Chapter 5
"The path to paradise begins in hell."
― Dante Alighieri
John and Vagabones were suddenly standing on a sidewalk. John looked around him, astonished. William, Mary, Cat, and Victor were gone.
"All this is yours – make your own world, do anything you want," Vagabones offered flatly, as if he was offering nothing special. John wondered if he was bored.
After a moment, realization dawned. "Oh, no, I know how Hell is supposed to work – I’ve seen the movies. You’re the great tempter. This is a place of exotic temptation and torture."
"I assure you I am not, and this isn’t Hell, it’s right between Heaven and Hell." Vagabones didn’t bother to defend himself; he was just explaining. The lawyer awoke in John. "This place is somewhere in the grey region, huh? The great tempter is also a great deceiver."
"I am on the good side of the ledger. But if you doubt, you can always go back to the ashes." Vagabones said with sincerity. John wondered how he would ever get the truth from someone who had been around since the first of creation. "Go ahead, look around. See if it’s to your liking," Vagabones encouraged.
A man bumped John while rushing toward a line of people that suddenly appeared from nowhere, knocking John sideways. "Who are these people?" He automatically checked for his bodyguards. As Governor, he wasn’t accustomed to being jostled around.
"They were wanderers like you mostly," Vagabones explained patiently. "They become ugly demons after centuries… that is, if they don’t despair and jump in the Lake Of Fire or rot into ashes because they only have selfish memories."
"Demons? Seriously?" This just kept getting crazier and crazier.
The demons began fighting among themselves, rolling in the dirt, throwing ashes, etc. It was a veritable melee. John shuddered. Why would he want to live among this horde of fools?
Suddenly a bus pulled up from out of nowhere. It had a sign on the side: ‘Angel Peace Corps – No soul too distant, No field too far.’
"You’re going to love this! I do," Vagabones said excitedly. A group of supermodels, including Peira and Orpheus, exited the bus. Peira was a female supermodel type, and Orpheus was a male centerfold type. John somehow knew their names immediately on seeing them. The demons stopped fighting to watch. This place was some kind of weird. Special weird.
As each angel got off the bus, the sunlight became brighter and the town lost its ghastly greenish grey appearance. Vagabones elbowed John in the ribs. "Aye?"
The angels joined the line at the employment office. Newly arriving demons pushed the angels out of the way to get in front of them.
Orpheus shouted, "Akathartos! Impure demons. Leipo! Depart!" Several demons vanished and the rest trembled in fear.
Despite the chaos, John was no longer staring at the demons, or even aware of them. He was staring at Peira, entirely captivated by her. The music, Some Enchanted Evening, played softly in his head. Slowly, like a beautiful poem come to life, she sashayed toward him. They locked eyes. Time stood still. All activity around them faded away.
Peira
"Demons are like termites, crawling out of everything rotten, with ill intentions." John heard Vagabones voice from a million miles away. "I’m going to… work with demons?!" he gasped. His eyes never left the beautiful, all absorbing, Peira, their eyes locked as if in a private dance.
"Never trust a demon – they’re only out for themselves." Vagabone’s voice intruded again, but hardly broke his trance.
John could hardly believe his eyes. "Are those real angels? Here?" he dared venture to ask, hoping not to break the wonderful illusion before his eyes.
"Oh, of course you’ve never seen a real angel before. Prepare to be entranced." Vagabones replied, affirming the obvious.
"OMG! Can I say that here?" The vision before him was breathtakingly beautiful. "She’s a woman. Female? I… I’m not gay. I can’t touch her, right?" John was on the verge of fainting.
"I recruited the angels for you so you would have someone to trust." Peira was only a few feet away now. She might have to prop him up. His head was completely empty. Love. Unconditional acceptance. He could only feel love. Beauty beyond comprehension, love, and acceptance.
"Trust? I don’t understand." John mumbled from his trance.
"All of these souls want to work for you in your new town: Johnstown."
Work? The word didn’t register. How work here? Work for him? Completely incomprehensible. "Work… work for me? Why?"
"If you want more souls, just step through the curtain – they’re endless. Just scream again if you want me." Without any fanfare, Vagabones vanished in a vortex of dust. John hardly noticed Vagabones exit for staring at Peira, who was standing in front of him. Her eyes were beautiful. Her face more than pleasant, radiant, but nearly expressionless, except for an inner joy radiating from her. Despite what he had just been through, he felt completely accepted by her.
"It isn’t polite to stare. But I forgive you." Her voice was melodious. He could listen to it for hours and not get tired of hearing her talk. Slightly unnerved that he might be making her uncomfortable with his stare, he said, "Sorry. It’s just that…"
Peira smiled at him. All thought left him again. He needed no words. Her presence was enough. His reverie was broken shortly by another fight breaking out among the demons. But John could not take his eyes off Peira.
The angels and several other demons watched the fight for a while.
Peira said to John, "It’s what they do. Now watch."
John forced himself to look at the fight. The Angel Orpheus picked up each demon that was fighting and threw them over the buildings. "And, that’s what he does," she explained matter-of-factly.
Some of the demons came toward John. His instinct was to back away – run. He had no way of handling demons. "Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!" They chanted. Frightened, John grabbed Peira by the hand and ran to the closest building.
John flung open the door and jumped inside, kicking the door closed behind him. The demon’s voices continue, "Jobs! Now! We were promised jobs! Be quick about it!" As the voices faded, John surveyed the apartment. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
Peira flipped on the TV. Maury Povich came on and a man and a woman argued about who had sex with whom. She moved swiftly around the room turning on the radio, audio equipment – all the toys worked. John, only slightly distracted by the accoutrements, hardly took his eyes off Peira – poetry in motion.
"I suppose, since this is Hell, the catch is, everyone’s androgynous?" John asked wistfully.
"This isn’t Hell, John," Peira responded without being suggestive.
John collapsed into a chair. His recent experiences crowded in on him, begging for understanding. He didn't understand any of it. The horror of Hell was like watching an axe murder happen in slow motion. He had been emotionally knocked around like a fly in a tornado. Was it real, was it not? It was. He hadn't had time to absorb it. And just as quickly he was whizzed into Asphedolus. It was too much to take in. Had he been manipulated into a strange position that he might regret by a strange supernatural creature and a beautiful angel?
Could people even react in any normal way to outlandish experiences? Could they react to things that were so far out of their realm of experience that they were surreal? He could be paralyzed in fear by a nightmare, but in those, his own fears were bubbling up into his irrational thoughts. Now Hell just seemed like a very strange dream, and here he was in some strange new setting. He felt completely dissociated.
He was dead. Dead! His life, marriage, career, had gone down in flames, and his reputation may have been ruined by stupid things he had done. He wasn't even sure what had brought the carnage, except obviously it was his own stupid actions. How could he have done this to himself?
Now he apparently had some kind of do-over.
Grief and guilt overwhelmed him. Here he was, just having left his wife, and now he was looking at a beau
tiful woman and thinking about her. Old habits die hard. He began to cry aloud for his wife, his life, and all that he had lost. Peira stood quietly by and didn't interfere. Loss has to be faced.
When his grief subsided some, Peira gently put her hand on his shoulder, comforting him, and bringing him back to this new reality. He decided he would accept this fate, and this time he would do better. He nodded his assent to her. She seemed to understand.
Liars Truth Page 5