The Road to Hell
“And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”
- Abraham to the rich man
The lost soul stumbled forward again, tripping over his own two ethereal feet. The bridge beyond wasn’t too far now. Just a hundred feet or so. Beyond – far in the distance beyond that bridge – was salvation. A beacon of hope and life. Another chance to get it right this time. He just had to walk towards it, shielding his face from the ceaseless burning wind that battered his face.
The lost man hadn’t chosen this, had he? Not really. There had been no proof of this shithole existing after all. Those religious fuckers had lied and weaseled their way into such power back home. Now here he was, here he suffered – and for what? Because he’d been enjoying the one life he’d been given? Maybe he’d been a little hedonistic in sleeping with his wife’s two sisters. … And her brother but that wasn’t the damned point.
He was here now, stumbling toward his salvation. It wasn’t too late now. There was still plenty of time. Not that time existed in this place.
God he was thirsty, and hungry, and hot, and exhausted. It was too much. It was overbearing.
No, he needed to get home. He needed to fix things. Make it all right with his in-laws and his father. The poor bastard was on his deathbed.
The other… “people” of this place walked past him. All were nude but none had any distinguishing features. Their bodies were a transparent ghoulish, ephemeral shape. One leg would soundlessly pound the ground and they’d walk by. How could they walk faster? They were passing him by?
The collapse finally came, the exhaustion, and his dry mouth wearing on him too much. Craning his neck was torture but he could see it: the light. The salvation, far beyond, at the end of the bridge.
Somehow standing once again he walked, plodding and endless, towards that light. The others… these fools. They were walking away from the light now, away from the bridge!
No matter! Their failings were not his!
Amongst the hazy, cloudy faces, and dry wind still trying to break him he saw his father’s face.
“My son? Is that you?”
“Father! Why are you here?!”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“I was coming back for you, to make it right! You can’t be here! You can’t be dead!”
“But I had no will to live. Without you I…” the man’s face took on a glazed ashen look. His body, which had appeared sturdy and real just before, was now turning cloudy and transparent. His face somehow still remained as he got a brief spark of life back into his eyes. He looked disgusted, “Who are you?! Where is my son?! YOU TELL ME!”
“Father! I-"
The man was thrown down by his father, “No! Lies! I will find my son!”
His father began walking the road to the bridge, in the wrong direction.
“Father!”
Father? Did he have a father? What exactly was a father?
The man turned away, back toward the bridge to… to where? Wasn’t the bridge to salvation behind him?
Then what was that before him? There was a light there, too? Or was it the only light? Other walked by him still. But a few - obviously the smarter of these lost souls - walked with him toward this new light.
Or was it shadow? It was hard to tell.
It didn’t matter. The walk mattered. The next step mattered. Oblivion mattered. Annihilation mattered.