“Welcome to Chokmah, Pirate King.”
“You’ve been keeping my child from me,” Cameron said with as much righteous anger as he could muster which admittedly was not enough.
Lilith shrugged. “You suddenly left us and only came back when you needed a favor.”
“You’re job is to open the gate to the Underworld. Doing what you’re supposed to do is hardly a favor.”
“I named him after you.” Her vermillion lips peeled back into a stunning, but terrible smile.
“We’re not having this discussion now,” Cameron said, “I want to have this discussion when I can get so angry that I the veins in my forehead explode, and the facility’s to shoot you in the face until I run out of bullets.”
“You would shoot the mother of your own child?”
“I know it couldn’t kill you.” He paused, his anger suppressed for now. He knew bottling emotions wasn’t a very good trait, but there was so little to put in there anyway. He would hold on to it for now. As soon as this was over he planned turn the bottle into a Molotov cocktail and hurl it into Lilith’s courtyard. Once his anger subsided he realized there was something fundamentally wrong here. “Why are you here?”
“To be your guide,” Lilith said with a little demure smile.
“But why are you here?” Cameron intoned carefully. “Chokmah is the sphere of the divine masculine. The holy father! Then why are you here?”
“You’re a father.” Lilith unsubtly tried to turn Cameron back to his anger. He only glared at her. “Also your mind seems to think that I would be the best or most sinister choice for your next toll.”
“And that?”
“Your wand.”
“Excuse me? I’m not much for using props in my magic.”
“Yes, well you know what the wand always represents.” Cameron cringed. “You can trust me with it. I’ll keep it safe.” She smiled, and Cameron muttered so loud it was almost a growl. He reached down his pants and handed her his manhood.
He paid no attention to the Tarot card that she handed him, and walked through the door into the next path.
26
The Tarot card door slammed behind him. Cameron didn’t bother looking back. It was a tunnel with a light at the end of it. A cliché that he was seeing often here on the Tree. Was it really that important of a symbol to humans? Cameron could see far more into this tunnel than the others. The walls and floor were coated with rubies that were slick and squishy to the touch. At least they looked like rubies. They were probably not, but Cameron really didn’t care. Cameron didn’t care that the Hebrew letter Gimel was spray painted on the wall, either.
Cameron’s stomach was taunt as stone and her intestines that felt like they were going through a vise. Cameron was pissed and had every reason to be. Wandering, dickless, through the Upper Realms of the Tree. No only that but Cameron’s breast were absolutely throbbing…Wait. Breasts? Cameron gave herself a quick grope, and found that these were beyond the dreaded manboob. Not only had Cameron given up a penis, but literally manhood as well.
She felt a trickle down the inside of her pants leg. Cameron grimaced, because she realized the challenge of this path. Wandering as a woman, on her time of the month no less, was one hell of a challenge for someone who had been a man all their life.
Motherfucker.
27
She finally reached the end of the tunnel and found it humbling. Cameron found herself in a stone circle similar to Stonehenge – a site of the sacred feminine, but standing in the center of it was anything but. The antithesis of the sacred feminine and in most’s opinion Lilith and Eve’s worse half – Adam.
“I’m noticing a theme here,” Cameron said, “and I find it quite alarming.”
“Then I take it you know why I’m here,” Adam smirked and even this arrogant expression was beautiful. Why wouldn’t it be? It was handcrafted by God. If you go by a direct interpretation of the Bible it is God’s smartass smile.
“To take my womanhood? If this is an innuendo, I assure you I’ll rip yours off to replace what I’ve given up on the tree.” She had just gotten it, well it was hard to tell how long ago it was exactly, but she had no intentions of letting it go without a fight now that she did.
“I would relish your attempt to try, Blasphemer, but that is not why I am here. And you? I could do far better.” He paused maybe to observe the sun that was now setting and turned the sky to a blazing pink. “I just need your ovaries to let you pass.”
