Heaven and Hell (11 page)

“Her name is Serena Farnsworth, my Lord,” was the reply.

“And what were her sins?” continued satan, looking back toward Serena. “Why is it that the Most High God condemned this woman to outer darkness, relegating her into our custody?”

“Her sins are many indeed,” assured the hooded figure, “adultery, fornication, dishonoring her father and mother, and worshiping pagan gods, even as she took the Lord God’s name in vain. Yet her sins did not end there, they also included theft, bearing false witness against her neighbor, idolatry, fortune telling, witchcraft, and the sexually deviant act of lesbianism.”

Lesbianism? Serena felt like raising an objection over that one. It had only happened once, and afterward, she had very much wished it hadn’t happened at all. It had been an incident that had taken place in her darkest and most confused days. But what could she say of the other charges? They were all true. She kept her head bowed; deciding that not looking directly into the face of this megalomaniac might earn her some points.

“An impressive list for one so young,” satan said, taking a better look at the bound woman before him. “Yes, you have certainly earned for yourself a place in my kingdom, doomed to partake in the eternal cycle of agony and despair that is mine alone to bestow. The only question is, exactly how shall I deal with you? With so very many agonizing possibilities; what form shall your destiny take?”

Serena glanced up momentarily. She searched for the right words, anything that might help her case, yet she could find none. Perhaps what was to happen was inevitable, perhaps nothing she said would make a difference.

There was a sudden twinkle in the dark lord’s eyes. “Ah yes, of course, I know how I shall deal with you, Miss Farnsworth. Still, it is customary that I listen to the groveling and pleading of my guests before I pass sentence upon them. Do you have any last words, before judgment is passed upon you? Think carefully, for this opportunity shall never come your way again.”

Serena felt ill to her stomach. There would be nothing she could do to lessen her sentence, she knew that now. She could cry, she could beg for mercy, but it wouldn’t help. The words that came out of her mouth surprised even her. “Sir, if you please, I would like very much to ask a question before these proceedings continue.”

There was a twinkle in satan’s eye. Most people who knelt before him were too terrified to speak beyond a few groveling pleas for mercy, but not this one.

“Ask what you will, I am listening.”

“Thank you, sir,” Serena said in the most sincere tone she could muster. “I don’t understand why you are doing this. The same God that banished you to outer darkness did it to me as well. Why do you have to torture me? It seems like we have something in common.”

Satan couldn’t help but laugh at that remark. It was a bold comment. He’d heard that line before, but rarely so eloquently spoken. “Do you really think that you can compare yourself to me in the same sentence?”

Serena knew that she was on very thin ice. It was all too clear, that this being could make her eternity here far worse, if he was inclined to do so. She thought about the attributes that the Bible ascribed to satan. She did her best to appeal to those.

“I wouldn’t be so bold as to compare myself to you, sir. I mean, I admire what you’ve accomplished. You’ve become the master of outer darkness, brought order to chaos. Surely, only a great leader could have done all of this. Why torture humanity? If we’re all outcasts, why can’t we work together to create a wonderful new world, one where you are the master—revered, honored, even loved by a grateful people?”

Satan began to smile. He was so weary of listening to pleas for mercy, hearing about the problems and sorrows of these worthless humans, problems that he was about to greatly compound. But this one, on the threshold of her eternal torment, wanted to talk about him. He was impressed with this female. “You’re very perceptive, little one. When the Great God cast my minions and me into outer darkness, this place was a vast realm of nothingness, an empty void, but a void awaiting the hand of creativity to transform it into something greater. I became the god of this new realm, and I fashioned it into a form that served my needs.”

The smile dissolved from satan’s face at the very thought of his arch nemesis. “God, the Creator was a tinkerer, nothing more. He played endless games with the universe. He was like a child with a grand creation that He had fabricated with His new set of building blocks. It was so intricate, so vast, so perfectly balanced. He wanted everyone to see it. Yet He was alone, there was no one else to appreciate the work of His hand. He desperately needed to be praised for his accomplishments. He needed to know that what He had done was good, that He was good.”

Satan paused momentarily. Silence fell upon the audience chamber. Even the other beings there became still in his moment of contemplation. The dark prince looked upward for a moment. His eyes took on a distant stare. Serena’s nervousness grew. She wondered if she might have asked the wrong question.

“He loves praise,” continued satan, looking once more toward Serena. “Did you know that? That is why He fashioned the angels, not merely to be laborers and messengers, not even to be His companions, to deliver Him from loneliness. No, He needed sentient beings who would proclaim His greatness. He created me to lead the other angels in that praise. Though, in time, I came to question why we did this thing, I did my job with consummate perfection. Day and night, we fed an ego as big as the universe itself, but that wasn’t enough, He needed more. After a time, He decided that our worship wasn’t what He wanted at all. Understand this; we were created with all of the knowledge God saw fit to give us, and we worshiped Him because He created us to do just that. It was our function. We did it because we were commanded to.”

Again, satan paused to consider how best to express himself, before this human female. “The people of your time might say we were preprogrammed with a set of instructions. But God wanted a race of beings who would worship him because they made the conscious choice to do so. He desired a people whose minds were virtually a blank slate at their birth. They would experience His universe most intimately and through that intimate contact come to love Him. Their praise and worship would proceed naturally and willfully from their lips, and thus He created humanity.”

The intensity in the dark lord’s face grew. “I had never questioned God’s motives, no angel questioned God, not until that moment. We loved Him, all of us, even I loved Him. But it seemed as if He had become weary of us, in much the same way as a child grows weary of playing with an old toy. He needed a new distraction. It was then when I confronted Him; never had I done such a thing. I spoke of our concerns. Had we somehow displeased Him? He assured me that this was not the case. He in no way loved us less; He simply desired the creation of a new sort of being, one created in His own image, His own likeness. He had already selected a world upon which He would bring humanity into existence. I pleaded with Him to reconsider, but His mind was made up.”

