A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

(I have zero rights to this picture, and am in no way profiting from its use.)

Deliverance

“Here suffer those who did not sin, yet did not have the required portal of our faith. Their punishment is the denial of Paradise.” — Virgil

 

I spike my spade into the dry unforgiving ground and wipe the sweat from my brow. The heat swelters here, though there is no direct sun. The constant cover of clouds holds the air close, thick, like breathing under water. Labored breaths rip through my chest as I survey the never-ending task before me. My penance I pay for a life of excess and frivolity.

Limbo is not a suspended dream state, it is a void of hopelessness, a barren wasteland of the lost. Given the chance, I would have chosen hell over this any day. Those that have been here forever never cease their labor. Acceptance of their fate long past, they continue to arduously move the earth, blank expressions on their face, resigned to the life that they are slated with. I, however, am not so satisfied.

My sentence is at my feet. Pounds of earth moved, inches of dirt shoveled. I have no clue how much of by debt has been paid. It seems as though there is no purpose to our task. We move the clay and sand only to watch helplessly as the hole before us replenishes itself.  Our work never ceases.

Even the fire of Hades would be a welcome change from oblivion.

The biting whip of the Mistress of Minos slices through the air, indiscriminate of its target. If Crete cares one way or another about her charge, she shows no sign. Cries of pain ring out. Yet no one ceases their task. You work until you die, or are given reprieve, and I have yet to see either happen.

The old man next to me is withered to bones. His dead eyes are deep-set into his emaciated face. Yet he continues to labor. I asked him once how much longer his penance would last. “My body grows weak.” He replied. “Once my soul is exhausted, I shall cross.”

“But to where?” I muse, not necessarily seeking a response.

“It matters not, son, for once my soul burns away, neither plane will have use for me. “

The hopelessness in his craggy voice bruises my heart. Redemption is the only savior of the wicked. I ponder what he might have done to end up here. Old Navy tattoos splotch his lifeless shriveled skin in a haphazard manner, telling the tail of a life lived. 

Marks cover my body, chosen as reminders. One for every rule broken, one for every lie told, one for every memory, good or bad. A tiger across my chest gives me strength, a phoenix on my back to remind me of challenges overcome, and barbed wire to tie it all together. My skin is a canvas for my story, a mural of the life I left behind.  A life wasted, serving only myself.

Crete circles once more, seeing, yet not seeing. “BACK TO WORK!” She screams, in a voice resonating so loud it shakes the ground.  Her whip lashes out at me, but falls short. Fire blazes in her eyes as she ceases her Thestral drawn chariot, bringing it to a stop.  I stare her down.

“Slave, you will dig or you will die.” She barks in her strange multidimensional tongue.

I do not waver. Indignantly I stand firm. Death, I choose death.

Drawing back once more,  her strap slices through the air between us, but I dodge it. The oiled rawhide finds a secondary target. A sharp draw of breath and the sound of a body collapsing to the ground causes me to gasp.

Turning my attention from the livid goddess, fall to my knees next to the crumpled body of the old man. His breaths come in harsh rasps, gurgling deep within his chest as if he is drowning on the inside. Blood begins to pool beneath him as I roll him to his back. A gaping wound, bubbling with fresh cruor adorns his right flank. I apply pressure to the gaping hole, hoping to stop the rush of sanguine fluid from his body. We are all dead here, but to die again, I can’t imagine a harsher torture.

“Leave him,” another worker pleads. “She comes.”

The rattle of Crete’s chariot draws ever closer.  I hold the frail body of the old man, waiting for him to draw his last breath. Hoping for his last moments to be more comforting than the last years he spent in this place.

The mistresses prod rigs out once more. She dismounts her buggy, looming over me, taking a second pass against my skin, slicing deep.  Keeping my back to her, I allow her ministrations to continue, wincing harshly. The edges of my sight start to blacken, but I continue to shield the body of the man slowly dying in my arms.

The shadow of Crete turns my surroundings to blackness. The goddess stands some twenty feet tall, large enough to cancel out the nonexistent light here in purgatory. Yet another lash of her weapon tears at my skin, exposing bone, I finally cry out.

“STOP.”

The voice of Minos nearly knocks the breath from my lungs. The old man takes his last rattling gasp and goes limp in my arms. I slowly lower him to the ground, hoping that his soul went to whatever plane he was destined for.  The entirety of the workforce gets to their knees.

The ground quakes and bucks as Minos approaches. I was told that you could not look upon him until it was your turn to be judged. All of the lost souls around me stare at the ground, quaking in terror. No fear touches me, however, I crane my neck and look directly at the god of the place in-between. If I am to be judged, I shall not delay the process. The old man’s body disappears from the ground before me and I rise to my feet.  I will not await my fate here, If I am to to meet the light or the fire, I shall do it standing.  

“You do not bow before me? Do you not fear your own fate?” Minos asks, his thunderous voice beating against my frail human form.

“No. I choose to meet my fate rather than await it.” I reply. I have nothing left to fear.

Minos laughs, nodding. “Then you shall have it.”

With a clap of his hands I am bathed in light.