“I think there’s more to the inner workings than that, but it’s been a long time since ninth grade health.”
“As a symbol, Blasphemer. Symbols are currency to the spiritual realms.”
“Yes, yes, right.” Cameron reached down her pants and withdrew the ovaries with the same care as a kid with a pair of nunchuks. Cameron slung them around his shoulder like Bruce Lee for emphasis before tossing them to Adam. In response Adam tossed him the final tarot card – the Fool.
The Fool represents the start of a journey, which would strike most people as an odd choice for the last card. Cameron felt it was safe to assume that the journey was just beginning. At least the hard part anyway. The card was plastered to the standing stone closest to Cameron and as always transformed into a door. On the other side everything was white.
28
There was nothing on the other side of the Fool door aside from a staircase. The staircase was as white as everything else, but seemed to stretch forever up. The only real way to differentiate it from the black was that the staircase cast a shadow from an unknown light source. The direction of the light seemed to come from all sides. Each step was cold and smooth as marble.
Careful now, you’re on the stairway to heaven.
No, it should be Heaven with a capital h. This is truly the stairway to Heaven and the now sexless Cameron was walking it. Cameron wished there were shoes on his feet so there at least would be the *tak* *tak* sound of the heels hitting the marble to keep him company. However, the stairway didn’t really go that far at all. It only seemed that way. Trick of the light.
Cameron’s face was blanketed by a veil and the Pirate King took a step back. He plunged his right hand into the veil and withdrew it. The veil against his pseudo-skin reminded him of hair; very thin, silky white hair. The Pirate King tried again to pass through the veil but could find no bottom, no part, and no give in it. Cameron backed up now very aware of the platform the Pirate King was standing on had no discernable borders. Cameron strained the one good eye in an attempt to find a change in the white veil, but there was no sense but touch to tell the Pirate King that there was even a veil there in the first place.
Then a shadow began to bleed through the veil. This shadow became the outline of a Face. The Face was androgynous, raceless, and specieless yet it was perfectly recognizable. The Face of none and all simultaneously. The Face of a long lost friend. Any further attempt to description would sully It. There was the smell of freshly brewed black coffee. And a singing. A beautiful singing of an infinite chorus. Then there was a humming, and that humming was coming from Cameron. The humming was coming from the Pirate King and vibrating through the abdomen.
There was a white flash of heat from the base of the Pirate King’s spine. Before it felt like he could stand no more of this sweet agony it suddenly ceased. The imprint of the face behind was lifeless like those on the metal pin apparatuses found discarded all over department stores.
The veil parted, and Cameron wept.
29
“Makoto Tsuen,” the Archangel Raphael proclaimed to him, “Gaze upon this mirror. Witness the terrors you brought in this lifetime alone for they are the reason you can pass no further.” Raphael held the mirror between them like a shield, but Tsuen merely laughed.
“Do you mock one of the messengers of the Name? The bearers of His will ineffable?” Raphael was now livid. The brim of his yellow cloak billowed on its own volition now, and his blond hair seemed to float around his head.
�
��In my life I had seen one touched by God,” Tsuen’s usually stoic face had suddenly become twisted in such rage it looked like he suddenly donned a kabuki mask. “I had never seen something so disgusting in my life.” Tsuen’s eyes had darkened to pure black. The mirror cracked and the frame strained. “And I am tired of his bullshit. I’m going to march to Ain Soph Aur and tear him down from his throne if I can.” The mirror shattered in Raphael’s hands.
Before the glass even touched the ground Tsuen’s large katana had leap from its scabbard, but before even that Raphael’s spear the caduceus had was drawn and thrust towards the Lemurian’s throat. The tip of the spear only made it within a millimeter of the throat. The Archangel was frozen in place and he quickly realized that the huge Lemurian did not come alone. Raphael was being held by hundreds if not thousands of shriveled gray men with sunken black eyes.
