The Simple Man Descends to Hell

How far would he go? How far could he possibly go? Whatever tangible distance or abstract span, be it time or space, he was able to physically travel would not be enough. It could never be enough, to a learned man. However, any fantastical object could be achieved by any fantastical means to a simple man. The physical distance between the two once seemed to be an insurmountable span, greater than that of the Pacific Ocean. That situation seemed to appear that way, until the Simple Man broke down from the anguish of their division and separation, saved up funds for a journey to her location across the country, and finally traveled to begin a life, together, with the love of his life.

However, as he looked up at the moon during the small hours (seemingly always the longest of the day), his longing and torment met each other in a location of a funereal mourning; He wept for her, and he longed to be with her once more. His missed her lovely smell, her caring caresses, and the love she gave to him, flawlessly equivalent to the love he gave to her. Their devotion to each other was held sacrosanct, as one could see from the fiery flicker of passion from deep inside their eyes, the confine for their eternal souls. Regrettably, there was a power greater than them that did not hold their love as sacred. And it was this power that escorted her to the land of the dead, against her struggling resolve.

Everyday he relived the wretched decision that he had to make. His love had been in a coma with ostensibly no possibility of recuperation after the car accident. The Simple Man, with the aid of his family and her family, had come to the decision to remove her life support and let her finally rest. This was not the conclusion he desired for from this circumstance. His devotedly selfish nature wanted her to stay with him as long as they both were alive. He did not want her to leave him, even though she had been in a coma for years. But after many frightful thoughts, he finally informed the doctors to cease her life support.

The devastation created by his bereavement over this dreadfully unfair tragedy heightened his insanity. While she was alive, the love that she gave to him was enough to keep his unbalanced mind at bay and shroud him in what he believed to be a perpetual roaring fire which came to an abrupt end as the acidic rains of Life’s End smothered the once blazingly brilliant fire. But now with her absence, his insanity was now allowed to take full force over his mind, body, and soul. So it would be that in his delusional condition, he would set out upon a self-centered quest to journey to the land of the dead to be with his love, as he once did by voyaging across the nation in this mortal land.

After mourning for her over the period of a year and a single day (Yet never stopping after this particular date appeared on the calendar) he began to devise ideas for his mission. Being the simple man that he was, he never claimed to understand mathematics or the sciences. However, this did not deter him away from the consequence he desired. He kept a plain red notebook of his ideas, which seemed to become more fantastical with every new idea he recorded. It would be exactly one year, eleven months, and eleven days after the death of his love that the Simple Man wrote down the last idea (and the most fantastical of them all) he could think of. It was decided that this particular idea would be his first step to the location of his dearly departed love.

That night he set out upon his short journey over an unattainable distance. He took many sleeping pills to assure that he would complete his quest, and he dreamed three dreams about the one he would be searching for. The first of these dreams consisted of a previous discussion they had about religion. They were both agnostic and much of the conversation consisted of personal jokes about the two of them smoldering in the insufferable fires of Hell for their lack of faith-based belief. However, this dream did not feel humorous to him. It seemed hollow and forlorn. As if the two of them were not really there in mind and soul. He felt like a cardboard cutout, enslaved to a predestination that he could not possibly comprehend. The ludicrousness of this previous conversation was now replaced with a horror of things to come, explicable but at the same time imperceptible.

The second dream was a bit more heart-wrenching than the first. He was not physically present within this dream. However, he observed the dream as if he were a fly on the wall. The room was small and fashioned like a square. It reeked of human excrement and blood in here. Paint had chipped away long ago from the wall and chains dangled downward from the ceiling, in front of blood-stained walls and above the soiled floor. It was within this dejected room of indescribable torture that he saw his love. She was hanging by her hands from one of the chains. The chains held her feet above the defecated floor. Her garments was tattered and discolored with blood. And her face was battered and as the sun peaked through a tiny hole in the wall and lit her face, it twinkled upon the tears that descended down her face to highlight the affliction that has been brought upon her by another or others. Here, within this dream, he watched her weep: Please. What have I done to warrant this? Why can I not have rest? Why must I still exist now, after life? He wanted to reach out to her, but could not. He wanted to console her and tell her how much he loves her and misses her. But he found no voice to articulate with. And it was then that he decided he would traverse Hell to save her from this distress. He felt that it was no longer about his sanity, but hers. He watched for an immeasurable amount of time, before he drifted off into this third and final dream.

Within this dream he journeyed to Hell. He began this fantastical expedition by spanning an unfamiliar desert that he was placed in. Once he reached the exact center of this presumably infinite distance (the center of the desert was felt by him upon reaching it, as if a cold hand had grasped his heart and squeezed until it ruptured into chips of ice) he stood in place and let out a shriek. This vocal aberration within the dream would have ended the life of all, including him. It was the dream that protected him. In the end, the shriek had the outcome that he desired. The very structure of space and time was shattered by the raucous noise that escaped from behind his parched lips. A section of the shattered space fell out of position. And this fissure within time and space that was no longer veiled by tangible mortal existence provided a way in to the land of the dead. This terrain was a marvel to see, from the eyes of a simple, mortal man.

