The Other Side of Hell

Splendid, Louis thought. He blinked his eyes open allowing the shards of death to fall from his eyes like sand. It felt about as gritty too he thought, rubbing both of his bold, green eyes with his balled fists.

It all looked just as advertised. Billowing clouds puffed up like marshmallows put into a microwave, floating creatures gliding through the air and slipping through the white wisps of marshmallow. In the distance sang the sounds of a perfectly harmonious choir accompanied by the soothing tones of a league of brass instruments.

Louis sat up. In front of him stood a glimmering, gold trimmed gate with sparkling, silver, metal rods running from the top of the enormous, golden arch to the plush, white pillow of clouds that served as the ground. There were tapestries hanging over the gate of a bold gold and red countenance and standing at the entrance was an old man with a scroll in arm and quill in hand.

The man was draped in pure white robes, causing his feet to appear as one with the base of the clouds. He had thick white hair that drooped over his shoulders and parted down the middle to reveal his thin rimmed glasses and his brilliant white beard. The man appeared busy as he was quickly scrawling across a paper and talking to each of the people, waiting for their turn to enter the kingdom, that stood in the massive line before him.

There were others, rising slowly through the clouds and allowing the white tendrils to slip off their limp bodies and fall back into the sky. Louis looked around and found a few people in the same state as himself, sitting up and examining their surroundings. A few of these people he watched stand up and walk towards the back of the line of souls. Louis decided to do the same and hoisted himself into the air and walked to the back of the line.

The man who stood in front of him had flawless white skin, free of blemishes, tattoos and piercings. He was well shaven, with short, cropped, brown hair and clean face. He wore a black suit coat with a white shirt beneath, a nice red tie to top it off and black dress slacks adorned his lower body. He had pristinely polished shoes to match his pants and stood confidently, about six feet tall, well built and content. The classic, good natured businessman Louis observed.

“Do we need to wait in line?” A woman asked Louis from behind.

Louis turned around. The woman was white skinned, had blonde hair that hung just below her shoulders and brilliant blue eyes that seemed to pierce through his brain like shards of ice as she looked at him.

“As far as I know,” Louis replied. “What’s your name?”

“Mary,” the girl smiled.

“Nice to meet you Mary,” Louis smiled back. “How’d you get here?”

“Car crash,” the girl’s eyes gleamed. “It was my fault, I was texting at the time and didn’t pay attention. I only hope the family in front of me was alright.”

“Same here,” Louis said.

There was a brief moment of silence as the two reflected on their lives, particularly on the last moments of their lives before they had wrecked them, so foolishly and selfishly. They hadn’t done much wrong, they both thought. Sure, texting and driving probably wasn’t the greatest decision but they were both religious, they had both gone to college, they hadn’t done drugs, they hadn’t drank liquor, they were even virgins. As a result, they weren’t surprised with where they were.

“It’s just like they said it would be!” Mary remarked gleefully. “Angels and clouds and gates and music.”

“They even have a St. Peter,” Louis pointed out.

“Yes,” Mary acknowledged. “What do you think we’ll be able to do once we get in?”

“I haven’t a clue,” Louis pursed his lips and thought. “Maybe we’ll be able to create worlds, visit our living relatives, talk to our ancestors.”

“Yes! I cannot wait to see my sister again!” Mary replied.

At that moment, the man at the gate interrupted their conversation.

“Name?” he grunted.

“Louis Wilson.”

The man began to unravel his scroll, searching through lines and lines of names before he finally came to the Louis Wilsons.

“Birth date and place of origin?”

“April 6th, 1972, Dallas, Texas.”

The man began to rifle through the Louis Wilsons, searching for one that matched the description of the Louis before him. At long last, he appeared to have found it. With his mighty quill, he scratched a large, thick, red line through the name and nodded towards an angel above him to open the gate. The man didn’t say another word and instead began to ask Mary for her name. Louis took a few steps forward and found himself on the opposite side of the pearly gates.

