by Rick Wood
But, just as it touched his lips, he turned his face away.
His body may need it, but his mind did not.
He took his head from her lap and pushed himself back.
He wanted so much to touch her, to taste her.
No, I don’t, he told himself.
He didn’t need her, and he didn’t need her water.
But he still didn’t run away. He stayed on his knees, allowing her to move to his side once again.
She placed the water at his lips.
He wanted to drink it so much. Just one swig would cure the dryness of his throat, a throat that felt like it had been scraped by sandpaper.
“Just drink…” she said, her voice dreamy, a harmonious whisper breathed against his ear. “Take it…”
He reached his hand up and placed it on her face. Just one sip, that was all he’d have, just one sip.
One sip and then the dry throat, the thirst, the desperation for water would end. He would be cured. Replenished.
But he did not. He closed his eyes and dropped his head, felt the flask against his lips. In a momentary burst of confidence, he punched the bottle away.
When he opened his eyes, she was gone, and the second woman was at Oscar’s side, stroking his hair, smiling at him in a way that felt so comforting.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she insisted. “You don’t have to drink. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to listen to him.”
“Him?”
“The monk. He lies. Everyone lies. I hate liars.”
Oscar hated liars.
“Julian should not have left you.”
Julian was a bastard for what he did.
“And The Devil is destroying everything.”
The Devil was destroying everything.
“It is his fault, not yours. It is never yours.”
It was.
What was Oscar thinking, listening to Om? The Devil was not responsible for his anger; Oscar was responsible, and him alone. He could not–
Stop it!
This was what she wanted.
He gazed up at her. She was so sweet, so beautiful, so loving, shining like a light that would burn all the bad thoughts away.
“You are so angry. You are right to be angry.”
He sat up decisively. He had to fight it.
Om wasn’t a liar.
He didn’t hate Julian.
And he had grown to feel indifferent to The Devil. Despite the torment he had, he had allowed it. He was responsible too.
“Get away,” he demanded.
He pushed her, and she backed off.
Then the third and final woman moved forward, and the others seemed to disappear from his eyeline. He could do nothing about this one — no resistance at all. She stood before him, her hair long, curling over her shoulders, her lips soft.
She took down her robes and presented the softest skin, a naked torso, her breasts petite and pointed. Oscar wanted to touch her. He wanted to take her, to be inside of her, feel what she was like. She was more than any man would want.
She was perfect.
She glided forward. Moved to her knees, crouching over Oscar, running her gentle fingers down his coarse, unshaven cheek.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You can take me. It will make you feel better.”
It would make him feel better.
It would make him feel much, much better.
To be inside of her, to feel that moment of relief, that pleasure, those seconds of ecstasy. Maybe he should just do it for a bit of clarity, to close his mind. It had been a while since he and April had been able to be intimate, and she wouldn’t know.
“Touch me,” she whispered.
He reached out his hand, moving it toward her breast, his fingers outstretched.
But he did not touch her.
She moved forward, hoping to meet his fingers with her skin.
He retracted his hand.
She was godly. She was desirable. She was sex.
But she was not real.
He did not give in.
“Go,” he said, weakly.
She leant over him, her eyes wilting, her lips pouting.
“I want you so bad…”
She can’t have been lying. She must want him badly. Maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with just a moment of–
Stop it!
“Go,” he tried again, with stronger conviction.
She reached out, her hand on his leg, on his thigh, moving upwards.
“Go!”
He turned, closed his eyes, and willed them away. Refuted the temptation. Denied the feel of her touch or the words of comfort or the water he could have drunk.
He waited, listening to the heaviness of his breaths, waiting for the storm in his mind to die down.
When he looked up, they were gone.
And, in a moment of realisation, it all became clear. He realised why he hadn’t defeated The Devil in Hell as prophesied. Why it hadn’t worked.
And he finally knew what he had to do.
24
Oscar nudged Om awake.
Om stirred, looking around and seeing that it was still dark.
“Om, I need to talk to you,” Oscar said.
“What is it?”
“The daughters came again.”
Om said nothing. He sat up, alert, but stayed calm; ready to listen, ready to learn.
Oscar stood. Began pacing. Trying to calm his racing thoughts.
“I need to ask you something,” Oscar said.
Om walked out of the room and into the centre of the temple, finding a step to sit on. Oscar followed, but did not sit. He continued pacing back and forth.
“So you have decided,” Om said, “that you know the solution.”
“I need to ask, first, I need to know… what do you believe about the afterlife?”
“The afterlife?”
“Yes. Please tell me.”
Om took a moment to gather his thoughts. Oscar waited patiently, knowing that Om wished to provide the best answer possible, and knowing that it was crucial that he receive such an answer.
“One enters Parinirvana once dead.”
“Parinirvana?”
