| 8. Night over Hell | | | | herself, her mind and body to do, for the moment and |
| The sky was now misty, blotched with orange and | | | | walked and walked and walked to where she found |
| purple mist, with holes in them, holes that filled the | | | | herself peeping at the gate, the very gate she was |
| weighty looking sky as if it was sinking. Cloud-vapors | | | | before at; how interesting she thought, to end up right |
| settling close overhead. This only made her feel lonelier, | | | | in front of it again, and there was Opiel: the |
| yet a moment of peace came with it. She pondered | | | | gatekeeper, she recognized him. Yes, yes, this was |
| on the old gossip everyone used to tell her: no one | | | | her gate she cried with a long, long sigh from her |
| goes to hell Alexandra. Or the other great philosophy: | | | | stomach. Then she looked again, and coming around |
| Alexandra, you should know better, there is no such | | | | the corner, the corner she had looked beyond once |
| thing as Hell. Everyone pretended to know God and | | | | which seemed a long time ago, and there was the tall |
| the Bible, and his ways, but no one could quote a | | | | Agaliarept: the man of secrets, and the one who could |
| scripture, only some cheap advice that happened to | | | | take them from you, yet he was only a tall man to her; |
| pop into their minds. Someone said: if God is good, he | | | | one that she knew, whose face was familiar. |
| wouldn't create a Hell, would he? I suppose one might | | | | Said he, with a smirk: |
| say: why wouldn't He. | | | | "Each day and each night is a year down here you |
| She used to think about that with a light touch, and say | | | | know, yes, you have been walking almost a year and |
| to herself: Why would everyone, no matter what they | | | | you stood still for almost a year thinking." |
| did, go to heaven? They don't deserve that either. | | | | His yellowish eyes almost froze her in place, but she |
| Thus, where would they go? It doesn't make sense, | | | | moved another foot closer. The closer she came, the |
| and then one has a license to kill by God if there was | | | | more red spots appeared on his face, like an anxiety |
| no hell or no reward if there was no heaven; do as | | | | attack, he was ecstatically angry, but trying to hold it--. |
| you please to his other creations. Alexandra, was no | | | | Why, why thought Alexandra, why should he be angry |
| perfect woman, but she wouldn't destroy a painting | | | | at her stepping forward. And she remembered what |
| she had made, and get mad if someone tried to do so. | | | | the young man said, |
| And if there is no heaven or hell, maybe there is no | | | | "Know what is before your face..." |
| earth either, and we're all just a dodging-illusion. Is not | | | | "Most people take advantage of the night, for day is |
| seeing believing and if so it is not too late to prove my | | | | when the yelling and the screaming, and the thinking |
| point; now why would some one teach me wrong? | | | | goes on," she shoved her spirit body another foot |
| Why not, misery like company, just add a little of: out | | | | forward. He was smoking a pipe, and almost choked |
| of sight, and out of mind to the salt, and you got a | | | | on the smoke as she had done that, meanwhile she |
| believer | | | | struggled with the forward thrust--but kept trying to |
| ...inconspicuous, she stepped over several people to | | | | push and push ahead she did. The tall man now was |
| make her break, her drive ahead, forward--, evidently | | | | staring at her intensively. |
| the only peace these people would get--she concluded | | | | "God gave me the right to be in the gate area, who |
| as she stepped over a few more souls that had piled | | | | are you to take it away? (She thought where in hells |
| onto one another, several high all around her, yet she | | | | name did this come from, my mouth?)" The tall man |
| found some empty spaces around to walk forward on | | | | now looked away; it was like he was pierced in the |
| and through [as she did anxiously]. Things seemed so | | | | heart. No one ever had spoken such way about God |
| different, perhaps she should had listened to the young | | | | in hell, or demanded their rights. |
| man at the home [so she pondered on as she | | | | "God indeed," he murmured, with his teeth clenched, |
| stepped over more bodies], perhaps just perhaps, but | | | | "why must you use his name here," and there he |
| again them were more 'iffing,' she concluded, and that | | | | pardoned her, allowing her to regain her rightful place. |
| would not do. Was she to become the savage and | | | | As bewildering as it was to be swiped away to the |
| carnivorous creature she saw, like her father? This | | | | Mass, it was likewise the same to be placed back into |
| was not in her veins. She pushed on, stepping over | | | | the Gateway City. |
| and around people: which was the job she had set | | | | |