God

Sebastian Gloom
Part Eighteen

All around him were globes of light, thousands of them. Soft and wispy around the edges as if they were made of luminous smoke, but with a brighter core that flickered and danced like a candle flame in a breeze. All different, all with a slightly different mix of colours and internal structures, strands of light branching and connecting like impossibly intricate spiderwebs. Souls, thought Gloom. That's what souls truly look like, when all the illusions have been stripped away.
Looking at all the souls around him, he was somehow able to get an impression of their characters and personalities, similar to the way that pieces of music could sound sad or happy, peaceful or angry. Mostly there was anger around him, he saw. Righteous anger in some, outraged anger in others. There was also fear, though, particularly among the defenders ahead of him, as well as surprise and uncertainty. Among the damned souls behind him he saw outrage and betrayal at the sight of their leader enjoying the peaceful company of their enemies. He saw the fear that Lucifer was about to give away everything they'd gained, that the purpose of the whole war had been to benefit him in some way. Everything they said about him is true, he saw them thinking. He deceived us all!
The biggest surprise, though, came when he looked at the two Archangels standing ahead of them. The hideous demon and the glorious angel were gone, and in their place were two souls, differing from human souls only in being far larger and more powerful. Humans and angels were the same, he now saw. Differing only in magnitude, the same way that a candle flame is the same phenomenon as a forest fire.
In Lucifer he mainly saw vast relief, the relaxation of great tension now that things were turning out the way he’d hoped. Whether that was good or bad for mankind, he couldn't say. He was encouraged to also see a willingness to speak truth to power, though, and that could only be a good thing. In Gabriel he saw determination, the firm resolve that the situation would not deteriorate any more than it already had. Gabriel was acting out of a motive of damage control, he saw. He hadn't come around to Lucifer’s way of thinking, whatever that was. He had simply decided that returning things to the way they had been was not an option, and that, reluctantly, a new balance had to be found. Looking up at the other two archangels circling above he saw the same thing, except that he thought one of them was happier about it than the other. Was that Michael? he wondered. Relieved that he no longer had to try to defend God's excesses? At the moment he could only speculate.
He looked at Benson and Nacoma, and found that he was somehow able to pick then out from the others. The patterns of light of which they were composed were as familiar to him as if he'd been able to see them this way all the time. He felt a great wash of warmth and affection at the courage and loyalty he saw in his former manservant, and in the Cherokee he saw such compassion and mercy that he once again felt a great surge of anger towards God that he would dare to damn such a man.
“Did it work?” asked Benson, seeing the look of wonder in his friend's face. “You did It! What's it like? What do you see?”
Before Gloom could answer, though, Gabriel spoke, and his voice was so powerful that it was heard by every soul in Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. If he'd wanted, he could have made himself heard on Earth as well. That was the purpose for which he had been created, after all. To be God's messenger, to deliver His proclamations. Now, though, he was delivering a proclamation of his own, one that would almost certainly not be pleasing to God.
“The war is over,” the archangel declared. “We have reached an understanding with Lucifer and the other rebel leaders.”
“We're not going back to Hell!” cried one of the damned souls angrily. Others shouted their agreement and a great roar of protest rose from the invading army.
“Some will go back to Hell,” replied Lucifer. His voice didn't have the same ability to travel to all parts of creation, but it was heard by every member of the invading army. “An agreement has been reached...”
The roar of protest rose even higher and the damned souls surged forward angrily, but the other two Archangels dropped to swoop low over the human souls and the invaders ducked to avoid their speeding wingtips. Cries of anger followed them as they returned to their places, circling high overhead, but then the damned souls fell into a sullen, angry silence as they waited for their leader to speak again.
“We have achieved what we set out to achieve,” said Lucifer. “Those who have been unjustly damned will be granted leave to remain in Heaven. The injustice which has angered us for so long will be corrected.”
“And who decides who’s been unjustly damned?” another human soul demanded.
“Let him speak!” demanded Gabriel. “All will be explained, but he must be allowed to speak without interruption.”
“We will hear nothing from the Father of Lies!” declared one of the popes. “His very presence in this holy place is a...”
