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Throne of Hell
Abaddon
slithered into the chamber where his master sat viewing the world. A cold and bottomless dark surrounded
the dark hermit, making its rock the focal point of fear. Above them, through the bowels of hell,
were stacked the various levels of torment. Once, long ago, a poet named Dante had put these levels to
verse. But nowhere in literature
was this spot mentioned. It was
not the place for a serpent used to constant heat. There were stalactites dripping as icicles from the
ceiling. A dank feeling pervaded
the air. For a moment, as he
scanned the chamber, he noted its ugliness and complete lack of warmth but was
not surprised. There were, he
remembered, no internal lights here and no trace of brimstone to mark the
trail. There was only endless
blackness and dampness covering the floor and a silence so deep and so
pervasive, compared to the tumult above, that it conveyed to his mind a feeling
of utter majesty, as if he were approaching the throne of hell.
There,
shining on its upturned face below the Porthole of Styx, the light of earth
cast down, in cold shafts, images that were pleasing to its great eyes. As Abaddon watched, an eerie flicker
within the blackness grew, a figure appeared and became fixed, enlarged, and
focused: the future being created from the fuzzy background of the past,
another one of Satan's plots. But
as
yet it had no meaning because it was nameless: a vast mind focusing upon one
tiny soul. From millions of other
men and this moment in time, he was plucked--one single, insignificant mortal
with nothing to recommend him but Satan's whim.
For
a moment the man vanished as the eyes were turned his way. He could see himself approaching: dark, slimy and horribly ugly. He did not like his reflection,
especially in Satan's eyes. But he
held still, waiting for Satan to speak, as if his snapshot would soon be taken,
captured for all time.
Slowly
now, by increments, it raised its great eyes, the serpent's reflection sliding
from view. Blackness and then
patches of light returned as it probed the depths above. Through a honeycombed maze of bodies it
searched. Layer by layer the
damned of hell were seen in separate torments, including murderers, thieves,
traitors, politicians, and whores, in utter agony, without hope, without a
future--all condemned for eternity and sharing a timeless sense of
despair. Rising passed the
Inferno, higher and higher, its great orbs returned, the eerie flicker within the
blackness growing, becoming fixed again, until the man reappeared much more
clearly than before.
“Look,”
it murmured, “and tell me what you see.”
“.
. . A man,” replied Abaddon slowly. “. . . He’s holding something. . . a
steering device
. .
. He’s driving a motor car.”
After
this acknowledgement, its anomalous mass moved in a gesture of approval, the
black crystals letting the illusion fade, disappear, and his own terrible
reflections return as he looked down.
“Yes,”
Satan nodded, “he’s in an automobile; that’s obvious serpent, but what kind of
man do you see?”
“I
can see by his collar,” answered Abaddon, “that he’s a man of the cloth--a
minister of God
******
After
a long pause in which its gaze slowly rose again, the orbs once again changed. It had, as always, a captive
audience. The serpent's body
coiled with expectation. Higher
and higher he raised his head, his furtive eyes drawn to its orbs. This time, however, Satan waited
several moments until something else appeared: two points of light as distant
stars in blackest night.
A
new picture was developing that had some relationship to the first, but there
was a period of mystery added now for effect. Captured in the shadow of time, the lights rolled murkily
around in the orbs: twin beacons in Stygian night, coming closer and closer to
meet its gaze. Swaying back and
forth, Abaddon flicked his tongue in and out, faster and faster as the images
took form.
Somewhere
in the dark picture there was movement and faint noises that sounded like
groans. At first, the shadows
lingered with only those pinpoints of lights to identify the scene. Then the pinpoints grew larger and an
outline took form, until finally, familiar objects appeared in each orb. Slowly now the serpent slid forth to
view the scene, curiosity drawing him on.
“.
. . Eyes,” he murmured finally. “Eyes within eyes.”
“Yes,”
Satan nodded, “what next? . . . Come on, serpent, look closely.”
