Heaven and Hell (47 page)

“This world is just as real as the one you left behind. Unlike Earth, real eternities exist in this place, bringing with them blessings and tragedies we couldn’t have imagined in life. Satan understands this well. He uses this very fact to subject those humans in his realm to indescribable torment, even as God uses it to bless His children.

“In this environment, we shall grow and mature. In time, we shall evolve beyond those earthly needs we still cling to, to become more like the angels. In fact, we shall far exceed them. Indeed, many of the saints here in Heaven are already well along the path to becoming true spiritual beings, leaving the things of Earth behind.”

“Then all that is happening to Serena is in her mind?” deduced Chris.

“In her
perception
,” corrected Johann. “There is a difference. It is a part of her current reality. Even if she did realize that her world is a spiritual one, not like the reality of the physical universe, it would do her no good. Chris, as I told you, Hell is a reality, not an illusion. I have much to teach you about spiritual realities, but right now is not the time.”

Chris spent several minutes in silence trying to digest this incredible epiphany that Kepler had related to him; it was shocking, challenging his very perception of reality. He wasn’t all that certain that he understood it. Indeed, he wasn’t all that certain that he wanted to. In the end, his thoughts were interrupted by a new source.

“Professor Kepler?” came a voice from behind them.

Chris and Johann stopped in midstride and turned to see a young man, perhaps 16 or 17 years of age, wearing a white robe. His deep blue eyes sparkled and his smile brimmed from ear to ear.

“Hello, David,” said Johann, “I didn’t see you.”

“I figured you hadn’t,” said the youth, walking up to the two. “I was going to drop over to see you tomorrow, but now I guess I won’t have to. What brings you to Zion, sir? Is it research?”

Johann smiled slightly. “Yes, David, it is. We will be exploring a book in search of information.” Johann turned to Chris. “Oh yes, Chris Davis, this is David Bonner, one of my students.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said David, shaking Chris’s hand.

Chris wondered if he had just shaken David’s hand or if he only thought that he had. He readjusted his thinking. He turned to Johann. “Students? You teach students here in Heaven?”

“A few,” replied Johann. “David sought me out on his own about four years ago. Like you, he had read about me in his science book back on Earth.”

“I wanted to learn about the universe,” said David, still smiling. “I wanted to understand the miracle of creation, quantum theory, hyper-dimensional physics, that sort of thing.”

“Hyper-dimensional physics?” Chris repeated, not quite certain of the meaning.

“Yes, that’s right, a variation on super-string theory,” confirmed the youth. “I went straight to the Father and talked to Him about it. He told me quite a lot, but then instructed me to seek out Professor Kepler.”

“Wow,” said Chris, turning to Johann, “that must be the ultimate compliment…God Himself referring a student to you. You can’t get a better reference than that.”

“Actually, the Father has directed quite a number of students to me over the years. I told you about the group that meets regularly with me to discuss the nature of the universe. Quite a number of them came to me by this same route. I was confused at first. Why would God send these young aspiring physicists to me? Then I understood. It was my love for teaching and my desire to search for the truth that the Father saw. He sent them to me as much for my benefit as theirs. Together we seek the truth, the ultimate truth.”

“Professor Kepler is the best science teacher I ever had,” said David. “I’ve learned so much from him, things I’d never have learned at the academy.”

“What was it you wanted to see me about, David?” asked Johann. His voice was patient, but he clearly wanted to continue this new quest.

“Well, sir, I’m sort of stuck. It has to do with that partial differential equation you showed me how to solve. It was the one used in solving the shape of the intersection point of two separate hypothetical five dimensional constructs, assuming both are perfectly hyper-spherical. I know the intersection point should come out as a four dimensional hyper-sphere, but I can’t make the math work. I’m setting something up wrong.”

“Intersection region,” corrected Johann, “only lines and segments have intersection points.”

“Oh yes, intersection region,” replied David, whose face flushed slightly. He hesitated. “I get the feeling that this isn’t such a good time to discuss this topic, is it?”

“Well, not the best,” replied Johann.

“You’re involved in something really important right now—something incredible.”

“Yes, we are,” Johann said.

“You’re going the Hall of Records?” asked David.

“Yes.”

“Please, I’d like to come along, if it would be OK. Maybe I can help.”

By now, Chris was well past the point of being amazed. Perhaps he was imagining it all, but this young man seemed perceptive almost beyond the point of all reason. “Why do you think you can help?”

“I’m not sure,” admitted David. “Sometimes I just have feelings about things.”

Chris wasn’t all that certain that he wanted someone else involved in his quest, especially one as young as David. How could he help?

Johann looked at David, then toward Chris, then back at David again. “David, this is a rather personal matter that Chris and I are attending to. It is research, true, but there is a bit more to it than that. You might find it very disturbing.”

“I’d still like to come along,” repeated David.

“It’s OK, Johann, as far as I’m concerned, David can come along with us. Maybe he can help.” Chris wasn’t certain as to why he had said that—a hunch? “Great!” David said.

Without further delay the three continued on.

“How old are you, David?” asked Chris.

“I’ll be eighteen next month,” he replied.

Chris tried to word his next question carefully, “You were kind of young when you…well…came here, weren’t you?”

“You mean when I died,” David said. “It’s OK. I don’t mind using that word. I died back on September eleventh of 2001.”

A chill ran up Chris’s spine. “Nine, one, one?”