Tsuen easily snatched the caduceus from the Archangel’s grip. He twirled the spear between his fingers and cut through the air. The Sephirot of Tipharet tore open and poured its content into the black space between Universes, Ain
.
30
Cameron could hear the chimes and the humming again, but now it was faint and in the distance. But there. Oh God, yes, it was always there. Kristina was here, too. She was standing behind the veil when it fell. She was draped in a radiant white dress, and he was thankful for not seeing her in the clothes she died in. No, the clothes he killed her in would be too much for him.
“Kris? Is it actually you this time?” Cameron asked.
“Yes, it’s really me, Cam. I’m supposed to guide you through Kether. Or Heaven if you’d rather.” Kether the final or the first Sephirot depending on how you look at the Tree of Life, but always at the top. “I thought this was the form you’d like best since it was the most recent. But we’ve been together many lives. Brother-sister, husband-wife, vice-versa. The fate of our souls always seems entwined. Is there another life you’d rather me be from?”
“What? Oh. Ew. No, gross.” Cameron cut off a stream of tears with his hand.
“I see you still have some of your ego attached. Search the Akashic records you’ll see the multitude of lives to choose from.”
Cameron almost did for a moment, but he knew those lives would be nigh infinite. He had a job to do and that was something he could certainly get lost in. “I’ll just stick to this form.” His clothes and body became whole again. “It’s really wonderful to see you again, Kris, but I’m kinda here on business. I’m not dead so I won’t be staying this time.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied, “You don’t have to leave.”
Cameron opened his mouth to reply, but found that someone had plucked the answer right off the tip of his tongue. Instead he shook his head. “Business. I need to talk to God. It’s really urgent. Can you point me in the direction of him?”
Kristina shrugged. “God’s not here.”
“Excuse me?”
“He doesn’t live in the Creation, you know that. Heaven is still part of the Creation.”
“Then what about all that crap about being with God when you die!”
“Well, that’s mostly true. You can see God here, because Kether is closest to him. Heaven is lit by his radiance. He can be seen or heard, but it’s kind of garbled like through water. Or rather it’s like he’s pressing his face against the glass to look in.”
Cameron ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Then I need to get outside of all this- This aquarium.”
“But you haven’t even come inside of this, yet.” Kristina grabbed Cameron gently by the hand and pulled him off the marble platform. A feeling immediately washed over him and warmed his insides. It was a post coital feeling. Contentment.
Cameron bit his lip. He felt no pain, but the pressure was enough to snap him back into focus. “Are you sure that there isn’t a service exit or something like that? A toll to pay to someone for the next path?”
“There aren’t anymore paths. You’re done. You’ve reached the top of the Tree.”
“There is more. I should know I’ve been out there. It was an endless godforsaken desert like something from the Dark Tower books.”
“Go on. There are more worlds than these.” Kristina was now pulling Cameron along through Heaven. He didn’t quite notice it.
“Jake Chambers from The Gunslinger,” Cameron replied, “I wonder if King ever wrote an ending to those…”
“He did. We have them all, of course.”
“I’ve never really had the patience for fiction.”
“This is Heaven, Cam. You don’t have to just read it. You can watch it like a movie. Not a Hollywood movie, but the movie in the heart of the writer and fans as they go over those words. If you want you could even live it as any character you want.”
“Live a King novel? Sounds like a damnation to me.” Cameron scratched the back of his head and looked around.
“One person’s Heaven is another’s Hell,” Kristina said in a matter of fact tone.
Cameron’s ear perked. “Did I just hear a scream? That sounded pretty chaotic too me. Is the exit down here?” He broke Kristina’s grasp and darted down a white corridor that he had not noticed before. She ran after him, but Cameron’s feet carried him far swifter. He made it through the door at the end first.
And stopped with his mouth agape.
“What- what the hell is this? Another test? A trick?” Cameron shouted.
