet high and wipe all this misery away,’ ill tempered she was on this day, but how else could she be, and that day she simply sat on the pier, looking out, buried her face facing whatever was beyond the waves, the great river had to offer. There she sat like a forlorn goat, looking, looking, just looking, and just looking at the water.



14.


Remembering


Ms Alexandra Rice thought [remembering would be more like it] thought, ‘Ms Rice—now you’ve passed close to that tower a number of times, that there tower [pointing to it as she sat on the pier kicking the stonework with her feet].’ —another year had passed, this being her ninth year now. Then looking about, standing up, she commented again to herself: but putting more thought into it this time— ‘Remember someone said the gulf was forty miles wide? If so, there must be something on the other side something indiscernible, perhaps weary and dreary: possibly, but so what, so what, it can’t be worse—I think—worse than here, and why not go see what may lie beyond?’ Yes, yes, indeed yes, why not, she concluded, we must have a neighbor of sorts, on the other side of this impoverished road, this rusty tin can of a harbor: so she invented.
Again, she completed her new thoughts, with her result of having a lapsed year, one whole year before this came back to haunt her mind, the tower the tower was what was coming back to her mind, not sure why, but possibly she was not looking at what the young man told her: ‘…look at the face of things.’



15.


The Temptation


As Ms Rice continued to deliberate about the tower, standing on the pier, pacing aimlessly, to and fro, a strong wind came from the direction of the other side of the gulf, blowing, and blowing away the smoke and pollution in the air. It was this certain day cloud was lifted like dry-ice vapor, that wouldn’t move before, now it disappeared. The mist passed her, falling on the mass beyond her gate city: the legions of homeless, half asleep in their encaged museum of the living dead; --even the sound of running rodents on the wharf now were amused at the happening.

As Ms Rice walked towards the gates, there stood Agaliarept, a powerful figure to say the least, just his stance, his look and his shape-changing diaphragm, his ugly demonic identity was present now: he had a tale, a horrid face, horns; he was knowing ahead of time— foresight, or a touch of for mysterious intuition—her motive, her secret motive, or if not he was a good guesser, for moving toward the gates at the same time she did. Agaliarept stood now in the middle of the gateway, like a tower monarch—as if to say: here I am, here is the real me, the Commander of two legions stood froze like granite, like an obelisk in Egypt. He had an empty face; no cardsharp could have guessed his next move, a flat affect. His black robe, netted with dead diversity: dead black spiders, rodent skins, layered with dust, spider webs thick as wool, butterflies with eyes on their wings, all attached to one another, all making up his wardrobe, now taken off, his hairy and strong looking body stood the length of the gateway in high. The two guards and Opiel, stood by with only a leather belt on with clubs and knifes attached to them; they stood by as if they were Greek Olympic wrestlers ready to jump this little lady with messed up hair, and thick eyebrows, and a round oval shaped face, that was no more than 5’2”, and weighted less then a hundred pounds. But Agaliarept was not quick to act; he measured the scene with all his minds-eye: with realism and no-nonsense and knowledge. He was no fool, Lucifer did not pay him tribute because he was, but because he was not—and Alexandra Rice knew this. If anything she knew the cleverness, the lies the distortions, the deletions he and his bunch had played her with, to keep her their toy.
“You cannot pass!” he said in a grave tone, ecstatic voice, scratching his fingernails on his palm nervously. But that might have been fine nine years ago, but it wasn’t anymore. It wasn’t good enough it wasn’t even half scary. “You died nine years ago—this is your home, I will make you my assistant.” The most popular view was for her to grab the opportunity, but she shook her head: ‘no,’ it just wasn’t going to be she finished: for romantic it wasn’t, the irony was sublime, uplifting, she echoed in her brain, moving if anything, one would have to take note of this, a special guard in the henchman’s legion, under Lucifer himself. Doggedly and at the cost of possible hardship she walked forward a few more feet, a hundred or more of the general’s guards, ancient killers took flight from all corners of Hades, and blocked the gate passage. Yes, a hundred or so stood in her way: and yet, as you shall see, she pushed on.




16.