The
eyes, deepest of blues, receded in Satan’s great orbs, until an outline of a
head appeared in the shadows. As
the image receded further and further, a body, an almost perfect hourglass
shape, stood silhouetted against the light. Through a doorway, in the near background, as daylight
streamed into the room, stood a burly man, who was buttoning his shirt. In back of him, the serpent could see a
disheveled bed. It was obvious to
him that the man and woman had been making love. The woman, who was still a shadow against the light of the
room, reached out and took several pieces of paper from the man, which the
serpent recognized as money.
“She’s a prostitute,” observed the serpent, “he just
paid her money. Now the man is
exiting the scene and the woman is moving into the light. . . She’s naked, with
a bottle clutched in one hand.
She’s putting the bottle up to her mouth and drinking it straight. How prosaic, master, you must have seen
this a zillion times before.”
“This woman is different,” replied Satan. “You’ll
understand soon enough.”
The scene switched momentarily back to the minister,
who was still holding his steering wheel with one hand. He had another object pressed to the
side of his face and he was speaking into it with great irritation. Suddenly, the scene shifted again to a
phone ringing in a shadowy corner of a room. A metallic sounding voice now replaced the ringing: “We are
unable to answer the phone. After
the tone please leave a message.”
“Cora,” the minister said with great vexation, “I
know you’re home. Answer the
goddamn phone!”
After shouting more unchristian oaths into the
receiver, which made Satan chortle softly to itself, the answering machine grew
silent. Satan’s eyes remained dark
and silent too, while the serpent hovered expectantly in front of the
orbs. By now, Abaddon was certain,
the imbibing woman should be thoroughly drunk.
As the minister’s dual images appeared again in the
hermit’s eyes, he could hear him say with forced calmness into the object by
his face, “I’m very sorry. If you
get this message in time, please accept my apologies. My wife is sick.
I must hurry back home.”
After a long pause, it almost appeared as if the
hermit had fallen into torpor or sleep.
Satan looked back down at the gate master of hell and, as would a great
toad on a lily pad, sat motionless awhile wrapped up in its infinite
thoughts. In slow increments it
looked back up through the bowels of earth, and recaptured the woman’s
image.
The serpent slid forth again, stopping a safe
distance away. “I see the outline
of a body,” he squinted, “. . . a woman's shape. . . She is dead. . . No, she’s
alive. . . Her eyes blink. . . The woman is moving master, crawling on all
fours. . . It is the same woman; the one I thought was a prostitute. She’s quite ill.”
“She has drank too much Jack Daniels,” Satan
explained frothily. “She has a
virus, probably the flu, which should make her condition worse. To scare her, her husband told her she
is getting cirrhoses of the liver and lung cancer, but, believe me, she’s a
healthy drunk and, unless things change, will outlive him.”
The
serpent found this hard to believe.
For several moments, her limp arms cradled the commode. Rising onto the seat afterwards, she
sat there mutely, staring into space.
For awhile, her illness seemed to be over as she sat back shakily on her
throne. A strange light caught
patches of her anatomy: dark hair, blazing eyes, and large, freckly
breasts. As the light was brought
up repeatedly to her lips, however, she began coughing again. Her fulsome lips became momentarily bloodless,
and her long lashes suddenly dropped as another paroxysm tore from her
chest. An uncommon patience
gripped Satan as the woman coughed.
Why, Abaddon wondered, was it interested in this wench?
For
Abaddon, who had seen millions of people in torment, one more nondescript nude
was not exciting. And yet, because
of Satan's interest in her, he was curious. He had not seen his master this interested in a mortal for a
very long time. Already Satan was
beginning its amorphous change, which was only precipitated by climactic
events. A more appropriate
response seemed in order, therefore, something profound or at least flattering
for the dark hermit of hell. . . But what did one say to something that continually
changed. . . something that was far more interesting than the images it
conveyed?