“Nirvana is a state at which you feel no suffering, where you have let go and are released from karma. Parinirvana is what you enter once dead, where nirvana is waiting for you.”
“How? How do you get there?”
“In the sensory world, you are still attached to Mara’s troops; to his forces of hatred and delusion. You cannot defeat Mara while you are still attached. You must conquer these attachments first.”
“That is it. That is what I thought.”
Oscar stopped for a moment, his thoughts racing, then paced again. Suddenly his path was becoming so clear. Suddenly, he understood.
“I learnt a few weeks ago that, to win this war, I would have to defeat The Devil in Hell,” Oscar said. “But Hell is not necessarily physical, it is a belief; it is what’s inside of us.”
Om smiled; Oscar was finally close to understanding. “Go on.”
“But I still went to a physical, existential place, and… well, I lost. Which made me think, if that was the only way, I would have lost whether April showed up or not.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I still had too much of The Devil in me.”
Oscar unknowingly lowered himself to his knees.
“You spoke of me letting go of all that I’m attached to,” he said. “That I could not pass through Hell, just as I could not defeat The Devil, with all of this still inside of me.”
“Keep going.”
“All the time, Om, all the time I’m just so… so angry. So furious. I feel rage and sometimes I know why, sometimes I don’t. I snap at Thea, I snap at Henry, I sit and watch April suffer, and it’s all just fuelling it, this torment. Which is why I know I need to face this torment, both literally and figuratively. Only, I need to ask — where could I fight this? I k
now I need to fight my attachments; I just don’t understand where, or how.”
“Think about your memories. Think about what you have lost, and what you hold on to, and tell me — what would your Parinirvana look like?”
“Man, it would be… April, happy, hugging me. Julian helping me. Derek still alive. My parents proud. All of it.”
“And if you were offered that now, would you be able to say no?”
Oscar considered this. He wanted to be honest, but he also knew he had to let the image go.
He stood.
“I think I get it now,” he decided. “I spent half an hour in Hell as I didn’t want to lose my life. I left because I didn’t want to lose April. And, whilst in Hell, I didn’t face any true torment. I didn’t have to give anything up. There wasn’t really any challenge at all.”
“So what do you need to do?”
“I have to face those things, however Hell presents them to me. I have to confront all of those things I am attached to, that make me angry, I have to let go of them, and I–”
He closed his eyes, wishing he didn’t have to admit what he was about to admit.
“I will have to let go of my life, too.”
Om stood. Placed a hand on Oscar’s shoulder.
“I can’t believe this, Om,” Oscar said. “I can’t believe what I am about to do.”
“Let go of it. There is no suffering when you’re losing nothing.”
Oscar nodded.
Wiped his tears away.
And decided, more for his own sake, to finally say it aloud.
“I will have to return to Hell to face it again,” he said. “To face everything that has tormented me before.”
He looked into Om’s eyes, knowing there was more, and willing himself to say it.
Finally, he did.
“And to do that,” he concluded. “I will have to actually, truly, properly do it.”
He composed himself. Stood tall. Stood strong.
He was ready.
He’d say it, and then he was ready.
“I will have to die.”
THEN
SIX YEARS OLD
25
The reading area was in the classroom's corner. This was not an area as popular as the toy area, or the phonics area, or even the washing hands area. Not that reading wasn’t enjoyable — it was because they spent most of their time in this area reading to the teaching assistant.
Oscar hated it. He was a strong reader — that wasn’t the problem. For a six-year-old, he could read books meant for much above his age. His favourite was The Witches by Roald Dahl — he enjoyed doing the voices for the different characters.
This afternoon, he had a go at another Roald Dahl book his teacher had suggested. It was called Danny the Champion of the World and, even though it seemed strange, he was enjoying it.
He was just getting to the bit where they prepared the raisins for the pheasants and, as he turned the page, he glanced upwards.
There he was, across the classroom. Bertrand.
He should have been doing his handwriting exercises like everyone else, but he wasn’t. His pen was still and his exercise book untouched. He just stared.
Bertrand had been away for a few months. Oscar had enjoyed it. It had been a relief from the torment; a welcome break where he had actually enjoyed school. He had no idea where Bertrand had gone, and honestly; he didn’t care.
Even the teachers had commented on Oscar’s remarkable surge in confidence.
But he was back.
Oscar hadn’t seen him at all that day. In fact, he was sure that Bertrand’s seat had remained empty during registration, and first lesson.
Yet, here he was now, glaring at Oscar. In one look, he destroyed all the progress Oscar had made. All those conversations Oscar was having with other children, all those friends he’d made, and the breaktimes he played tag instead of sitting in the playground's corner hoping to be left alone. It was for nothing.
Because he was there, across the classroom, watching. His podgy cheeks and scruffy hair and ill-fitting clothes just as they were.
