Virgil's Inferno I hate this place. This solemn forest filled with souls that are so far gone in solitude and self pity that the two feelings have cancelled each other out into a numbing stupidity. They try to talk to me everyday about the most idiotic and useless things, the same subjects everyday and everyday I tell them to fuck off and rather than retort with a similarly vile phrase, they shrug their shoulders and wander off into the forest, towards one of the small clearings where they gather and sing their annoying songs for hours, days, and possibly decades. It doesn�t matter how long their singing lasts. Time is of no importance to me. I must have been in this forest for at least a thousand years, probably much more. Why I haven�t been subject to the mental numbing of my fellow spirits of Limbo is beyond me. It is almost as if I am the only one who realizes that I am actually dead. The others pretend as though they are still alive with their writing and singing, and fighting which is humorous to watch as the two warriors, out of sheer boredom and longing to relive earthly excitement, beat each other to bloody pulps and dismember each other as us other spirits watch with delight. When the two spirits lie on the grass with limbs missing and countless spear holes drilled in them, they instantly spring back to their normal selves only to resume their fight the next hour/day/decade. I wish I had their happiness. I wish I weren�t so conscious of my own death so I could partake in the merriments. Sometimes they ask me to write a poem. Some of them talk about how they used to admire my work, that piece of literature which showed the world that a Roman is every bit as lyrical as a Greek. But I tell them to fuck off, and they do. Now that I look back on what I wrote above an hour/day/decade ago, I see how poor my hand has become. Gone are the lyrical graces that made men and women cry with joy. The bitterness that lies in me has consumed all of my earthly talents. Now I can only look back on those days gone by, when I was praised for my lyrical grace, and when I indulged in the ecstasies that were bestowed upon me as a poet worthy of the Gods. The parties in the capital, the games, the women. O the women! Every girl from Gaul to Nubia was willing to offer themselves to a minstrel of the Gods. Imagine my surprise, when I finally left the mortal world behind, that the gods I praised didn�t exist and the one true God who had created all and governed all, felt it necessary for me to remain in this Limbo because of my heresy, along with all the other poets and, in fact, almost the entire human population who preceded his arrival on earth. I can remember dying. I can�t be quite sure when I died as there is a hazy period for about an hour at the moment of your death when you can�t decipher the living from the spiritual tunnel that follows. I don�t know if it is this difficult to discern that fateful moment in other circumstances of death, such as being stabbed, or poisoned, but in my case it was most definitely difficult to separate the two realms of existence. Finally, after the fogginess, the room permanently dissolved into a black void with a light, a most pure and blinding light, situated in the distance. The light moved towards you with remarkable silence. I could remember my excitement at seeing the golden gates of Olympus, and the Gods situated in their lavish palace waiting for me to come and regal them with my poems and my heroic tales of their great deeds. I received none of that. When I entered the light, I was greatly confused at the absence of all the Gods and their palace. Suddenly I was filled with happiness and love, such as I had never felt, greater than any love I felt for a material object, a woman, or my own work for that matter. A dark silhouette materialized in front of me. I couldn�t see his face or any of his features because this blinding light that I was in, his aura, made it impossible to see anything but his silhouette, but it was enough to make me giddy and happy. He called my name. I said yes? He read of a list of incidents in my life which he called sins. He said do I recognize all of these? Yes, I retorted with extreme giddiness. He said I am the one true God, which you have never heard of on earth. I said okay. He said because of my decadent life and my paganism I shall be sent to the forest of Limbo with the other souls who came before his son. I said okay, so full of the happiness and love that the Holy father gives off, that I wasn�t able to understand my punishment, and it didn�t matter what my punishment was as long as I was in his presence which is an aura of happiness and love. However, this aura left me quickly and I found my self in these dreadful woods, greeted by these idiots, who introduced themselves. At first I was delighted to be in the presence of Homer and Sophocles, but after realizing that I would be spending an eternity in these dreary woods, I became annoyed by their constant giddy chattering and singing. So I quickly isolated my self from them and from everyone else in the woods, retreating to some remote meadow where I have been trying to regain my lyrical prowess, and where I have taken time to gaze up longingly at that distant light above us, where my eternal father, who has forsaken me with these simpletons resides. I liked to pretend that he�d someday need a muse and that he�d come down to this forest and find me, and bring me back to his paradise where I�d sit by his side singing his praises. My God has shown mercy! Yes, I have been chosen to ascend to he, most gracious of Gods. All I have to do is escort a young mortal up to paradise so he can see the woman he loved. The holy virgin commissioned me herself for the task. Unfortunately I shall have to take the long route, through hell and purgatory, but it will all be worth it. Away from this damn forest and these damn spirits. At last I shall take my leave from this forest, and I couldn�t be more thrilled! What a tortuous journey. We are deep in the hell, through the gates of the city of the damned. We could probably be in Purgatory right now if this idiot I�m traveling with wouldn�t stop and talk to every damned soul we pass by. �O great Virgil who is he?� or �Wait master poet, I recognize him!� and � My goodness it�s so and so! I must ask him to recite his stupid life story and how he got here blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.