“That’s right,” confirmed David. “I understand that’s what people came to call it. I was only twelve at the time. I was attending an academy for gifted students in New York City. I was involved in what they called a shadow program. You see, my mom worked as a stockbroker for a brokerage firm on the eighty-ninth floor of the World Trade Center Building, Tower One. On that morning, I went to work with her. My assignment was to watch what she did during the course of a day and then do a report on it for my social studies class.”

“Oh no!” Chris said.

“Yea. Terrorists crashed a plane into the tower. Both my mom and I were killed pretty quickly. Next thing I knew, we were walking hand in hand through this tunnel toward the brightest light I had ever seen. Or was it floating or flying? …I don’t know how to describe it, exactly. We were together.

“Anyway, when we got here, we realized that the light was Jesus. He was more wonderful than I could ever have imagined. We were going to our judgment. God was going to judge us. Both my mom and I had already placed our lives in the hand of Jesus years before. I had when I was seven, and she had nearly twenty years before that. Jesus said that we would stand before God together. That wasn’t usually the way it was done, but I got the feeling that He didn’t want to separate us.

“He told us that we had nothing to be afraid of, that we were going to meet our Father, our Creator. It was all kind of exciting.

As we stood before God, we both saw a vision of our lives, minus the bad parts, of course. Jesus had already removed those from the record. Well, I guess you know the rest.”

Chris smiled. “Yes, I think so.”

“My mom and I have a mansion together, right here in the city itself. It is so very cool. Much better than the condo we had in Manhattan. It has hot and cold running water, electric lights, and a totally awesome hot tub. God knew that we liked living in the city. But I’m interested in you, tell me about you. It’s something about you that this whole trip, this whole research expedition, is about, right?”

Like so many young people, David didn’t mince words. Chris would do the same. He gave David the short version of the story he had told Johann, but he did his best to present all the facts, even the ones that hurt. David seemed very sympathetic, but at the same time, Chris could tell that the young man looked at this journey as an adventure. He couldn’t really blame him for that.

They had almost reached the great hall when Johann finally spoke again.

“You said that satan sentenced her to the sea of fire.”

“Yes,” replied Chris, surprised after nearly an hour of complete silence.

“You are sure that it was the sea of fire.”

“I’m absolutely sure. I saw it in the vision.”

“Curious,” Johann said. “And you said that Serena was a kind and thoughtful woman.”

“The kindest,” confirmed Chris.

“Yes, now that is quite odd,” said Johann. “Satan is, if anything, methodical and consistent in his methods. To place your Serena, whose sins were relatively innocuous, within the sea of fire is very unusual. He tends to reserve that terrible sea for vile and unrepentant sinners. Yes, this is strange.”

“Sounds like you’ve studied him a lot,” Chris said.

“I have,” confirmed Johann. “He is a key element in the flow of cosmic time. I have viewed him through the eyes of many poor souls who have crossed his path. Chris, I like to think of myself as a positive thinking person, an optimist. I can usually find some good qualities in almost anyone, but satan has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Nonetheless, what he has done to your wife is inconsistent with his nature, unless there is something that I am not seeing.”

“Maybe he sees her as a threat,” suggested David.

“Yes, yes, that’s right,” said Chris, his voice rising in volume and tension. “That’s what satan told her. I heard it. It was something about what she might have done to him if she had only lived.”

“But she didn’t live,” observed Johann. “Why would he punish her so severely for something that she might have done but didn’t?”

“A temporal paradox?” suggested David.

This young man sure threw around a lot of strange terms. “A what?” asked Chris.

“An oddity in the flow of time,” replied Johann, “An event that doesn’t make sense from our view of time. It is a sort of event that shouldn’t be able to happen.”

“Like going back a couple minutes in time and warning yourself not to make a stupid mistake,” noted David. “If you had done it, you might prevent yourself from making the mistake. But if you didn’t make the mistake, why did you go back and warn yourself about something that you didn’t do in the first place. Satan is punishing Serena for something that she would have done if she had lived, something against his kingdom.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” objected Chris. “That can’t happen. Satan was talking about what she
might
have done, not what she
would
have done.”

“But suppose that they are the same thing,” said David. “Suppose that she is actually going to do these things, and satan wants to punish her for them?”

That comment even perplexed David’s teacher. “Supposition,” he objected. “David, you’re talking about an event that has never occurred.”

“Are we so sure?” asked David. There was a trace of amusement in his voice.

Chris wondered as to whether he should have invited this youth along or not, as the three walked up the steps of the Hall of Records and through the main entryway. Despite his obvious high intelligence, he was rather brash and somewhat immature. He was certain that David didn’t realize what he was getting into.

As usual, the Hall of Records was not a very busy place. Not many people pried into the records of others, or even their own.

“I’ll handle the book,” said Johann, as they made their way up the spiral staircase. “It is better if the one in control is a bit more removed from the situation. It was your emotional state that got you in trouble before, Chris. You lost touch with what was reality and what was not. That is why you became lost. You can’t allow that to happen here.”

“OK,” agreed Chris, “do what you think is best.

Within minutes the three stood before Serena’s book. It was Johann who withdrew it from its shelf. He turned to David. “You have never examined the content of a black book, have you?”

“No, sir,” confirmed David.

“I feel that I should warn you that what you are about to see is likely to be very disturbing. My chief concern is that you are not prepared for what you are about to witness. We’re talking about the terrors of Hell. You are going to witness them firsthand. What you are about to see could well have a tremendous impact upon you. If you have any doubts at all, I’d advise you to withdraw.”

“I can handle it,” said David, his tone full of confidence. “It will be an adventure. It is a part of God’s creation that I must experience, disturbing or not.”