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After school one day in 1959 my father started choking flogging and bashing me, I began to black out and knew he was killing me, I landed a left to his face, and felt a squishing sensation as I landed a right to his gob area and kicked him, no use blackout.
Coming around I could not move or shake off the blackness and blacked out again, like walking thru a stage curtain I stepped onto a path of white decomposed granite edged with gray blue stone, the path was undulating between hills of cotton wool texture.
Along came a man leading a horse, I asked if he knew where the path led and he assured me that he did, I waited for him to move off planning to make my own way when he told me that he had come for me, I told him I thought I would have to go back, he glanced in the direction I came from and said I won't be going back, which was great news to me and brightened me up considerably.
The horse took me slowly at first then at a full gallop me hanging on to its mane, along the path which ended at a pair of open arched gates, framed by the same pearl blue gray stone that had bordered the path, here the horse indicated I should dismount, and as he galloped back so did the path recede, the gates then appeared to be floating in space, like the door drifting in space in the TV series The Twilight Zone, the outer view was as for a winter's night, the stars of the Milky Way and the constellation Sagittarius.I asked if it was his horse and did it have a name, he told me it was his and his name is Bukephalus, after a little more chit chat he lifted me up onto the horse who, he told me, would take me the rest of the way, before I took off on the horse I remembered to ask him his name, he said "Ah-Leg-Xander,"
I asked him to take it slower, he said "Alexander."
He gestured with his right hand down and to his right, my gaze followed his gesture, I saw my body on the floor of the bedroom I shared with my brother, Mother had just walked into the room and seen my body, and was screaming the house down, like making a performance, shrieking, Jesus said, "you can stay with me, or you can go back," I tell him "I will go back," then instead of looking at him, I was looking at the gray linoleum on the bedroom floor, I was pushing myself up on to my hands when Mother came in, she looked at me then walked out without saying anything, then Father came in and did the same.One star appeared to be moving, it resolved into the figure of a man striding along a path similar to the one that I had been on, he was middle height aged in his early twenties, with light olive skin and dark hair, he was lightly bearded and had long legs, he was attired similar to Alexander in a home spun smock affair tied at the waist and sandals, Pisces, he drew near and said "...Martin I'm Jesus."
Things stayed about the same, maybe nine days later both parents got stuck into me again, Mother urging him on to batter me at eight years of age, later that year he would present me with the bodies of aborted twins to dispose of in a backyard incinerator, I had spoken up in their favor when Mother announced she was off to have an abortion.
I form an image in my mind, of a large sweeping bay of white sand beaches near home, I ask if he knows how many grains of sand there are, he tells me he does, I pick up a handful of sand, and tell him that I have the same problem of being unable to check, then telling him not to look, separate three grains between thumb and forefinger, and ask "how many," he says "three," I tell him ok, I believe that he is God.After this flogging I am lying in bed when I hear a voice calling my name ..Martin, I did not answer, again I hear my name called and again I don't answer, he calls my name again ..Martin, I said ..who’s that, he said …God.
Next night I am laying in bed the same voice as the previous night calls …Martin.
I said …you said you were God,
He said …I am.
I said …you’re God,
He said …yes.
I said …you are actually God,
He said …yes.
I said …I hear voices all the time, they are not God,
He said …no, they're not,
I said …but you are,
He said …yes.
I ask him if he knows everything, he said he does, I say, "if there was something that you did not know, you would not know you did not know it, so you should not say that you know everything," he says he knows that too, I said …you know that there is nothing you do not know, he said …yes, I said ...sure.
He asked me if I wanted to know anything, I ask if there is a Hell, he said there is, and then asks if there was anything at all that he could do for me, I tell him I would like a guided tour of Hell please, he said "sure, are you right," I said "are we going right away," he said we were.
It was dark like it was night time, from where his voice was coming there just seemed to be a mist of grainy gold light, he went before me, and the wall of the house just seemed to be gone, and my spirit body, astral body if you will, just followed his light, for a moment I saw the outside of the house illuminated in the rain by a street light, then we were into the clouds and total blackness.
