15.01.10.....how you go

I'm not going to start the debate on whether or not the places exist, of whether or not you get sent down or up or sideways when the heart stops beating and you shit your pants and say goodnight, goodbye or good riddance. That is an arguement that I am not qualified to make, and it is an arguement I have no desire whatsoever to engage myself in.

But, for sake of what I'm saying, let's just assume they exist. Let's just say there are the golden gates and harp and all that shit. Let's just assume that you get to spend some sort of infinity nestled into the place of your dreams, which , in my case, would involve a neverending blizzard while my wife, dog and I are happily trapped inside our three story log cabin / townhouse that can magically rest halfway up the side of a mountain, overlooking a snowcapped field of fir trees.
In the distance is a frozen pond, close enough for me to take my son (my son being my dog) for a walk and we play fetch in the middle of the pure white, the only sound being the small hiss of the wind, the little guy barking in delight as I toss the stick, and the love of my life shouting out to me that the coffee is ready and that there's a heaping plate of tofu scrambler accompanied by a toasted everything bagel waiting for me when I make it back home. I guess if I'm pipedreaming, I'm also going to throw in that Cinnabon went vegan and was able to drop cases of cinnamon rolls with extra icing onto our porch from a helicopter. This is the afterlife, we're talking about. I might as well go all out, because I'm also going to assume it's impossible to be fat unless you want to be.

This is what it would be like.

But, herein lies the problem with "what it would be like".
If there is that three story log cabin, complete with endless breakfast, endless quiet entertainment, and endless love, there also has to be the other side. The endless cancer, the endless fear and the endless wounds. If there are such gods, then there are such devils. If there are such heavens, then there are such hells.
It's just the rules, man.

There's probably a many different rooms in those hells. Rooms reserved for the murderers, the pedophiles, the liars, the thieves. The corrupt cops and lawyers and politicians probably have their own wing. This is all inside of one monstrous buliding, mind you.

And, without a doubt, there's a special place hidden deep on the basement floor. You take the bitter stairs (there are no elevators or escalators in hell....convenience does not live here) down a few levels until you hit the walls painted in not so much colors, but dampened and distressed emotion. There are no giant numbers to announce the level you've hit. You rely on stench that leaks into your nostrils and your eyes. You start to dry heave. Your tear ducts break the dam and unleash a river of liquid that glides down your flushed cheeks, meeting up with the fluttering cobweb of snots that fall uncontrolably from your crooked nose. You cough in a voice that is no longer recognizable as yours.

This.
This is when you are here.

The uneven stones stink of soggy flesh and gravestone mold, of tainted blood and panic-induced vomit. The air, thick and curdled, weaves in and out of your dripping mouth and nose and with each and every inhale / exhale, your sight grows increasingly blurry. This isn't where they come to die. This is where all come the dead.
You stop walking, hoping there's been a mistake and there's no possible way that this is where you spend the rest of your eternity. You stop walking, hoping that at any moment an alarm will go off above you, and a deepened, broad voice will anounce that your name had been mixed up with another pathetic frame from somewhere you've never been to or wanted to go, and that he's the one that will rest his head down here with the moss and blood. You stop walking, only to be pierced and prodded from behind, the sign that, yes, this place is very much for you and all of your kind.
The special place. Your bare feet covered in mud and swamp and shit, Your body soaked in forced sweat from the muggy, stale breaths. Still pierced and prodded by the faceless guards that you were never quite given the chance to see before being hauled off, you are guided over to a single, solitary corner, where you are told to keep your head down, turn around and sit without making a sound.

"This is where you go." they say.
"This?"
"This. That is all."
"Nothing else?" you ask, waiting for another shot from the guiding spears the guards cherish so much.
"Do you think you deserve something else?"
"Me?"
"Who else?...You are the only one here, the only one asking questions. Get them out now, because we won't be back. In fact, no one will be back."
"Ever."
"Ever."
"So, this is really it. This is all."
"Yes. This is all." the guard says, turning his back and heading towards the corridor in which you had just been brought down. "Let's see how relieved you are after two hundred years.After eight hundred. Don't bother with time anymore, down. It's gone. Time stands still, or time is no longer time. Take your pick. This is your world, now. Your food. Your value. Your entire life's earnings. Enjoy. Your feet will become infected from the shit and swamp below in a matter of days. Enjoy. We are done. Are you?"
"Am I what?"
A quiet sigh of agitation comes from the speaking guard's mouth. "Are. You. Done?"

You look down at the brown muck you are settled in. One thick breath. Two. "I guess I am. I have only one question to ask...."
You never look up. You focus on the melting, swirling filth that is your new residence. Not your home. A home is where you want to be, while a residence is where you are forced to.

"How am I the only one here? Where are the rest of us?"
The speaking guard raises one eyebrow, a curious stare in your direction. You would never know, though. Your eyes are buried beneath you.
This is your world now.

"Very good last question. The rest of you? There are very few. Few enough that you all can have your own cages, jails, whatever you want to call this." The guard pauses, choosing has last couple lines carefully to provide maximum effect and maximum guilt. "You see, the few of you that there are? You are a very rare breed. There wasn't a physical crime. It was all up here..." The guard pointed once to his heart and once to his head.

"...You didn't kill a frame. What you did was slightly worse. You killed a memory. An image. And this is why you are here. Here you are. It's a good thing you have a while to think about it...."
The speaking guard resumes his walk. You listen to the footsteps squish in the wet ground until they become faint whispers and then nothing at all. There you are. Silence in silence in silence while the world revolves and you sift through the death in the air down there.
This is all.

The special place. They do exist, quiet one. They exist for those that sour the veins of good fortune. For those that slice the throat of lady luck. For those that bury the best of times in the worst done rest.

If there is that three story log cabin, complete with endless breakfast, endless quiet entertainment, and endless love, there also has to be the other side. The endless cancer, the endless fear and the endless wounds. If there are such gods, then there are such devils. If there are such heavens, then there are such hells.

If there are such hells, quiet one, they exist for those only sons, those first borns, that, at one time or another, had the war in their hearts to beg their mothers to kill them. To beg their proud parent to take the life of the one they cherished. And, yes, there are some of us out there.

I'm getting ahead of myself with all this. I never wanted to start this all out with an overly dramatic battle of good versus evil, of angels versus demons. But, sometimes, just as in real life, things don't exactly work out as planned. They do, however, sometimes work out the way they are supposed to.

I can explain the whole "begging my mother to kill me" thing. I can't decide whether or not it's as sad or pathetic as it seems. On good days, I can hold the reasons in my tattooed palms and squeeze them tight, knowing full well that in the heart of the moment, it felt like the selfless thing to say. On the bad days, I can hold every one of those reasons up to my tattooed throat (because lady luck don't come 'round here...) and just wait until they sharpen. On the bad days, sometimes you can look back and just know the days you were ready to die.

This a story of sick life. A story of a self ordered quarantine embedded into a restless mind. It's not exciting. There are no rules to storytelling, though, so if you are at all curious what another walking corpse lives with on the daily, this may make sense. Or not. It's your call.

I believe there are four types of people in this world:
a) Those that are born fucked up.
b) Those that are born to get fucked up.
c) Those that are born to fuck things up.
d) All of the above.

I believe that there are a great many of us that fall under the letter "d", For the rest of you that fall under a different letter, welcome to how our world works. Welcome to the world of the ones that your parents, guardians, teachers, priests and bosses warned you never to become.