*****

Louis was captivated when he saw what laid beyond the gates. The clouds still floated but now they floated at different levels in the sky, lifting stone towers high above, creating mansions and castles and elevating long, winding, stone brick roads. There were plenty of people floating about, all dressed in the same immaculately clean white. He could now see the choir of angels high in the sky, floating still, with their music in hand and their director gesticulating wildly in front of them.

As beautiful and as perfect as it all seemed to look, Louis felt something was off. He couldn’t quite pin it down, it seemed to float just beyond his consciousness, as if it were an angel itself. But something was off. He pushed this feeling away and continued walking forward.

There was an angel in front of him, a man dressed in white and hovering in the air. He had been levitating in the same place since Louis had entered, bobbing up and down as though he were attached to a fishing rod. Louis approached the man from behind and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me sir,” Louis said, expecting the man to startle a bit or at least turn around.

Alas, the man did nothing that Louis was expecting, in fact, he did nothing at all. He continued floating, his head at a slight tilt as though he was confused by something and his face set hard in a straight line. He showed no emotion, Louis observed, not a twinge of boredom, not a tad of excitement, he simply stared, suspended in the air.

“Sir?” Louis tried again.

The man stood still for a moment and then, nothing but his mouth moved. His cheeks remained still, his eyes remained staring, the lines upon his face remained like stone.

“What?” was the man’s response.

Encouraged by the man’s responding, Louis jumped enthusiastically into conversation.

“I have just arrived here and I was wondering if you might be able to show me how to get up there,” Louis pointed towards the choir. “I quite love singing and I thought it would be nice to join them.”

“No one does that,” the man grunted.

Louis was a bit confused by the angel’s answer.

“I’m sorry?”

“Just stand there,” the man moaned. “Might as well start where you’ll end up.”

“What do you mean to say?” Louis asked.

“Look around you son,” the man said, refusing to gesture or move a muscle. “We all do the same things eventually. Just float and stare. Yes, the younger lads go and sing, they visit the shops, they dance and rejoice. Eventually they grow tired. Eventually they end up like me and all the rest of us. So no, just stand there. There’s no use in wasting time when time will only lead you here.”

Louis took a gander at his surroundings. Now that he looked past all of the splendor and beauty, he noticed that there were many people who indeed were doing the same thing as the motionless angel beside him. They all just floated, merging with the clouds and moving only with the air.

“What’s your name?” Louis asked.

The man moved a little bit this time as he chuckled inward. His mouth crept slightly into a grin.

“You see?” The man said. “They used to know me! They used to worship me! Now I am nothing, just a speck of dust floating up here with all the thousands of other specks.”

“I’m sorry I don’t recognize you, how long have you been here?” Louis asked.

“Over three thousand years. I am Aristotle! The greek philosopher.”

Louis shook his head. “Sorry, I’ve never heard of you.”

“No, you wouldn’t. As I said, we all drift away eventually. Stay up here long enough and you will realize that nothing you do is of importance.”

Recognizing that Aristotle would never answer his question, Louis began to trek through the clouds, determined to find his own way to the choir.

*****

Three thousand years had passed. Louis stood beside his old friend. They stared together, off into the distance. Louis remembered that time when he came back to see Aristotle again.

“Hello,” he had said.

Aristotle hadn’t replied.

Louis flitted over beside Aristotle and turned to look in the same direction, at the same bland clouds, the same boring winding road, the same castles. They floated like that for nearly a thousand years together. Listening to the choir singing their songs. Watching the newly departed wander around. Occasionally a newcomer would stop by them and Louis would do the little bit of talking that Aristotle now refused entirely to partake in. He’d always give them the same old spiel.

“Time used to mean something,” Louis would say. “It used to mean everything. Watching your children grow up. Putting in your hours at work, or school. Watching your body grow and change. Ushering in new seasons, new music, new books and materials. Time used to be everything….” he would trail off.