After maybe forty seconds there was a light, I said "I can see a light," he said, "that’s where we are going, and I want to see a good landing," the light had resolved into the figure of a man, picture the great athlete from the world of pro wrestling in the 1980's, King Kong Bundy,
That’s what this guy looked like, he wore a full length gown of some brown material, over a white full length smock affair, Allah said, "this is Philemon he will be your guide," Philemon is the warden of Hell, I stood still while he received his instructions facing the light, he is a big guy and pale phosphorescent light shone from his person, he nodded a couple of times and spoke.
The golden light of Allah faded, the big guy turned to me, we appeared to be standing in the pool of his light on a vast stone plain, bare rock and blackness beyond, he said "when you came here, you just came through the air right," I said yes that I had, he said "this is just the same watch," and he just walks out off of a precipice into a vast abyss, he is hanging there in mid air, and says "come on out," out I go, and standing beside him see that we are standing unsupported, a couple of meters from the cliff edge, he starts talking to the stone, and as he does so the figure of a man resolves among the cracks and ledges at the cliff top, Philemon tells me that this is another of the guards of Hell, whose instructions are that I should pass.
He said "we are going down," like being in an elevator down we went, down into Hell, we were going down a long way black stone all the way, I began to wonder if there was ever going to be a bottom, when in the gloom one perceived Gothic arches, tombs in various stages of construction, eight or nine in number, some firmly chiseled giving the appearance of dressed stone, others mere outlines carved into the rock.
We had passed the overhang of a vast cavern, our descent had slowed, the ghastly figure of a human being, blue white skin stretched over bones, shrouded by a mist of fine white hair, crouched chipping stone with a crude mallet and chisel,
At the entrance to one of the tombs, flees shrieking into its interior at our vertical approach. Then landing at the top of a steep narrow path, beside terraces carved into the rock, on the upper terrace twenty two crouching figures, like hologram images, their human features become the features and visages of eagles.
Proceeding down the path the terraces on our left, under the overhanging roof and into the cave, the terrace below had one hundred and nineteen similar figures representing lesser raptors, hawks and kites, similarly changing appearance from bird to man, one is blind, and there is the mummified body of a man, who appears to have been felled by a sword stroke to his left knee, then finished off with a sword thrust thru his left eye exiting the back of his head.
On another terrace below almost hidden in the gloom seven or eight figures, smooth and rounded like stones in a stream bed, some fairly large, man sized, some smaller, we take a few more steps down and along the path, and reach a landing, there are crouching figures below and ahead, Philemon turns to me and says, "this is Hell, of all who have entered here, none have left."
We were standing beside the top of a circular pit, no more that ten meters in diameter, containing the crouching figures of one hundred and twenty two comely blue green winged creatures, attending them are two hideous demons, one in human form though scaled like a snake, the other a small black figure with short thick bat like wings
Past him, an agglomeration of three hundred and twenty nine human figures, their group profile suggesting the arboreal physiognomy of a low sturdy powerful tree, its leaves and branches indeed the heads faces and limbs of the fallen, these are the recidivists of Hell.To our front the wall falls away, and dejected amid his defeated company is Satan, crouched, his left arm stretched around his drawn up left knee, cradling his right arm and shattered right shoulder, his right leg amputated high up, a portion of bone sticking out of the raw stump like a leg roast in a butcher's window, a small quantity of dark green blood is pooled on the stone below the wound.
Up on the other wall, further in past the tombs one's eye is caught by a straight line, a low stone shelter maybe four meters long, though only a meter or so high, and twelve hundred mm wide is built onto the almost vertical slope, this is the dwelling of Chablis the Devil of the Darkness.
Higher the stone levels out, and one can perceive in the gloom what looks like a hospital bed with two demon attendants, themselves attended by the green, glowing bearded human figure, of another of the guards of Hell.
Seen further in thru and beyond the entrance of another cavern, faintly illuminated in pale phosphorescence, the dark billows and strong current of an underground river, a flat bottomed craft is against a stone landing, a gaunt straining figure is poling his vessel into the stonework against the fierce pull of the current, this is Charon the Ferryman.