Satan abruptly turned from Serena and looked to the others in the great room. “Many of you remember that fateful day, I’m sure. I was the visionary, and you shared in that vision. We saw then the threat humankind represented. The ascent of man had to be prevented. The time for change was at hand, and you turned to me as the instrument of that change. God’s plan, His rule, had to be brought to an end. And who better to bring about that end than I? Our rule, my rule, would have been the beginning of a new age, the age of an enlightened angelic empire. We would have brought stability to the universe, it was our birthright.”

Satan pirouetted slowly, his hands raised to the sky. Serena watched in stunned amazement.

“But our brethren would not listen, their minds had been dulled by God’s promises, they refused to see the truth. So we alone took up arms against the creator. You all fought bravely, all of you, but we were too few. In the end, our defeat was inevitable. But even then, God showed weakness. Even when we were brought before Him for judgment, He could not bring himself to destroy us utterly. Instead, He cast us out into this place, beyond His precious universe. Perhaps He thought that this would be a far greater punishment than bringing us to utter destruction.

“But He was wrong, we not only survived, we thrived. It was difficult at first, but slowly we established a new order, a new universe. And from that universe, we struck out against the upstart, man and woman. We have brought low God’s great experiment. And one day soon, very soon, when we have grown strong, we shall return to God’s universe, not just as spirits, but in physical form. On that day, we shall depose God and His angels, and a new order shall be brought forth.”

A loud cheer rose from the multitude throughout the room. It grew in intensity and enthusiasm. “All hail, satan!” they shouted, over and over again.

Satan’s speech reminded Serena of old films she had seen of Adolph Hitler’s great rallies, during the 1930s. There was the ranting of a megalomaniac, followed by the rhythmic chanting of people caught up in the passion of the moment. For beings that resented humans so much, they acted a lot like them.

Satan turned abruptly toward Serena. Within his eyes, the mirror of his dark soul, Serena could see madness.

“Then, when you humans began to stray, when God’s great experiment began to fail, as I knew it would, He cast great multitudes of your kind into outer darkness, and we were waiting for them.” The dark lord was becoming agitated, his thundering voice becoming ever louder. “You wonder why we hate you, why we torment you. It is because an arbitrary and irresolute God offered unto you a glory greater than ours, a privilege of which you are wholly unworthy. In the end, you were to become the judges of our deeds, the authors of our fates. Yet, you are the usurpers. Your kind will never be accepted here! We will confine you, desecrate you, and drive you insane with pain! We will hurt God by hurting you. Do you now understand?”

Serena battled to control her terror. “Completely,” she replied. “I’m just sorry that it had to be this way.”

“I’m certain that you are,” said satan, his tone almost mocking. His remark met with a round of cruel mirth from his loyal disciples.

“There is so much you could teach us,” continued Serena, determined to make one last desperate appeal. “I mean, you’ve accomplished so much out here. I’d hoped to witness, to experience, what you’ve created. I’d hoped to learn from you. It is, well, scientific curiosity.” Serena realized how lame that excuse sounded. She had angered the devil, and fully expected to be on the receiving end of an even greater portion of his wrath.

Satan laughed openly. “Science; yes, I understand the methods of human science. Allow me to enlighten you. Scientific curiosity; and the observations that flow from it mean nothing, if you are unable to share your results with others of your kind. I assure you, that you won’t be doing that. In fact, you’re about to become a part of the experiment.”

Satan’s comment precipitated another round of laughter from the multitude of demons that surrounded him. Serena, however, wasn’t laughing; but she wasn’t groveling either. She fought to maintain her emotional ground.

Satan’s attention once more turned to his kneeling victim. Both his tone and his expression had changed. They seemed far less menacing than before. His oral history highlights hadn’t achieved their desired effect.

“You truly wish to know more about my realm?”

Serena nodded.

For a moment, satan seemed to ponder Serena’s request; then he spoke again. “Nearly all of my guests are taken by my minions directly and without fanfare to the special place of torment chosen for them; the place where they shall spend eternity. They know nothing of the rest of my vast empire, for they are trapped by their own unique situation. They don’t have much time to ponder the nature of my realm; their own agony leaves them little room for such higher thoughts. This is not a place of learning, wench; it is a place of torture, pain, and pandemonium.”

The prince of darkness paused. Perhaps he would grant this wench’s request, give her a true appreciation of his power, of his creative genius, before she entered her own place of torment.

“Very well Serena; I will give you twelve hours to wander freely about this world of mine, unhindered, unbound, and in no pain.”

Quite abruptly, the shackles fell from Serena’s wrists and the collar fell from her neck—she was free. She slowly moved her wrists and saw that they were scarred from the barbed interior of the shackles, but the burns had already healed.

“Your new body heals with great rapidity,” confirmed satan, seeming to reading Serena’s mind. “It has to.”

Quite abruptly, a pair of brown leather sandals materialized on the floor in front of her.

“Put them on!” commanded satan. “If you are to wander about my realm, you might as well walk in comfort. You see, most of my guests don’t need such things. They aren’t going anywhere.”

Again, there was a subdued chuckle from the odd crowd that had gathered around her. Perhaps it was considered necessary to respond to the master’s dry and sadistic humor.

Serena fumbled to put the sandals on, as the prince of darkness walked down the three steps to stand before his human captive. He crossed his arms as he took a closer look at his comely guest.

“Rise,” he commanded.

Serena did as she was told. It was difficult, though, because her muscles were quivering in fear. She tried to control them.