“Silence!” roared Gabriel, a command that hit the entire mass of souls like a thunderclap, and the pope fell silent, staring in astonishment. “You can disbelieve, you can condemn, but first you will listen!” The archangel looked around at all the human souls, damned and blessed alike, and nodded in satisfaction when no other voices were raised. He gestured for Lucifer to continue.
“Every soul will be judged again,” said Lucifer. “Human and angel alike. Their previous judgement by God will be set aside. Everyone, myself and the other Archangels included, will be judged by our actions only, whether those actions took place on Earth, Heaven, Hell, Limbo or Purgatory. Religious beliefs and other internal mental states will be considered irrelevant. Those whose actions are judged to have been good will be granted leave to remain in Heaven. Those judged to have committed crimes will be sent to Hell, even if they were previously denizens of Heaven.”
“Judged by who?” demanded someone.
“By us,” replied Lucifer. “By the eight archangels. Even if one or more of us is judged by the others to be deserving of Hell, he will remain a member of the Tribunal of Archangels.”
“We won’t go!” someone shouted defiantly. “You can't make us! We've proved that!”
“Those judged to be deserving of Hell will go,” replied Lucifer. “The majority of angels, including those wrongly called fallen, agree to this.” He pointed behind the mass of damned souls, where thousands of angels and demons, no longer grappling with each other, were assembling. “You stormed Heaven with the assistance of rebel angels. The majority of those angels have agreed to enforce our judgement. Those who have not shall join the damned human souls in Hell until their sentence is complete.”
“Their sentence?”
“Hell will no longer be for all eternity. It will become a place of confinement and rehabilitation, as well as punishment. When we judge that a soul has been punished enough and is fit to rejoin the community of Heaven, he will be released. We foresee a time when Hell will be entirely empty and can be turned to another use.”
“And what does God say about all this?” asked one of the saints. Gloom thought it was Mercurius, newly healed and back in one piece, but he couldn't be certain.
“God will abide by our decision,” said Gabriel.
“God does not abide!” cried Mercurius furiously. “He commands, and we obey! He will send every single angel to Hell if you defy him! He is God! You are not!”
“God is no longer what He once was,” said Gabriel. He indicated the popes and the eldest of the blessed souls. “They know the truth, and they have concealed it from you. It is now time for everyone to see what He has become.”
“No!” cried one of the popes, though. “Have mercy! His dignity is all He has left!”
The comment brought a flurry of astonished murmuring from the assembled souls, damned and blessed alike, and Lucifer raised his hands until it subsided. “It cannot be avoided,” he said, “but we will endeavour to preserve His dignity as far as possible. No matter what He has become, He remains the creator of us all. He has earned our gratitude for that.” He and Gabriel turned to face the Throne of God, and the Catholic dignitaries reluctantly made way for them.
Gloom and his friends were near the front of the mass of damned souls, and the investigator tried to explain to them what he was ‘seeing’ with his newly discovered soul senses. “The dazzling bright glow that surrounded the Throne has gone,” he said.
“Really?” said Benson, shading his eyes with his hand. “Looks like staring into the sun to me.”
“The light is an illusion. There is a glow, but it’s dull, like the last embers of a dying fire. It's vast, though! When it was in full flame it must have been...” His voice trailed off as he struggled and failed to find the words to describe what the full glory of God must have been like, back in the days of Genesis.
Lucifer and Gabriel climbed the steps to enter the presence of God. To the majority of souls behind them, they appeared to vanish into the glory of the being that sat there, the titanic being whose knees were three times higher than the heads of the archangels, who were themselves gigantic compared to the human souls. They saw God looking down at them like a giant looking down at a pair of beetles, but then Lucifer spoke a word and the illusion vanished, to be replaced by a new one.
It was also an illusion, but it more accurately reflected the truth of what Gloom was seeing. Instead of a glorious giant, a wizened old man sat on a much smaller throne. A man with sagging skin loosely draped across crumbling bones. A man with trembling lips, black gums and watery eyes. He leaned forward on the throne to glare at his visitors with fury. “My beloved children!” he spat. “So loving, so loyal.”
“I never stopped loving you, father,” said Lucifer. “Even when you revealed your plan for creation, I never stopped loving you.”
“Liar!” roared Jehovah, half rising from the Throne and pointing a bony finger accusingly. “Father if lies! Traitor! Ungrateful wretch! You could have had everything! You could have sat at my right hand side! You turned against me!”