From
its normal toad shape, it transformed into various stages leading up to a
dragon-like and then a gargoyle’s shape, until it reached the traditional
stereotype devil of Medieval lore.
Sensing that Abaddon was not impressed with these stereotype images,
Satan moved backward down the evolutionary scale from humanoid, through
lizard-like, amphibian, fish-like and then slug-like forms, all the time
retaining the images in its eyes.
As it transformed, its sound effects also changed over a spectrum of
noises, so that Abaddon not only saw evolution in process but heard it as
well. From a bubbling mollusk to a
hissing reptile it as quickly moved back up the evolutionary scale, into the
higher levels of insectivores, prosimians and monkeys, never quite reaching the
level of man.
Remaining
momentarily as a brutish simian, it stared at the serpent, its large black eyes
holding the images still for Abaddon to view.
The
menagerie of shapes and sounds then shifted into reverse again into the lower
forms of life. Satan's eyes were
his main concern: the only reason why he was here. But his sense of awe continued as it moved once more down
the evolutionary scale. Fish-like,
slug-like, and then ultimately blob-like creatures paraded before his
eyes. A hideous bubbling and
gurgling followed until he reached a likely spot.
As
something at the far edge of madness it froze. After the imprint of this latest horror filled his mind,
Abbadon's interest shifted reluctantly back to its eyes.
Unable
to speak now, the great glistening glob motioned to him in that characteristic
amoeba-like movement seen beneath microscopes. Knowing he must continue, the serpent groped passed the
sublime for meaning in the mundane: “The woman is smoking now. . . She is still
very drunk and, judging by the way she is wobbling now, ready to pass out.”
Unable
to respond yet, it gurgled excitedly while its mouth formed. Watching the woman tilt precariously,
the serpent suspected she would soon fall off the toilet onto the floor. Unimpressed by the woman, herself,
though, Abaddon emitted a tired yawn.
As she looked into the darkness, her blood shot eyes seemed to search
this corner of hell in a complacent, uncaring way. While hovering close to unconsciousness, her large azure
pupils nevertheless appeared full of mischief and malicious delight. But Abaddon had seen this look in
billions of eyes, billions of times before. It was what was going on around these fixed orbs that
intrigued him now.
Slimy
green stalactites, resembling the columns in back of the throne of hell,
dripped down from Satan's jaw. As
Satan tried to speak, though, they gradually evolved into primordial teeth in a
primordial head, as part of a creature once again resembling a toad. This, its most common form, had been
its shape when the serpent first entered the throne of hell, a far cry from the
stereo-typed fork carrying fiend.
“.
. . Come closer serpent,” it finally uttered, “so you'll have a front row seat.
. . That's right, close enough to look right in.” “Now tell me,” it coaxed him gently, “what do you think of
her?”
“From
what you've shown me so far,” Abaddon replied carefully, “it's hard to say.”
Always
cautious when he spoke, Abaddon listened with a patient ear as Satan described
her history. She had been a model
wife once, until the hermit won her soul.
After explaining to the serpent how she had fallen and turned from God, it
enumerated her many escapades with neighbors and other strange men. Her addiction to alcohol was now
complimented by a craving for marijuana, and her present illness was, he
reminded the serpent, exacerbated by a bout with the flu. As yet, however, there was no
connection made between the woman and the minister; the hermit would make its point
in its own good time. As he had
done in situations before, therefore, Abaddon waited quietly for the proper
time to speak. He did not care
what Satan was up to just so long as it did not effect him. Although it made no sense at all yet,
he would play along until it did.
What
interested him, at this point, was the direction this might take. During the introduction of the woman,
Satan had introduced her to him as a useless and uninspired slut and yet, at
the same time, treated this subject as if she was the most important matter in
hell.
“I've
spent a lot of time on her,” it said. “She has made it easy for me by becoming
a lush. Because of her love
of alcohol and drugs, it would
seem that all of her time would be occupied. But she has still found time to have fun and make money on
the side. Because of her rundown
condition, her immune system functions poorly; that is why she currently has
the flu.”