� He�s more annoying than those idiots in the forest. At first I answered his questions as best I could. I told him who the man or woman was and tried to hurry along. But I couldn�t know EVERY soul and I didn�t really want to spend that much time in hell. So I began to just name off random souls even if that wasn�t the right soul that I named just so he could talk with the soul and move on, avoiding the endless task of looking for the specific souls he wanted to �chat� with. And the things he says! My god, does he have any tact? Why are you here? Why did you do that? Is this punishment really so painful? I just wanted to scream out YES YOU STUPID TWIT IT IS PAINFUL. The souls were of course in too much pain to lash out at the idiotic questions, barely enough to answer them. Well at least he stopped asking me questions. Talk about an ass kisser. He continually praises my works, noticeably that last work which has seemed to acquire some notoriety. Out of the blue he will say some random passage as if to prove to me how learned he is. Sorry but I don�t think it very much of a compliment to use my poem to sum up hell or anything that occurs in this pit of torture for that matter. I have just begun to ignore him. Rarely do I let him talk to souls. Several times I�ve had to drag him, kicking and screaming, down the path away from the suffering souls who I�m sure were dying to answer his questions. O well. Were almost out of hell, and that paradise which I crave is waiting for me at the end of this wretched journey. All I must do is look up, at that distant star and move on. So long we have been on this mountain, and yet it keeps going! It is a miserable peak, with jutting crags that seem to be trying to escape from the mountain. The climb hasn�t been that difficult for me, seeing as how fatigue is of little hindrance to a spirit like myself, but my �esteemed� poet companion has been having the most difficult time with the smallest of boulders. It must be that mortal fear. I don�t remember the feeling to well. A little while ago we were climbing up this particularly large Cliffside, and in my muddled thoughts, I failed to reach for the right ledge and fell several hundred feet onto some crags below. After pulling myself up and carefully climbing the wall of rocks again I reached the ledge where the poor little mortal lay, absolutely horror stricken by my fall and since then he hasn�t stopped inquiring on my nonexistent physical well being, despite my numerous pleas to drop the subject. However, I must admit that besides these recent pleas, and of course some scattered spirit questioning, my burden hasn�t made much noise since we scaled the hairy body of Satan himself in order to reach this perilous peak. Of course there isn�t much to talk about. Hell was a sick, twisted, show. A grotesque parade of all the pain that awaits the wicked. In short it was a rather leisurely walk with plenty for my mortal burden to inquire about. This mountain of purgatory is more of an endurance test. There are spirits here, but constant sight of the uphill climb and the eagerness to reach Heaven makes conversation with these spirits a little less necessary. I figure it is only a few more hours/days/decades till we reach the gates of Paradise. Only a few more� O God has a fucking great sense of humor. This fucking journey has been nothing but a waste, a grand charade. I�m the worthless native who must lead the foreign traveler through the exotic jungles, and treacherous mountains, but when I reach a point where I can�t go on, I am disposed of, cast back into the pit I came from. Now I am no where near as angry as I was at the moment of my removal from Purgatory. Honestly the only thing I can remember is an angel appearing to me. He said very plainly that my time was done, and that I should return to Limbo. I said bullshit, I was deserving of paradise, I took this journey just like the mortal did, I am Entitled to My Eternal Happiness. The angel totally ignored my plea, which had become a high pitched scream by this point. He rattled on about how God has decreed this situation, and how it was my plan, and how I had done a super job of bringing the man to this point, but hey we can take it from here. Well I had never felt such a rage. Such a white hot blinding rage. I could�ve split the mountain of Purgatory in two; I could have climbed up into the heavens and throttled God with my bear hands. Didn�t I do Well? Haven�t I redeemed myself? Why can�t you see that I deserve to be in Heaven! Why are you so blind! Why! I must have made a quite a scene, screaming and hollering and throwing rocks off the cliff and at the angel. In the end my rage died down into an extremely bitter depression that sucked right up inside me just as my anger had spilled out of me. The man was having his own visitation which must have done a damn good job of distracting him from me. We parted with him lavishing me with praise and me imparting some equally corny praise onto him. Then I watched as he disappeared into the upper reaches of the mountain of Purgatory and into that distant star. After they left I climbed about twenty feet down a rather large crag onto a ledge that overlooked the entire mountain, and walked off the edge. It was a while before I banged into the spires and crags at the foot of the mountain, a testament to its great height. I proceeded to walk back to the forest, that realm of the rejected, with crushed faith and a bruised spirit. Now, back in this meadow area of the forest, I regret ever leaving. It�s true that I hate this place, but now I must say I hate it less than the depths of hell and that cursed mountain of Purgatory. In the first few hours/days/decades when I had returned, walking right into the middle of a spirited fight between gladiators, spears flying and swords clashing. O how they jeered. All sorts of catcalls and taunts. I guess I can�t fault them for that, seeing as how I made a big deal about leaving them all behind in this damn forest. I took all of this. With the terrible fit that I threw on the mountain of Purgatory, I had little anger to dispel (even after all these hours/days/decades I still find it hard to rant as I used to). So this is it. This is as good as it will get. My hopes of Olympus are gone, my dreams of being a muse to God, dashed against the rocks, like my earthly body would have been had I taken the plunge from Purgatory in my mortal form. This is all I have. This field all to myself, and my defunct mind which cannot produce the lyrical prose that it was once master of. But with an eternity in this field ahead of me, I suppose there�s time to rebuild my mastery of verse. Yes, that certainly would show God that he can�t keep me down. He can�t reduce me to the mental idiocy of my fellow Limbonites. O wouldn�t it just piss him off to see me sitting here, masterpiece in my mind, reciting every brilliant line out loud so his ears can hear all. And someday I may just climb that mountain of Purgatory again, all the way to the top, past detestable angels, to the very gates of heaven itself, and shout my poem to God. His own personal muse of follies. No, he can�t keep old Virgil down. Not as long as there�s feeling in my soul, and consciousness in my mind.
Copyright © 2006 Kain |