“I couldn’t stand by and watch while you caused so much pain and misery...”
“You dare to judge me? You dare!” He reached out towards the fallen angel, but the effort proved too much and he collapsed back into the throne with a soft gasp of exhaustion. “Michael!” he cried. Tauron! Dragamac! Throw him back into Hell!”
“Your excesses have proven too much for all but your most fanatical followers,” said Lucifer sadly. “You made the mistake of creating us with too much empathy and moral rectitude. They will aid and abet your crimes no longer.”
“Liar!” cried Jehovah again. He looked up, to where Michael and Sarakiel were still circling. “Throw him back into Hell!” he commanded again. “Obey me!” Gloom saw a guilty look appear on Michael’s face, but the archangel made no move to obey. “Traitors! You shall share the flames! Who is still loyal to me? Step forward those who are still loyal!”
The blessed souls pressed forward, but Gabriel barred their way, brandishing a sword that crackled with lighting along its blade. He swung it and a dozen souls were blasted to fragments with a clap of thunder that threw the others back in fear and confusion. “Only zealots and those too blinded by faith still worship you,” said Lucifer. “Did you think you could reign with such malice and cruelty for ever? Did you think we would never grow sick of the sounds of suffering? It's over, father. There has to be justice and mercy. If you will not provide it, then we will.”
“Justice?” laughed Jehovah. “You betray me and then dare to speak of justice? I created them! I created all of you! That gives me the right to treat you however I want!”
“No, it doesn't!”
“I am God! I created you to worship me! Anyone who doesn't must be punished! If everyone praised me there would have been no need for punishment! Do you think I enjoy hurting people? I grieve every time I send a soul to Hell...”
“But it doesn't stop you doing it! You can't bully people into loving you, don't you understand that?”
“I am God! It is not for you to question me! Your place is simply to obey! Obey and worship! That is the purpose for which I created you! Worship me, I command it!” He pointed a finger at Lucifer and a small crackle of electricity danced on his cracked fingernail, but then he collapsed in exhaustion again, breathing heavily.
Lucifer stepped closer and reached down to take his hand, but God snatched it away. “You take advantage of me in my weakness!” Jehovah accused. “What kind of ungrateful wretch are you? Shame upon you, Lucifer! I had such hopes for you. You were the first thing I ever created, I put so much of myself into you. You were to have been the lead voice in the great hymn of praise sung by all creation! It would have been glorious!”
“You never understood, did you? You can't command people to praise you! People might choose to praise you because you’re wonderful, but first you have to actually be wonderful!”
“I am God!”
“You are a cruel tyrant, and now your reign is over. We will always revere you as our creator. People down on Earth will still worship you if they choose to do so, but there will be no punishment for those who choose not to do so. Worship must be given freely, or it means nothing!”
“They must all worship me! All of them! I command you to worship me!” He raised his voice to address all the human souls gathered around him. “Worship me! I command you to worship me!”
A stunned, awkward silence had fallen among the assembled souls. No-one dared speak. Even the cruellest, most evil of the damned souls shuffled with embarrassment. “Worship me!” demanded Jehovah again, tears of impotent fury running from his eyes. “I created you! You must worship me! I am God! I am God! I am God!”
Lucifer turned away from his creator, still ranting and raving behind him, and faced the assembled souls again. “Now you know the truth of God,” he said. “Who still thinks he is worthy to rule creation?”
“It is not for us to judge God!” cried one of the blessed souls, but it was just one voice and followed by an uncomfortable, embarrassed silence. “God imposed His will upon His creation because He had such power that no-one could oppose Him,” continued Lucifer, “but almost all of that power is now gone. Used up in the glory days of his youth. Now He is nothing more than a shadow of what He once was.”
“No wonder It’s been so long since He performed any miracles,” said Gloom sadly. “Is He just going to go on declining, do you think?” Benson had no answer and just looked immeasurably sad.
“He has to be punished!” one of the damned souls shouted. “All those centuries I spent in Hell, He has to answer for them!” Many others added their voices in agreement.