“I understand her condition, master?” the serpent
cocked his head. “. . . But why a misbegotten wench like her?”
“Because,” the hermit chortled softly, “she’s part
of my plan.”
“Plan,” Abaddon murmured incredulously, “this wench
is part of a plan?”
“Yes,”
Satan nodded “a very special plan.”
“Special?” Abaddon murmured with
curiosity. “. . . She can barely move, let alone think. . . . From what you’ve
said, she’s on her back most of the time, when she’s not drunk. This is interesting master. Is this a riddle? . . . Is there a
puzzle for me to solve? Am I to
guess the meaning or identity of this wench?”
But
the hermit, absorbed in its dark thoughts, remained silent again, as it stared
at the earth above. As the serpent
looked at its great orbs and compared them to the scenes before, a whiff of
brimstone seemed to enter the cave.
First a minister had been shown. . . now this woman. What could it mean? What was the master up to now?
To
meditate upon this mystery, the serpent drew into his most characteristic
position: a tight coil. Because of
Satan's enthusiasm, he was becoming intrigued but not with her. He had millions of bodies to play with,
anytime and in anyway he chose.
What could be so special about one misbegotten wench? Who was she to monopolize Satan's
eyes? And yet the subject was
important to the serpent because of the eyes in which she appeared. . . What
could it mean?. . . What was the connection between the minister and this
wench?
“To
begin with,” he slithered forth finally, “even in the darkness, with no
soundtrack, I see a woman on the dark side of thirty, rundown, but having the
remnants of an attractive shape.”
“She has,” he enumerated, “large breasts, a baby face, the bluest of
eyes, but a rear end that has seen better days.”
“Master,”
his eyes narrowed methodically, “. . . I know what she is and what is wrong
with her. . . Now perhaps you can tell me who
this woman is.”
After
a pause, the answer came to Abaddon, but it was given visually, an image
appearing in each eye. While the
minister was seen driving home in his automobile, the woman sat smoking on the
commode. “Why of course,” he
guessed finally, “she’s the minister's wife!”
“You
are slow, serpent, quite slow,” Satan mumbled dryly.
Interest
now registered on the serpent's face.
This was beginning to make sense to him. Satan began displaying segments of their married life, but
with greater detail than its brief introduction. From happy newlyweds to estranged spouses, the segments
flashed quickly, illustrating the decline of their nuptial bliss. Themes of a wedding, an erotic
honeymoon, and normal life were soon replaced by arguments, the wife's
infidelity, and her drunkenness and use of drugs.
Slithering
very close, Abaddon looked thoughtfully at the scenes. At first glance, compared to most of
the women in hell, she was not that bad.
When matched up with a man of the cloth, however, she was out of
place. The master had obviously
devoted many hours to this wench; her defects were the results of its
success. It was the minister's
goodness versus her evil, on the most trivial and insignificant scale. But it dominated the master's eyes and,
for some reason, had captured its interest as well.
“A
plan? A plan indeed!”
Mumbled the Serpent.
Drawing back into his coil, Abaddon considered the
facts, which ran deeper than they appeared. The wife was a hopeless drunk, married to a minister, and
yet she was part of Satan's plans.
How could such a soul influence anyone, let alone a man of God? Upon closer inspection, she was even
more dilapidated than before. A
zombie-like expression was fixed in her eyes. Dark lines marked her face, and fatty tissue outlined her
frame. And yet, now that Satan was
explaining her background, her countenance began growing in the serpent's
esteem.
Audibly
now, as a summary to what Abaddon witnessed, the tempter explained loftily her
fall from grace, her turn to alcohol, and resulting decline. It enumerated her many faults and how
they effected the minister's career, from embarrassing him in front of his
congregation to ruining the peace of his home. The great battle being fought was one of love: his love of
God, which was weakening, against her love of alcohol, drugs, and sex. He tried to appease her, but it was not
enough. An entire army would not
be enough. So, leaving him
telltale signs of her infidelity here and there, she sank lower and lower in
his esteem to become the dreg she is now.