He had seen movies and read books that had described what he was now seeing. However, these sources were not portraying a story about Hell. They were illusory renditions of a post-apocalyptic or post-nuclear wasteland. He walked through desolate wastelands filled with nothing more than a smothering dust and an already dead hope; he passed through bombed-out cities that he felt were once flourishing metropolises. They were now nothing more than wasted structures that were now monuments to a once grand achievement. He walked through arid wastelands and desiccated cities for an indefinite period of time. At the end of one particular despondent wasteland, he came to the end of his journey. This wasteland ended on the top of a precipice and below was a sight he had never seen before.

A once majestic city lay below him. But the piercing sounds of screams deafened him. And the aroma of blood and torment that rose up the cliff revolted him. He fell to his knees and attempted to vomit out the suffering and anguish from below. But nothing would come out. He was in Hell. He rose to his feet and before him he saw what appeared to be a man. The Simple Man knew he was not a man, but a demonic force in masquerade. And without a word between them, the Simple Man followed the disguised demon down from the cliff into the city below. As he came closer to the city, the stench of suffering became more repulsive and nauseating. However, his body would still not reject this feeling. It stayed inside of him like an arrow through the heart.

Finally, when he thought he could take it no more, he entered the city behind the demon. The two of them came to a stop and the demon turned towards him. It was at this time that the Simple Man demanded to be brought to the location of his love’s suffering. The demon nodded and motioned for him to follow. As the Simple Man followed the demon through the city, his eyes took in enough torment to inflict blindness upon any human being, with no concern as to how frail or strapping they are. He could not comprehend what was shielding him from instantaneous sightlessness at the atrocities that his eyes viewed. He knew that no one back home could envision what he saw with his own eyes. No one knew the true nature of Hell, apart from him.

The Simple Man was led into a structure by and the room they stopped in was immediately identifiable. This was the room that he saw during his second dream. He could smell the stench of blood and death once more. However, this time it was stronger. He believed that he was now physically in Hell, he had transcended to this plane even though he was a living mortal man. And that is why the stink of this place was much worse. There was another variation that he now caught with his eye. His love was nowhere to be seen. He looked at the demon incredulously, but the demon offered no reply aside from a malicious smirk. Before the Simple Man could turn to run away or attempt to wake up, he was grabbed by the demon and placed upon a swinging hook that dangled from down the ceiling among the other chains. As the blinding pain was felt by him, he screamed out to the demon, “Please. What have I done to deserve this?” These were familiar words to the Simple Man, and they were to the demon as well.

The demon looked up at him with malevolent eyes that seemed to smile just like his mouth. The demon took this moment to enlighten the Simple Man as to why he was being treated like this, “You entered the land of the dead tainted with miasma.” The Simple Man did not understand what the demon was speaking about and demanded an explanation. In response, the demon took up a whip and scourged him nine times to show him that this was not his place to order anyone around. After the scourging ended and his screams ceased, the demon explained, “You tainted yourself with miasma when you murdered your “love.” You purposely and knowingly ended her life. Now you are in the same state yourself and will suffer for her and for you. After her life was snuffed by your decision, she was sent from her suffering to an Eternal Peace.”

The Simple Man understood the words of the demon now. And he understood his own situation. He had put himself into a coma with the sleeping pills he took. And would now pay for his contaminated soul for the awful decision he made to end the life of his love. His mourning and longing were now replaced with feelings of torment and anguish. There would be only one way to change his fate. If he woke up from his coma, he would see whoever he would have to see and do whatever he would have to do, to cleanse his unclean soul from this terrible sin. But within a state of dreams, time distorts itself to the point where it can no longer exist. He may have to go through an eternity of torture before he awakens back in the mortal world.

He was jarred out of his thoughts when the demon began to cut on him. And as tears fell from his eyes to the soiled ground below he screamed out his last comprehensible words: Please forgive me, my love. The demon leered at the Simple Man until a blindingly vivid light appeared in the room. Among the luminous radiance was a magnificent winged creature. The demon sneered at the seraph and advised it to depart from this place. The seraph would not be commanded and in a strident tone made the demon take heed, “I shall not take orders from a son of Lucifer. But you shall regard the discourse of a son of God. This Simple Man has crossed over and shall come with me.”

The demon cackled in amusement at the words of the seraph and responded, “You shall be taking nothing back with you, seraph. This man entered a coma polluted with miasma, and now he has expired without becoming cleansed from the taint. He is our property now.”

The seraph spoke for the final time, “He is no longer tainted. His decision to arrive in this world after his previous reverie was seen as a self-sacrificing act and thus he has redeemed himself from his preceding taint.”

“You will not interfere with me,” the demon screeched as it seized a dagger, as if to clash with both the Simple Man and the seraph. The reaction of the seraph was not one of words, but feat. It held its hand up to the demon and it was halted in time. The seraph took the Simple Man in arms from where he was suspended in agony. He opened his eyes as the seraph spread its glorious wings. The seraph smiled at him, as if to tell him nothing would be trouble him again. And as the two of them ascended from the calamity of Hell into a realm of radiance and splendor, a smile was upon the face of the man, who was no longer simple, but knowledgeable of life and death.

In the arms of the seraph, the man was reunited with his merciful love.