The boat is about two thirds laden, with the crouching figures of one hundred and two women in twelve rows of eight then six more, the furtherest back a commanding and imposing woman of indeterminate age, her black flowing hair with a broad band of silver, giving her a badger like appearance. Dodi Smith's description of Cruella de Vil, in her book 101 Dalmatians, surely resembles this lady in Hell with her hundred and one acolytes, Hell is full of similar ironies!!
The other passengers each seem to have gone aboard at different times later, the most recent a woman in her fifties her black hair streaked with gray, her bony lezzo's face expressing only anxiety, and an immediate readiness for departure, as she and her companions in their turn, chant the litany then the response to the Rosary.
The landing had another occupant, another of the guards in a sentry box affair carved into the stone, a young soldierly type dressed in a full length white smock, his shoulder length fair hair, held by a circlet of some bright metallic substance, armed with a broadsword, he fixed his gaze upon me, like I was a candidate for execution and adjusted his grip on the sword, I had noted that he and his sword, seemed more than capable of causing the death of the mummified body on the terrace, and of severing Satan's leg.
Philemon told him to put up the sword, explaining I was on tour… I proceeded to go straight ahead, when Philemon indicates our way is to the right thru an entrance and into another cavern, then downward via a ramp deeply rutted and strewn with boulders… incredibly a large boulder is inching upward, balancing it seemed upon the shoulders of what first appeared to be another stone, the proportion that of a tennis ball and a basketball, the smaller bearing the larger.
Read Homer describe the torment of Sisyphus , whose task is to convey a large stone to the top of a similar incline… even as the carrier gets the stone so near to the top does the burden become too much, even for this mighty man in physical form a Tom Thumb, yet we know from legend and rhyme that TT was a particularly nice guy ...Sisyphus never came to this end by being nice.
The weight becomes too much, the stone topples from his shoulders and rolls back down the incline, he chases downhill after it, and catches it where sandy floor of the cavern is rolled flat and the sand has slowed the stone, running he gets behind it and checks its motion, then hoists it upon his shoulders.
He traverses the rolled flat sand and runs up the first third of the twenty meter incline, entering one of many deep ruts in the soil, and still the stone appears to be inching steadily upward of its own volition, he emerges where the rut is shallower, with the stone firmly upon his shoulders, upward till unsteadily… the stone falls from his grasp and rolls back.
Presently from the darkness ahead came a flash like distant lightning, as we proceeded in that direction a red glow lit the horizon, another flash and drawing closer the roar and crackle of flaming fire, the flashes were coming regularly and had become explosions, we were at the entrance to another giant cavern, the inner view as for an industrial furnace, long high stacks of burning bodies like haystacks in a Grant Wood painting,We proceed down the ramp and across a dark sandy place, the light coming from my guide the only illumination, our way seemed long.
Stretched to the horizon in three directions it was great, Philemon says, "…this is it," he seems proud he asks, "what do you think," I tell him I think its great, a mighty flash as a human being atop an adjacent high stack of corpses explodes into a pillar of bright yellow flame, we proceed in that direction.
Thru the glare of the flame the corpse stack is about five meters high, about two hundred long, and open or unfinished after a section of about thirty meters at our end, beyond in the fiery haze higher stacks six and seven meters high, laid out four hundred meters long by two hundred fifty wide, millions of corpses burning in the fire.
He has a dark olive skinned clergyman in a full nelson going on a hammer lock, he breaks into a broad smile when Philemon introduces us, the priest has his eyes fixed upon a patch of soft golden light, and has his most sickening pastor's smile on his face, he proceeds to ask, "...what's the joke," he does not finish, within the light like on a computer screen the image of well manicured garden, and an expensive car on a white gravel driveway, ivy is climbing on a wall past an ecclesiastical arch.Standing amid all this is a critter glowing green amid the flame like the other guards, with a more or less human upper torso, from the waist down shaggy hair, feral hind legs and cloven hooves, he is a faun, he has a goatee beard and a long faun’s face, with short sharp horns protruding from a mop of curly hair grown right down his spine, he has Mr Spock type pointed ears.
A young person decked out for his first communion has got out of the car, and the clergyman's speech turns to a scream, as his face freezes into a mask of terror and horror combined, and bright yellow flame explodes out of his body.