“Hell? Close, but not quite.” Kristina placed one of her hands on Cameron’s shoulders. He shrugged it off. He found a reassuring weight reappear in the waistband of his Hakama, and he drew Ryoma’s massive revolver before stepping into the room.
In the center of the room a man with black hair hung from an upside down crucifix. A pair of red-scaled devils towering at over fifteen feet cracked cat o’nine tails that flayed the man’s flesh. He was so wounded that it was impossible to identify any further features of him. The man’s cries of agony almost drown out the singing and chimes, but not quite. Not enough for comfort.
The devil at the man’s right exploded under the force of anti-matter shell from Cameron’s revolver. He quickly spun the cylinder on his mini-dragon and vaporized the other devil. Cameron holstered the pistol and dove to the base of the inverted cross. He wrapped both of his hands around one of the bolts through the hanging man’s wrist and pulled with all his might.
“What are you doing?” the hanging man cried. “I’m supposed to be here. This is the only way I’ll ever connect to God. Oh, if only I had accepted Jesus into my life instead of heroine…”
“Calm down,” Cameron said in his most hush tone. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
“No, this is a trick. I repent! I accept my punishment with open arms.” Cameron freed the man’s right arm, and the hanging man swept his gnarled hand at him in an easy to avoid arc.
“Heaven is right through that doorway! Come on it’s just a few steps.”
“I will not allow you to trick me into renouncing the Lord, Satan!”
The revolver flew from Cameron’s belt again and the barrel slapped the hanging man across the face. “You idiot! I’m trying to help you! Heaven is only a few feet away!”
“He’s in Heaven,” Kristina whispered in Cameron’s ear. She placed a hand on Cameron’s shoulder leading down to the gun. “This is what he wants. He feels that he deserves to be punished for all eternity, but really has done nothing wrong.”
“Why doesn’t someone tell him?” Cameron whimpered.
“These people are hard to get through to. Sometimes we can never get through to them.”
“Then why doesn’t God tell them!” Cameron was now crying.
“God simply just doesn’t work that way. It would violate free will.” Cameron gritted his teeth in rage. Appeared to consider unloading a third shell into the hanging man, but thought better of it. He swats away Kristina’s hand instead and storms back out the door. She hurries after him again.
“C
am!”
“Hey God can you hear me? Can you FUCKING HEAR ME? I know you can!” Cameron yelled at the sky where only a thin layer separated him from God. “If this is what we do with free will then I don’t see the fucking point! You know what? I renounce my free will. I don’t want it anymore. I take your gift of free will and throw it back in your fucking, stupid face!”
Before Kristina could make it back to the corridor and stop Cameron from yelling, the Dread Pirate Cameron Styles also known as the Pirate King and countless other names as well as Sakamoto Ryoma ceased to be.
31
Before continuing it is prudent to properly define God. When God is mentioned and has been mentioned it is not solely referring to the male ultimate being of the Christian faith. Or the shared male creator of the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faiths. No, when God is mentioned here it is referring to the genderless force beyond humanity’s true comprehension that created all universes, all worlds, and all life that all other religions are established in an attempt for mortals to relate to it. All religions to some degree are correct to the nature of God or at least an aspect in that nature, but all fail in the end of actually defining God because they apply human traits such as good and evil to a force that is not remotely human.
God does not meddle in the affairs of everyday mortal life. That would be a violation of free will, but there is a system in place. God may be the creator, but he is also the delegator. After creating a Universe a set of angels and multitude of other spirits are created to carry the Will as well as keep the Universe running. It would be folly to believe any mortal could understand the Will of God, but it seems to involve experimentation.
Let’s give these mortals the potential to be limitless creators through me and throw them into different Universes to see just how they abuse that power. God has lent each mortal the ability to be a limitless creator, but mortals do not realize this. On top of that mortals use the power to grant a series of the stupidest wishes. Usually “I’m not a limitless creator and I don’t think anyone else in my Universe is either.”
The Spaces in Between Page 21