Lucifer opened his mouth to answer, but Nacoma jumped in first. “What would be the point?” He demanded as Lucifer stared at him in surprise. “Will punishing Him wipe out the memories of Hell? Would throwing Him into the fire give you those centuries back? What is a handful of centuries anyway? We have eternity ahead of us!” Gloom frowned at that. His friend still hadn’t come to understand the horrors of eternity that waited for them.
“Isn't it enough that we’ve escaped Hell?” continued Nacoma. “Our revenge is to live full, happy lives here, in Heaven...”
“I burned for centuries!” the other man replied angrily. “I did nothing to deserve that...”
“Neither did I! I was a healer. I dedicated my life to helping others. I was sentenced to Hell for practising the religion of my ancestors. If I can forgive that, if I can let go of that, so can you!”
Few people agreed with him, though, or of they did their voices were drowned out by the vast majority howling for God to be punished. “My wife was sent to Hell!” one man shouted.
“My son!” shouted another. “All he did was steal some money!”
The damned souls surged forward again, as if they would drag God off His throne and hang Him from a tree, and remembering how just a few thousand of them had swarmed over Netzach and pinned him down, Gloom wasn't sure that a billion of them were unequal to the task. The blessed souls surged in to cut them off in an attempt to protect God, and Lucifer and Gabriel had to step in between them. “Enough!” roared Gabriel, his voice once again hitting them like a sledgehammer and stunning them into silence.
“There will be no revenge against God,” the archangel continued. “That is part of the agreement we have with the rebels.” He looked at Lucifer, who nodded. “Without that agreement there would be no peace, so you will accept it and be glad that the wrongly damned will be reprieved. Anyone who defies us will be punished. Hell still waits for those who defy the Tribunal.”
Some angry muttering still came from the damned souls, but for the most part they reluctantly accepted what the archangel had said. “The second judgement will begin immediately,” Gabriel then said. “Disperse across Heaven. An angel will find you when it is your time to be judged.” He turned to Lucifer. “I think we shall judge you first,” he said.
“Agreed.” A flight of large, powerful angels then moved in to take over the task of guarding Jehovah while Lucifer and Gabriel spread their wings and returned to the sky. The four archangels then flew off in formation to where the Tribunal of Archangels would have their headquarters, somewhere to the south. A loud hubbub of a thousand conversations broke out among the massed souls as they watched them shrink into the distance and vanish, and then the crowd broke up into millions of small groups, all talking over everything they'd just heard.
“Looks like we're done here,” said Gloom. “Shall we make our way to a less crowded place where we can be a little more comfortable?” Benson and Nacoma grinned their agreement and they started pushing their way through the crowd, away from the Throne of God.

☆☆☆

“I've been thinking,” said Gloom some time later.
The three men were sitting in comfortable padded leather armchairs in the drawing room of a large mansion that resembled the museum Gloom had once lived in. One wall was lined with bookshelves containing the greatest works of wisdom and literature in history, while the other walls held portraits of the historical figures Gloom admired the most, some of whom he'd actually met. A large log fire crackled contentedly behind an iron grate, throwing out the occasional spark and glowing ember to die on the stone hearth. Some logs lay beside it, drying out even though the fire would burn forever. Turning the charred logs with the soot stained poker was entirely unnecessary, but Gloom did it anyway every now and then, simply because it pleased him to do so. The whole thing was an illusion, of course. It had taken them very little time to learn how to create their own illusions, under the tutelage of older souls who'd been in Heaven for far longer than them, but the fact that it was an illusion didn’t make it feel any less comfortable and welcoming.
“What about?” asked Benson, swirling a half inch of brandy around in a large, wide bottomed snifter. He took a sip, savouring the delicate sweetness of it. He'd never had occasion to taste brandy in life, and was doing his best to make up for it in the afterlife.
“Where did God come from, do you think?”
“It was my understanding that He has always existed,” replied his former manservant.
“Yes, but that answer bothers me a little. He existed for eternity, doing nothing, and then, one day, he suddenly sits up and decides to create the world. Why? What changed?”
“When I asked a missionary that question, he said that He spent the time creating inventive punishments for people who ask awkward questions,” said Nacoma. He was dressed in the traditional garb of his folk, the colourful ribbon shirt and turban somehow not looking the least bit out of place in the modern English drawing room. The Cherokee and a small group of his people had their own village not far away where they enjoyed their traditional lifestyle, but he liked to visit his friends every so often, as well as many other friends from other lands and other ages of history.