As a result of her moral decline, another emotion had begun to grow in
the minister, slowly displacing his love: hate, the flip side of love and dark
side of reason. It was, the
serpent knew, the emotion the tempter used most to corrupt the world.
As
Satan looked down, its eyes became vacant, black orbs, its gaze reflecting
symbolically the color of hate which was, the serpent guessed, what the minister
felt now.
“So that’s it,” he concluded thoughtfully, “darkness
will replace light as hate replaces love.
Evil will triumph as Satan fills the minister’s soul. Such is nature, the feral outlet for
sin.”
Satan nodded with approval. Abaddon responded with a dubious
look. Was this the puzzle and
punch line it sought to achieve?
Was this, a theme which occurred billions of times before, the reason
why he was here? How perfectly
banal, thought the serpent, rising from its coil. The corruption of but one mortal soul!
Swaying
to-and-fro, his forked tongue darting in and out of his mouth, Abaddon again
spoke, but this time hesitantly, as if the answer was but one glimpse
away. In spite of the excitement
growing in his mind, his throat was constricted with fear. An inexplicable foreboding grew in his
mind. “Master. . . what do you
have planned for this man? Is this
one of your games? Do you simply
want his soul? . . . Or is it something else I have not yet seen?”
“.
. . It is, in deed, something the entire world has not seen,” it
admitted flatly. “This man will be my prophet. He, like the woman, is part of my plan but only the
beginning, for there will be another, one of my own.”
“Master, oh master,” Abaddon protested delicately,
“this is unwise. It’s
foolhardy. Here, as the hermit of
hell, you can tempt men and women, but up there you will be alone against Him!”
“Whom serpent?” Satan now studied the gate master of
hell. “. . . You’re thinking it; why not say it--the forbidden name in
hell. Come on, serpent, I give you
permission to say His name.”
Abaddon, who did not want to say the name, thought a
moment. “Yahweh, . . . Elohim,
Jesus Christ. What difference does
it make? Have you forgotten what
happened master? He expelled us
from heaven--all of us who rebelled?
Do you not think He will also expel you from earth!”
Satan reflected upon what the serpent
said. Abaddon fell silent,
muttering under his breath, flabbergasted by what Satan had in mind. Instead of showing irritation at his
lack of trust, it seemed to be amused with him now. For the first time Abaddon could remember, the dark hermit
reached out with a slimy hand and patted his scaly head, whispering icily
“Serpent, faithful serpent, have you forgotten my minions on earth? Do you not remember playing the
tempter, yourself?”
“Be
patient and vigilant, serpent.
Wait and watch,” Satan counseled, looking up through the Porthole of
Styx. “You now have a front row seat; you are my special audience. . . . The
show is about to begin!”
Abaddon
shivered uncontrollably. His
tongue remained quivering outside his mouth. A deep and unfathomable silence fell over the throne of
hell. The light of earth shone in
Satan’s great eyes.
Without
further adieu, the master's amorphous mass gathered itself up, and rose up
through the Porthole of Styx, passing each level of torment on its way to the
earth above. Left below, in the
darkness and quiet, Abaddon slid forward, his eyes still focused above, but his
body now squarely on the throne of hell.
It was, for the time being, his throne. For some reason, he could not yet fathom, Satan had abandoned
its post in hell. The long exile
was over. For the first time in
his life, Abaddon would, as Satan promised, have a front row seat: to what he
was not sure and how long he could not know. But a mixture of excitement, anxiety and fear now gripped
the serpent as he watched his master depart. To sit beneath the Porthole of Styx was the greatest honor
in hell. . . . So why did he feel as if something terrible was about to begin?
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