The guard folds the latest entry into Hell backwards and downwards from his knees, and locks his inner arm onto an adjacent corpse ...from a large box like structure with a square hole in the bottom like the trapdoor on a gallows, tethered a couple of meters overhead, tumbles the naked body of a European man. Picture a spiv from the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, or yet a Muscovite hoodlum white slaver, he crashes a few meters onto the corpse pile, the keeper grabs his left ankle and drags him leg first up, and locks that ankle into the pile.
The Euro is made of stern stuff, with his free leg and both arms he tries to climb back up the wall of flaming corpses, too bad about the other ankle, the keeper grabs him and applies the hammer lock, the golden light appears, the victim starts blubbering about being molested in a public toilet while still a teen, does not help his cause any, he explodes into bright yellow flame.
Next a teen suicide blubbers before exploding into flame, then one after the other two elderly Japanese men, mutual suicides one supposes, then a Sikh Doctor tries to mitigate before he too explodes into flame.
In the cubicle above dwells Bathomet the Devil of the Fire, he greets the fallen from his within his lair.. the outer view has another of the ironies of Hell, hear the crooner's lyrics "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road..."
Or yet view the classic film The Wizard of Oz, wherein adventurers begin their trek upon a yellow brick road, for here in the ante chamber of Hell the way is paved with yellow bricks, in this place you can see the fallen in that moment between death and damnation, when they themselves are unsure whether mercy or justice is to be their lot, we know of course.
A Texas Redneck pops up head first out of the yellow paved road, as he attains height so does his body achieve form and substance, he looks about, down the road a little are four arched gates going the full width of the road, they are sealed and appear intimidating, to the front a doorway in a plain wall washed the same yellow color as the paved road, like an anonymous entry to a Madrid Bar.
To the right a low wall of some light gray volcanic stone, beyond a scree slope of similar volcanic material, at the doorway a figure tall and lean clad in western style jeans and a red check shirt, looks like a spiv chalking his cue at a poolroom bar, who looks out the door onto the street and recognizing a like soul, beckons him in.
Inside the Devil has a mirror, not an ordinary mirror however but a demon mirror that not only acts as a mirror, but can change shape as well, when this particular devil wishes to vex mankind he sends the mirror along, next time you are in the horrors or have the delirium tremens and you see the Wisp, you are looking into the Devil's mirror.
He resides behind a counter like affair, and in some respects resembles a barman behind a bar where whiskey for instance might be served, he extends his right appendage, here any resemblance to a quadruped has vanished, his right arm looks like a long hairy tentacle or a hairy spiders leg, grasped in a coil is a stick about six hundred mm long, with a crude replica of a human hand at the end, the Devil flicks it into the doorway from his side.Looking in the mirror the Devil sees the Redneck, he looks from the front and above chest level, much like a goat, in that he has short curved back horns, a goats head and a full mane a bit like a lion.
Outside the Redneck sees the stud at the door, sees the hand beckon in an inviting conspiratorial way, believes his salvation to be at hand and hollers out "hallelujah." He enters the doorway and his bulk blocks the light, he takes the next step forward in darkness, then inside and he is face to face with the Devil,
Whose upper body and simpering feral head is illuminated in the red glare from the flames below, who sends this sinner tumbling face like stone into the fire.
Next a rubber faced Quebecois politician pops up, he does not like it at all he has time to walk down and take a look at the sealed entrances, he walks back avoiding the doorway in the wall with its spectral doorman and the Devils beckoning hand stick, he decides to tackle the volcanic slope and the scree.
In a trice one leaps upon the others back, both falling forward the arms of the upper and the legs of the lower, becoming the fore and hind legs of Cerberus the Hound of Hell, now have these demons become a demon dog, snarling and snapping it drives the unfortunate to the door, he locks his elbows either side of the opening and faces the dog, inside the Devil casts the mirror, now become an iron chain with large links lasso's his neck and drags him in.Unbeknown to him that way is guarded, four demon eyes on two demon heads have been following his every move, the demons resemble small feral humans, low browed and rangy.