Gloom laughed. “Yes, they really hate people who ask logical questions. I had a somewhat similar experience, which was what started me on the whole anti-Christianity thing.”
“So what’s your answer?” asked Benson.
“I don't have one. Just speculations. Possibilities. I asked one of the senior angels a while back, and he wasn’t able to answer either.”
“You could ask God Himself, perhaps,” suggested the former manservant. “I understand they're letting Him have visitors now. Under supervision, of course.”
“Maybe, but I have a suspicion that He Himself doesn't know where He came from.”
“So what possibilities and speculations have you come up with?”
“We’ll, the most plausible explanation I can come up with is that he just popped into existence one day.”
“Out of nothing?”
“Out of chaos. Chaos is, by its very nature, totally unpredictable. It can do anything, and sooner or later it will. Maybe a patch of chaos just turned into God one day, just by chance. It's possible that even God Himself doesn't remember it happening. One day He was just there, with no memory of where He had come from, and immediately started creating things.”
“It's an interesting idea, said Benson. He took another sip of brandy and then willed another half inch of the golden liquid into the snifter.
“It’s more than interesting, because if it happened once...”
Benson and Nacoma both looked up sharply. “Great spirits above!” said the Cherokee. “It could happen again?”
“Maybe it has already happened, somewhere else out there.” Gloom waved a hand to indicate the infinite expanse of chaos that surrounded the universe on all sides. “And not just once. Maybe many times. There could be dozens of other universes out there, all ruled over by their own gods. Hundreds even. Who knows? All waiting to be discovered...”
“Discovered? But It’s not possible to travel through the Chaos!”
“How do you know? Has anyone ever tried?”
Benson and Nacoma stared at each other. “You'd need some kind of ship,” said the former manservant. “A real one. An illusion wouldn't do, you'd need something solid, something real. We're just spirits. We can only create illusions.”
Back in our investigating days, we heard tales of many spirits that can manipulate solid objects. The case of the Bradford poltergeist, for example, who kept rearranging the furniture in the Swallow family's house. We would need to manipulate matter in a much more intricate and extensive way, but the fact that it can be done at all, no matter in what minor, trivial ways, proves that it’s possible.”
“It would take, God, centuries probably to learn how to do it, assuming we can do it at all!”
“So what? We've got eternity. Remember?”
“Yes, and we'll need something to occupy our minds before the tedium of eternal bliss drives us totally insane.”
Gloom stared at him in astonishment. “So you know about that?” he said. “The ultimate crisis of banality that awaits all immortal beings? When everything’s been done to death and there's nothing new to do, ever again?”
“So that’s what's been bothering you!” laughed Benson. “Surely the final tedium of eternity is obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than a couple of minutes. Even exploring the vastness of chaos for new universes will only put it off for a bit. I suspect the only escape is the one God seems to have found, to just slip away into dreams and unreality. Eternal senility.”
“I've been trying to protect you from it,” laughed Gloom. “I didn't want the ultimate fate of all immortal beings to detract from your happiness now. I should have known you'd figure it out for yourself. Forgive me, my friend, for underestimating you.”
Nacoma was frowning thoughtfully. “You'd need some way to get through the outer shell that surrounds the universe. Are there any openings in it? If not, would it be possible to create an opening?”
“And would it be safe to do so?” added Benson. “We might allow the chaos in, to the ruin of everything!”
“And if you did somehow build a ship and get it outside the universe, you’d need some way to navigate through the chaos. You might get lost out there, with no way to find your way home.”
“These are all problems that would need to be solved,” agreed Gloom. “Fortunately, we have all eternity in which to solve them. What do you say, Benson? Fancy a project you can really get your teeth into?”
Benson grinned. “I'll help you build your ship, Sebastian, and when it’s built I'll sail on it with you. We'll explore the chaos together!”
“And me as well!” agreed Nacoma. “And there are others who'll want to go, I know it!”
“Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” said Gloom though. “We don't even know if It’s possible yet. There might be a thousand reasons why it can’t be done. We’d need to go back to Earth, for instance, because that’s the only place where we can get real building materials...” The three men lost themselves in conversation, and the great ship of the Chaos gradually took shape in their minds.

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