Purgatory

Samuel gets shot down and confronts life's mystery in a barren desert.

Samuel blew threw the merge, unhesitatingly pulling and jerking his gun towards the black cross. The sound of bullets formed a cacophony in the humid summer air. The peripheries of his conscious began to fill with smoke until the sensation overcame the core of his being. For a period of time that could only be measured as an eternity he was blissfully unaware of the fate that awaited him. His ego denied the defeat and slowed time down infinitely, until suddenly out of the void an explosion as big as the big bang rushed his fragile body. He miraculously reflexed his hand onto the eject button which simultaneously sent him flying away from the fireball that was engulfing him. After another eternity he felt his parachute expand above him and he calmly fell to the ground. He struck the ground with a rough force that shocked him. He slowly stumbled on all fours and beheld all around him a vast and endless desert. There was so little reality in the situation that his mind could not absorb it. His mind had just experienced the simultaneous feeling of eternity and the smallest fraction of a second in the same frame of reference. He was in an eternal desert and he was utterly…hopeless.

As the shock began to wear off he realized the logical damnation of his situation. His plane along with his emergency supplies had been annihilated and he walked barren through an endless desert. He thrust his weak and shock-ridden body to the ground and attempted to fall into a deep sleep. As he was losing his grip on consciousness a voice beckoned him; in no particular direction did this voice arise from but nevertheless it beckoned him. The faint voice exclaimed 

“Where is your God now?”. 

He looked up and a sand colored man wearing a sand colored turban with a sardonic smile stared at him curiously. His long eyelashes had a calming effect on Samuel. And Samuel, for some mysterious reason felt no shock at the absurd situation. He answered slowly 

“Who are you?”

The mysterious man in the desert replied

“I am”

Samuel returned this statement with a puzzled glare and awkwardly questioned 

“How did you get here?”

The mystery man replied

“The same way you got here, I filled a void with the space of my existence…For no apparent reason”

At this point Samuel did not know how to reply to such a strange statement, he only sat down and dejectedly stared out into the desert.

The strange man began to speak again

“Christ lie dead for three days before he decided to wake up, why do you think he waited that long, he could’ve simply died for a less than a second and arose a split second after death and would’ve had the same effect. Instead he waited so long that even the most delusional gave up all hope. What a fool! An all powerful deity created such an absurdity that he defied the very fabric of the human mind that he set up. What an epic insult. If God, in the broadest sense possible, set up the universe with a particular set of laws and defied them so throughly, then it would seem as if God is perhaps the epitome of self hatred. Perhaps the irony of existence is the small and narrow path that Christ spoke of is suicide. Self hatred is the pinnacle of spirituality!”

Samuel pondered these words and in the depths of his soul he toiled over these thoughts.

The strange man after pausing for a response from Samuel spoke again

“Lets bring our attention East. The ideal of Hindu spirituality is a state that resembles death. While the Hindus are not as explicit, the Buddhist took the ideology to its logical conclusion with the idea of Nirvana. Nirvana is a suicide without violence, it is such a compelling denial of reality that it brings upon death without a struggle. Maybe acknowledging the greatness of death is the purest form of worship. Suicide of the flesh is cowardly because suicide struggles against a mind raging to survive; Suicide is violent because there is a struggle because the “instincts” are trying to survive while the spirit is craving death. In Nirvana perfection has become apparent because the mind has subdued the entirety of the the self into death. This is beautiful because it is the quintessence of perfection.”

Out of Samuel’s dehydrated mind a thought raged and he exclaimed

“Why is there existence, if existence is inherently evil!”

The stranger’s smile became more apparent and with a clever tone of voice stated 

“Existence is the fall from grace”

He paused triumphantly

“Heaven was void of existence. It was eternity in an infinitesimally short period. It was every contradiction possible while simultaneously containing not a single contradiction. It was a paradox that was a paradox because it wasn’t a paradox. It was a paradox only because we are now talking about it. Human existence utterly corrupted.

Samuel thought deeply and asked

“I don’t understand how this state of perfection was interrupted it seems impossible in the strictest sense of the word”

Stranger replied quickly

“The soul of humanity is so stubborn because in brooding its own inferiority it invented existence. Humanity willed itself out of a void with a jealous passion. It wanted to be despite the indissoluble impossibility. It defied all there is to defy and became without substance to become about. It was a miracle of sheer stubbornness”

Samuel, like any human did not understand but strangely felt inspired, he said vibrantly

“Humanity created itself and not God. It sounds like Nothingness or God resisted creation but humanity, consciousness, all that exist choose to be against God’s will”

The stranger’s smile faded away and a stern expression washed over his face

“You may have won for yet a moment but eternity belongs to God”

As the stranger spoke these words Samuel slowly fell to the ground and melted into the sands of the desert.