“Come on, Oscar, keep going,” the teaching assistant urged.
But Oscar didn’t feel like reading.
In fact, he didn’t feel like talking at all anymore. He wanted to close his mouth, crawl up into a ball, and never be disturbed again.
“Oscar, you’re doing really well, come on.”
Bertrand was still glaring. So intently. His determined gaze fixed upon Oscar.
Oscar’s lip quivered. His arms shook.
Why couldn’t Bertrand leave him alone?
Why did he have to come back?
He could have stayed wherever he was, and Oscar would have happily read his book. He would get some kind of reward for the amount of reading he’d done; his teacher had promised.
Oscar assumed that wouldn’t be happening now.
“Oscar, what’s the matter?”
Oscar felt something he couldn’t explain. In his belly. A churning, like a grinding, a twisting of his insides like they were wrapping around one another.
The book he held grew warmer, yet he couldn’t let it go. His hands would not release it.
“Oscar?”
The pages grew hotter and hotter, his fingertips hurting, and he moaned, cried, unable to explain what was happening.
“Oscar, what is the matter?”
The pages.
They were too hot.
It was too much.
It hurt.
It really hurt.
“Oscar, what–”
Before the teaching assistant could finish her sentence, she had leapt up and out of the way as the book set on fire.
From the open pages, flames danced into the air.
Oscar knew Bertrand had done it, and he knew Bertrand was grinning. But he didn’t look up.
He stared at the flames.
“Oscar, put it down!”
The class was screaming now. Everyone was rushing outside.
Oscar didn’t look up. They were all just blurs in the corner of his vision.
His gaze was fixed on this book, on the fire, on the sudden combustion warming his skin.
The book was grabbed from his hands and taken away. Oscar lifted his head slightly to see the teacher rushing the book to the sink. She dropped it into the bowl and poured water. The flames died down.
Oscar looked to see if Bertrand was still in his seat.
Just like everyone else, he had left.
Only, unlike everyone else in his class, Bertrand did not return after lunch.
NOW
26
Oscar sat on a step at the edge of the temple.
What had seemed such an ominous, run-down building now seemed to have a renewed sense of beauty. Despite the moss and weeds and crumbling rock, it was an architectural triumph, once a home to many men like Om.
Footsteps tapped lightly on the stone behind him.
“Do you have it?” Oscar asked.
“Yes,” Om answered, and sat on the step beside Oscar, holding out a shrub with a green stem and yellow petals.
Oscar didn’t take it yet. He took another deep breath and let it go, trying not to question his decision.
“Once it’s worked, you must contact Father Lorenzo Romano for me.”
“He will come, don’t worry.”
“Make sure he warns Thea and Henry — once I have left this world, the balance will shift again, and The Devil will have far more power. Restraints will no longer hold him.”
Oscar wished he could warn his friends of their enemy’s forthcoming surge in power, but he neither had a working phone or the strength to explain to them what he was about to do.
He looked over the forest and admired the view stretching out before him.
“It’s funny,” he observed. “You only admire the beauty of the world when facing imminent death. I came here and trudged up the steps, thinking this was a shitty temple. And now…”
He looked at the shrub once again.
“Lorenzo will need to take me back to England,” he said. “If this works, and that’s a big if, I will need my body to be there. I mean, I don’t know if that will be much use, I don’t even know how I’d get back from Hell, especially if I’m dead. I imagine if demons can possess a body then I can too, I just–”
He stopped talking. He was rambling. Wasting time. Delaying the inevitable.
He could not afford to waste time.
He took the shrub from Om and held it between his fingers.
Oscar went to ask — so will I go back to purgatory, like last time? But he knew his answer. He was about to take his own life, which was a sin — he would be going straight to Hell.
He gulped. Tried to divert his thoughts to other things.
Anything but the conclusive nature of death.
“So what’s it called?” Oscar asked.
“Aconitum Coreanum. It is also known as Korean monkshood.”
“And how long does it take?”
“Your average dose might take two to six hours. This dose, however, should be almost instant. Maybe a few minutes of suffering first.”
“Of suffering?”
“Vomiting, nausea, that kind of thing.”
“So I might die in a puddle of my own sick?”
“Possibly, possibly not.”
“I just — I don’t know…”
Again, Oscar tried to push his concerns away, tried to stop thinking about it — but dying was not something one can run from.
“How does it actually kill me?”
“Paralysis of the heart.”
He gulped and wished he hadn’t asked.
He stood. A sudden, decisive motion. He just needed to do this.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Oscar asked.
“I think you should do what you believe–”
“No, give me a proper answer. Is this a good idea?”
Om smiled. Stood. Put a hand on Oscar’s shoulder.
“You are strong,” Om said. “You are ready.”
Oscar nodded.
Stared at the contents of his hand.