The Henchman’s Guards


Some of the soldiers had mammal-reptilian looks, some with scales: herbivores, scavengers, diggers, tree dwellers, hunters, some with lion tails, and bodies [like a Manticore] ancient carnivores. Some with large lizard eyes—some with no visible ears, reptilian scales and tufts. Still others with mammalian hair allover their body, many again I say so many, with long and short tails, two tails on some: flat feet, hideously long large claws, wolf-like fangs, sober teeth: it was a repugnant horde, his second-legion: the killers, deceivers—the curse of Hell was standing in front of Alexandra Rice, Ms Rice.
“Monsters,” she said out loud, “you’re all monsters!” she yelled a second time. Some looked half dragon, half lion. They all looked like a part of a mass extinction that took place some 250-million years ago—a genetic crack in some kind of earthly catastrophe. She had come to the bare conclusion this was a much more dangerous and troubled world than the one she had come from: perception after the fact, yes indeed.
With a commanding, ardent, yet logical and smooth voice, the words came out slow: “Mo ve, ov er, or you will ha ve to o take a mill ion years to keep me e busy, and that my dear Horde will take you away from your precious duties; —if you can afford to have one person occupying your duties, so be it?”
Agaliarept noticed many of the new passengers were not waiting in the boats; rather they were listening as they could, to what was gong on.
“You will get tired of killing me over and over, and beating me day after day, and night after night…endlessly, I swear I will endlessly occupy your time, needlessly. On another note, if you could—so I’ve learned—you would, do more to me; you would have stopped me long ago. But for some reason you couldn’t.” She shook her head oddly, as if she didn’t even know what she was saying, but just chancing it: for she had come to the winding up point of unwinding or cracking: they knew something she didn’t know.



17.


Across the River


The mobilization of the finest, had of course other duties—all important duties of which lay a strain on Agaliarept’s immediate concerns, turning the picture into a potential tragedy—or possibly a could be catastrophe; the onlookers were being entertained, if not bemused, and surely they were that also —for now the boats were piling up—and the demonic forces were getting some resistance from their passengers, and the new strangers to the abode, were starting to push and shove the demonic forces, and a few threw rocks at Buer and Gusoyn who were spitting over the wall. And a ruckus was being built, slowly. And even the giant, the ancient demigod Huwawa, who had fought a grand battle in Sumer in the Cedar forest with Enkidu, the his companion-friend King Gilgamesh, so many centuries before, and as a result, slew him: stood still, stone still in the deep mucky waters, watching the defying moment of Ms Alexandra Rice, yes Ms Rice to the Commander of the two legions of Hell, Satan’s hand-picked Henchman none other than the shape changing Agaliarept, who looked now more like the devil himself with a long tail attached to his upper spine, and entrenched smirk on his face, and horns on his head, and a mammals coat of hair all about his body, small eyes in a big head and protruding brow.
Their was then a thunderous noise, the tide brought in some horrid waves, the earth stated shaking, and the demonic beings standing by Agaliarept noticed the Greek looking vessel that was dry-docked by one of the towers, to the far side of the gates, a vessel of a little higher class than the boats Ms Rice had arrived in; hence, it was being taken out to sea, it was to pick up the person they called—for she heard them talk his name amongst themselves—the King of Ten Wings—none other than: Lucifer himself.

—Agaliarept’s face: demanding, engaging, frustrating, emotional, crazed as it was, he stood aside and said not a word—not…a…word!! For she was terminate, and he knew this, he knew this even more than she did, she was determinate to see this to the end the very enduring end and wanted a closing, a conclusiveness to this happening (should Lucifer find out he is spending all these resources on one female and loosing a hundred in-between, what then, thought his brain), even though she’d didn’t know the end; matter-of-fact, likely the only one who knew the end, other than Satan himself, was Agaliarept. And Ms Rice was not going to let what killed the dinosaurs, kill her again.
Up the winding stairway she climbed to the wall, then over to the gate door of the tower, the massive solid door, funny she thought, it opened like a feather, as she dropped her hands. The gathering of people below was now dispersed, some heads were still trying to see what was going on, or had been going on as the demonic forces pushed and shoved, and whist away the new passengers, strangers, whisked them away to their destinations: heading for Hells masses, some to the dungeons, some to the mountains and beyond, a few for the Gateway City—very few. There behind her as the door shut, sat the fat one that spit at her, Buer, and Gusoyn, wondering what it all was about, Buer not too worried, just wanted to be left to his misery, his pains in his fat stomach, and aches in his legs.


Buer with his Aches and Pains


Now as Ms Rice started walking up the hundred or so steps to the top of the tower, Agaliarept simply walked away, playing it cool, as Opiel guided the dreadful-tenants [as he called them] through the gate, and Botis, Gusoyn and Buer from the boat, watched intensively, Buer still cramped on a wooden container with his cramps in his stomach. Agaliarept, looked from the side of his eye to see how his three trusted assistants were absorbing this, like a true commander.
She had now but fifty stairs to go, the cold walls she put her hands on to guide her were starting to sense something, something great was going to take place, her who body sizzled with this new found intelligence, the stairs never seemed to end, but it didn’t matter, she had the breathe, the time and she felt providence, luck or fate, call it as you will, but it would have it no other way. Like all such exhibits when taken out of sight, all eyes went back to their personal distress down, down all those stars she had climbed, where the new comers and the demonic forces were playing out their endless task had gone on to what lied in store for them, as human nature would have it—self-interest prevailed.