Back at the hearth and two West African brothers, twins in appearance, seem overjoyed to actually be in Hell, first one then the other seemed to be digging every moment wide eyed and exited, right up until they started screaming and exploded into flame.
Then a young Caucasian male maybe nine years old absolutely impassive, gives out a bit of a squawk when he bursts into fire, then an old man has Old Peoples Home Proprietor written all over him impassive at the fire, doctors, lawyers, clergymen, young and old burning like mad, made me feel good.
Watching the sinners burn and looking around Hell, another guard happens along, he is on mobile patrol thru the fire and stops by to see what the fuss is, Philemon introduces him, and for a while there are the three guards and myself watching as sinners are flung into the flames, there are a lot more young people than I had anticipated, Chinese doctors were the most unrepentant and a couple of them aggressively spoke back at the light.
Positive ID's here included Jolly Old Emperor Bokassa, one time head man of the Central African Republic, who massacred schoolchildren and had the body of their schoolmaster hanging in his pantry when he was arrested, Myklos, the perpetrator of the 1995 Hillcrest Massacre near Brisbane Australia, wherein he murdered his two beautiful teenage daughters, then his in laws then his wife, then himself, I had met him a few years before he was a millionaire printer and a boor, and my father and the abortion doctor.
Philemon had never heard of sleep, or school and knew of no way to return… explaining to him about sleep, he says to doss down anywhere, I tell him the fire is too bright and that I needed darkness, the other guard had finished his patrol thru the fire, and was going that way so we three bade farewell to the keeper of the fire, or the racker up of the dead, I did hear his name but forgot, he was a cool guy ..cloven hooves and all.Watching them tumble in then burn fatigue began to set in, bearing in mind that when Allah called it was night time, I told Philemon that I had to get a bit of sleep, and that I had to attend school the following day, that's if it was not past midnight already.
Heading back out of the fire cave, they say just relax crash anywhere you like on the sand, we go along the far wall, there is a bit of an overhang and lying down there try to crash out, unable to sleep and telling both guards, then sitting down then lying down to get some sleep, before going off to sleep I wondered how I was going to be able to get back from Hell.
The very next time I wake in Hell there is a sensation of rats running all over me, I go to sleep at home after school normally, I wake with the sensation of running feet, a tiny hand has lifted my right eyelid, rolling my eyeball down I am eye to eye with a little rat sized critter, I sit up with a start… Philemon and the other guard ask what's the matter, and I explain that I have been over run, by way of illustration a swarm of rat critters doubles back over my out stretched legs, the guards tell me that these are fire demons, and explain that they live in the fire and are in fact the wild life of Hell.The next day I just woke up at home and proceed to school as per normal, so it is that sometimes when I go to sleep at night, I will wake up in Hell then in Hell will continue the tour, till I go back to sleep and wake up at home.
They come to this spot, indeed the location I had chosen to lie down adjacent to a bit of an overhang, got that way because here the fire demons mine sulfur, and spread it throughout the fire, in another of the ironies of Hell the fire demons are dressed in Personal Protective Equipment, resembling a hood woven of some coarse substance, which comes right down the body forming an apron.
They scratch away at the deposit of sulfur and gather it in the apron, then race back and spread it thru the body of the fire, along tunnels built in during construction.. MAN Magazine was published in Australia until about the late sixties, it had a serial comic set in Hell drawn by Australian comic artist Jack Gibson, called Infernal Nonsense, it portrayed the fire demons perfectly.
So the guards tell me the fire demons are harmless, I want to take a leak before going back to sleep, the guards say just do it and I splash a bit onto the fire demons, they become exited and a group of them gather, I get the lot of them, then move on down a little and get a bit more sleep.
Bye and bye I wake in Hell and stretch a little, thirst troubleth me not nor hunger, looking around and there is definitely a grayness, it was not as black as before whence came this illumination I was never to find out.
Both guards are still there they wanted to know if I had slept well, I told them I had, the fire demons were nowhere to be seen though their tracks were everywhere in the sand, the guard who was on mobile patrol said now that I was awake he would resume his normal duties, and bade farewell. Philemon and I headed back across the sand to go up the ramp, and back into the first circle of Hell.
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