The people would ask him more but he wouldn’t respond. He’d just float, remembering the time that mattered. The time before he died.

It wasn’t long -- maybe one hundred years -- before one of the old newcomers, Christopher, returned to see Louis and Aristotle.

“You were right,” he said.

Neither Lewis nor Aristotle responded.

“Why do you s’pose you were right?” Christopher asked.

“Because things mattered when there was a chance that we could lose them,” Aristotle spoke, the first time in thousands of years. “When we did things with the knowledge that we must enjoy them while they last. That gave us excitement, that made things new and fresh.”

Christopher nodded, understanding what Aristotle had said.

“I always thought heaven would be enjoyable,” Christopher sighed. “It seems now that for all they said of hell, it must be infinitely more enjoyable than heaven.”

The two angels said nothing, did nothing. They simply stared.

“What if we were to speak with God?” Christopher asked.

“Don’t bother, nothing will come of it,” Louis replied.

But Christopher had found something. An unanswered question, a piece of knowledge which he lacked. For the first time in his post existence, Christopher had discovered a challenge, a goal that he could fasten his belt onto and be lifted towards the skies on. He did just so, bounding higher into the air, heading for the tower high up in the sky, at the furthest point of heaven.

Aristotle began to move with him.

Startled, Louis burst from his previously eternal pose.

“Where are you going?” Louis shouted after Aristotle.

“If he’s going to talk to God, then I’ve got some things to say as well.”

Without another word both Aristotle and Christopher rose through the skies. Before long, Louis rose with them, muttering to himself, speaking more words than he had in centuries.

*****

They traveled for one hundred years, three specks of white floating away, into the sky, like snowflakes moving against gravity. They never spoke, they never complained. What difference was flying all day from floating all day? They simply flew and flew until, at last, they could fly no more. They reached the ceiling of the world, the capstone of God’s kingdom.

“Names?” Asked a young man, dressed in white with a crimson sash tied snugly around his waist. He had brown hair that hung down to his shoulders and a full grown beard of the same dark color. Like the man who allowed them through the pearly gates thousands of years back, this man held a piece of parchment and a magic quill in hand.

“Christopher, Aristotle, and Louis,” Christopher spoke for all of them.

“Did you have appointments?” the man asked.

There was a moment of pause from the three visitors.

“God has appointments?” Louis asked.

The man looked up, irritated to have to explain this again.

“Yes he has appointments, why do you think only some of your prayers get answered? He can’t be everywhere.”

“Tell him Aristotle has come to see him,” Aristotle tried, a tactic that had worked many times while he was on Earth.

The man chuckled.

“Let us speak to him, we need to sort some things out,”

“We all need to sort things out kid, that’s why he is always busy. Now, go enjoy the rest of your eternity. I might be able to get you in in a few thousand years.”

The three dead men stared at the man before them in bafflement. They were nearly certain the man was pulling their wing. Suddenly, a few thousand years seemed like a long time to wait. Who can wait for something they are dying to know? And in this case, they had truly died already.

“You’re being serious?” Louis finally vocalized for the group.

The man didn’t speak his reply, instead he just gave them a look, a look that the three men returned.

“Jesus!” A voice suddenly boomed.

“Yes, father?” the man with the red sash made the reply.

“I told you to forgive Elizabeth for her sins! Here we are, five thousand years after she has died and she is stuck in hell? What trickery is this!” God shouted as he came stomping out of his tower.

He looked like an ordinary man as only those who were made in his image could expect. He had the usual beard and hair. He wore a Greek toga, held the scepter of the Egyptians and his face was painted with all sorts of strange symbols.

“And what are these three doing up here? They’re supposed to be down there! Staring off into oblivion!” He slammed his scepter into the clouds, a rather unimpressive feat as the clouds simply dissipated around it.

Jesus brought his hand up and pinched the brim of his nose, just in front of both eye sockets. He then turned and gave the three men a look which seemed to say, you see?

“They have come to see you, father,” Jesus said.