The Great Gap between Paradise and Hades


She had reached the top now; it was a small room a cold small room, somewhat an eerie room, with windows on all four sides, and a telescope in the middle of the window facing the river. She ebbed, faded slowly away from the arched doorway, finding herself in the middle of the room, the by the window: looked out of the tower window: she could see the other side at the moment, that very moment. The telescope was mounted into the granite like a sword in stone. As she peered through it, the telescope, she could see the long length of the river, a strait more or less, so it seemed to be—long it stretched. She pushed the scope up higher, just a pinch, to look above the water, just above as if sailing along the surface, she at this instant could see the edges of a continent, or so it seemed, the outline of land, she looked squinting her eyes, as if to capture the picture better, focus better, the water now all faded in the background, and land appeared, yes she convinced herself, yes, it was land for sure, she was on land, saw other people walking about, two angels flying about with their hands out, pointing, both pointing to the ground, but was it for her, could it be, she lowered her scope to ground level, sea level, she could see the water again in the background, but, but there standing on the shore, the shoreline, the shoreline that lead right next to the water, was a man waving: but waving at whom? ‘Oh my gosh!’ she said: ‘…he is, is waving at me, it’s my father,’ her lips and eyes froze, as if an Arctic wind had dropped from above her and incased her in ice, —he was saying: “Paradise, I was waiting for you, here in Paradise.”
It was a beautiful sight the land called, Paradise, across the river: she murmured, ‘I didn’t know…?’ the shore was lit up a star: the foam was pure white, amongst the waves that hit the shore; a green tint to the water mixing with the foam made it a colorful jade, as it all reflected the foliage onto the shoreline; nearby the shore a fresh sky was giving birth to a new horizon, everything glimmered, it was magical.



18.



Paradise


Tears of joy were now streaming down her face, her eyes were so filled with them she could see no more, then after a moment, behind her father was a man preaching—to the back of her father, he glanced at the tower the tower she stood in, she got chills up and own her spine—: it was the man, the very same man, the stranger at the Old Folks Home talked about. He was preaching and teaching. And then he smiled, but there seemed to be sadness to it.
Her father didn’t jump up and down with bliss as she had expected him to, but rather, he had a tear in his eye (perhaps it was for joy she thought, it would seem so at first, than after a moment, it would seem so for some other reason, thus she was torn with his expressions), and then with a blink of an eye [His eye], for she noticed it, the two angels that were pointing, pointed no longer.

19.




Epitaph


She [she being: Ms Rice] couldn’t express the: ‘why’s’ of anything, why she ended up where she did, but she did learn human history proves this to be true, that is to say, each person has been evicted from the Garden of Eden, if not by a personal invitation, then by historical providence. Thus each person deals with her or his fallen state, and sin produces suffering, it is like a ripple in the ocean, whereupon suddenly—created by a meteorite falling spreading out its title wave, hence, encircling the globe—humanity has to take its distress, or at least human history into account—its self-interest, that seems to be more powerful than God at times and Hell or Satan (for the human soul is written on such a premise, lest we play dice with it like Ms Rice). Why God created Hell, is another issue at bay, but then so is Heaven a mystery, and so was this land called Paradise, perhaps an in-between state to be taught to before one goes to heaven, something like a learning center; perhaps its polar opposite was the City-dock, Ms Rice was at. It was all beyond her comprehension: but one thing she did know for sure, she would no longer have that edge that she was missing something; and now she knew there was such a thing called: God, Hell, the Devil and Paradise; Heaven, she’d have to ponder on, again she was doubtful on that subject. It has been said, she never thus fare has left that tower, that punishing tower, and her father since has left, perhaps to heaven. She doesn’t look out the window anymore, she just paces and paces and paces, walks up and down the stairs…as if hell should have a heart, have pity for her: she did get what she asked for, did she not?


The End


Index of Names:

Ms Alexandra Rice
Buer [Assistant and Guard]
Gusoyn [Assistant and Guard, quiet]
Botis [the Boatman]
Opiel [the Gate Keeper]
Agaliarept [Commander—the Henchman]
Jesus Christ
Father Rice
DLS [the Evangelist/Counselor]
Huwawa [watcher of the river]
The King of Ten Wings [Lucifer]
Enkidu [who slew Huwawa/Humbaba]