“Well, what is it?” God asked them.

“You see, we’ve been here for a few thousand years your majesty and we were wondering why heaven seems to be so… hellish,” Christopher took the lead.

“I think I deserve a great deal more, considering all I did for you while I was

on Earth,” Aristotle chimed in.

God seemed unimpressed. No, he actually seemed amused. His face was beginning to light up as though a trail of fire was slowly crossing about his countenance, much like an etch-a-sketch board. At last, the drawing was complete and God erupted into a bout of laughter.

“You three think you’ve been living in heaven?” God guffawed.

The three men stared at God, clearly they were confused.

“This is hell! Living for eternity, lots of white, angels that can fly, choirs that never stop singing! Heaven was on Earth! Heaven was when you died!”

“You mean to tell me that we have been sent to hell?” Aristotle asked.

“That is precisely what I have told you,” God replied.

“I worshipped you!” Aristotle cried.

“You?” God asked, incredulous. “You, the man that almost single handedly threw the world into the dark ages? You, the man who tried to tell Galileo he was wrong for saying that the Earth revolved around the sun and then got him locked away for it? You, the man who said the Earth was flat despite knowing it was not?”

“I never wanted you to worship me. I never wanted you to sacrifice animals and humans under my name. I never wanted your money, your prayers, your countless monuments and scriptures. I wanted you to live! To experience the world and to go about your day trying to improve it! I wanted you to take your existence to mean something and do something there, then, and not later when you had eternity.

“And you, Christopher. You did not believe in me while you were on Earth, did you?”

Christopher shyly looked about himself, as if he were scared to issue his reply.

“N-no sir. I was an atheist.”

“A full fledged one at that!” God added. “You wrote books debunking my existence, preaching of a godless world and a godless existence. Did you ever truly live, Christopher?”

Christopher did not reply.

“It’s not that you did not believe Christopher, I would rather that than have someone who worships me at every moment. I do not ask of you to believe. I ask of you to live. To give your whole existence to any one cause is usually deemed, by me, a slap to the face. One can oppose religion without spending their every waking moment trying to tell the religious why they are crazy or why their beliefs are wrong.

“You, Louis, what did you call yourself? A minister? A devout Catholic? Telling others that you could bless them and anoint them. Causing others to abandon life for the pursuit of eternity. Keeping girls from simple pills or special gadgets and not allowing them to make their own decisions.”

The three men stood there for some time as they took in what God had told them.

“It’s funny,” God said. “There are people who call me cruel for creating a heaven and a hell. I give them what they want, I give them all their heaven. If only they had taken the time to learn that their heaven isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

The man of the ages turned his back and walked away, dejected, pained by all that he had shared.

“Go on,” God said over his shoulder. “Go experience heaven,” he waved his hand in the air.

*****

The three men descended from the sky, tacking back and forth like a ship on the sea. They continued like this slowly, meticulously turning over every word that God had said; thinking back on their lives and the way they had lived them.

“Maybe God was right,” Aristotle said after just five years of decent. “Maybe we didn’t live.”

“What’s it matter now?” Louis asked. “Now we have eternity. There’s no way out.”

The three men paused, floating silently in the space, three white skiffs in a sea of nothing.

“What did he say to Jesus?” Christopher asked the men. “He said that girl, Elizabeth, was supposed to be forgiven.”

“You don’t suppose that means…?” Aristotle allowed the thought to drift away.

“It’s worth a try,” Louis replied and the three men turned around once more, determined to have another chance.

*****

He could hear the sirens. Louis blinked his eyelids open, blinking several times as his eyes adjusted to the bright sunshine and allowed it to sift into his mind like grains of sand. He was being lifted by the shoulders and the feet. He was carried briefly through the air before he could feel himself, laying on a table. There was a man in front of him asking him if he was alright, if he could hear him.

Louis began to smile. He beamed for the first time in thousands of years. It was as though time had never ceased.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Never been better.”