Heaven and Hell (46 page)

Abaddon stretched out his hand to the microcosm of life. “So little remained of the chain of life of this world by the time I arrived. I searched far and wide, salvaged what I could, nurtured it, preserved it in this place. I saved many species from certain extinction. And I had help in this task, the help of human hands. Come.”

The two continued through the subterranean oasis of life. Here and there, Serena caught a glimpse of animal life that Abaddon had managed to preserve—a caterpillar scurried along a leaf, a small lizard watched from the shadows, even a yellow-winged butterfly flittered between orange and gold flowers. How precious each one seemed now.

“This was a natural cavern when I first found it,” said Abaddon. “It is the very reason I settled here. It was lifeless, and yet it offered protection from the elements that were growing ever more hostile to life. It was isolated, foreboding, and far from the center of satan’s power. It was the perfect place to establish this preserve, as the rains were growing more acidic, extinguishing the last traces of life upon this rock. It is so much easier to destroy than to create, wouldn’t you agree?”

Serena nodded her head. Her heart was too full of emotion to allow utterance. What was welling up within her? Did she recall it from her days on the green Earth? Yes, it was joy, an emotion all but forgotten in the dark pits of Hell. It was the joy she had felt witnessing the rising of the sun and strolling through a cool dew-laden forest. It all came back to her in this place. She understood why Abaddon had sought to preserve it.

“Life is the most precious thing that the universe has to offer,” continued the dark angel, gazing at his small green world. “It is only in this age that humankind is beginning to understand just how rare life is in the cosmos. For that reason, I brought the fading spark of life in here, where it could be preserved and nurtured.”

“It’s a miracle!” Serena said joyfully.

Abaddon shook his head sadly, and placed a gentle arm around her. “A miracle? Perhaps it is. It is the last good deed of a proud fallen angel. Oh, Serena, if only I had a second chance, an opportunity to undo some of the crimes I have committed against God and humans; but it is far too late now. Both of us have missed our last opportunity at redemption. Yet, we still dream of it, don’t we? The hearts of all of satan’s minions are cold and dead. And yet ours still beat. That makes us a threat.”

They moved on. Near the center of the oasis was a small vegetable garden, its green flora in neat orderly rows. Serena scanned the array of plant life carefully. Some of the species looked familiar.

Abaddon directed Serena’s attention to other parts of the garden. “My own version of the earthly tomato, carrot, lettuce, and onion. It took a long time for me to develop them. After all, I lack the skills of the Father in such matters. But I am getting better at it. I developed them from the local flora. However, I think that you will find their taste remarkably similar to the real thing. They are yours to eat and cultivate. It will give you something meaningful to do here. It will take your mind away from the loss of the Father’s Kingdom, at least for a time. To till the soil in the depths of a cave, to be the caretaker of the last bastion of life on this forgotten world, this shall be your fate. Perhaps, it is not such a terrible fate. It is certainly preferable to the one you were facing a few days ago.”

Serena was overwhelmed by a revelation. What had happened to her in the past day could be nothing less than divine providence. Perhaps God was still watching over her, even here. Somehow she had been given a new life. Among the billions of suffering souls, she had found rest.

“At one time, this garden was considerably larger, tilled by five of your kind. They were my family.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand,” admitted Serena.

“It is not so complicated,” Abaddon said. “I thought you would have figured it out by now. After I arrived here and established this place, I vowed to find the humans I had seduced and misled, at least some of them. I wanted to save them from satan’s wrath. It was a daunting task, and it took a very long time, but I eventually found five of them, even the one with whom I shared an intimate relationship on Earth, my wife.

Now she knew me for what I truly was, a deceiver; a false god who had relegated her to the most terrible fate imaginable. I had much to answer for—much to ask for forgiveness for. She forgave me. Imagine that, even after all that I had done. Within her lived a spark of the Father’s love. I took her and the others away from their torments, tried to shield them from the horrors of this place, and for a time, many years, I did just that. They lived with me here. I was a guardian angel once again. I believe that I did it for myself as much as I did it for them, to ease my own guilt. We became a self-sufficient community, caring for one another, a family.”

Abaddon turned away quite abruptly. He leaned against a small tree nearby and said nothing for more than a minute.

“Abaddon?” said Serena, walking toward the distraught angel. She was shocked when he turned with tears in his eyes.

“We lived here for many years. Then satan discovered what I had done. He was enraged. With a score of his minions he burst into my domain, my oasis. He vowed to take my family away, sentence them to an even more awful fate than before. I stood in his way. I could do nothing less. I was created to be a warrior, far stronger than one of his kind—even stronger than he. I fought to defend my family, fought with all of my strength. My human family fought by my side, fought for their very eternity. For a brief time we held them at bay. But there were too many of them.”

“In the end, his minions took them away. Then they turned to me. Satan spoke of exacting his revenge upon the destroyer. I will not go into the details of what they put me through in the months that followed. Suffice it to say that I can, in some measure, understand the suffering of humans in this place. When it was done, I was warned to never again cheat satan, to never again rescue one of the lost, and I didn’t—until now. That is why I was so suspicious of you when you arrived here. I thought that satan had sent you to bait me into a trap he had prepared for me. I realize now that is not the case.”

Serena placed her hand on the dark angel’s shoulder, “I can’t believe that all that has happened to us is an accident…can you?”

Abaddon looked into Serena’s eyes. “I cannot be certain. Perhaps my heart has become too hardened to sense the presence of the Father’s hand. Nonetheless, my mind is made up; you shall dwell with me. If we are discovered, understand, I will say that you are but a play thing to me, the subject of my amusement. Your life free of pain will be at an end.”

“I understand,” Serena said. “I’ll do everything I can to make your story believable if that ever happens.” Serena paused for a moment. “How often do you have visitors? I mean, how often does satan check up on you?”

“Not often anymore,” Abaddon said. “It has been over a hundred years. I leave him alone, he leaves me alone.”

“Then we might be OK.”

“Perhaps, but satan took an interest in you during your sentencing,” continued Abaddon. “The day might arrive when you come to his remembrance once more. He might seek you out to see how poorly you have fared. I shall endeavor to shield you from his sight, yet if he does search for you, he will surely come here. I hope that day never comes.”

Serena nodded. She was, after all, not out of the woods yet. She was still in satan’s domain, and this might well be only a temporary reprieve.

The two walked back to the main chamber where they sat in each other’s company and talked. Serena spoke of her life on Earth for hours, of her hopes and dreams. Abaddon was interested in all that she had to say. For the first time in centuries, he had someone to talk with; he couldn’t have been happier. Yet more importantly, he had someone to protect, someone who depended on him. No, he wouldn’t allow satan to take her back, regardless of what he had told Serena openly, he would be her guardian angel from this day forward.

C
HRIS and Johann stepped from the front door of his mansion and into a small meadow of yellow flowers mixed between large blue-gray boulders. The meadow was surrounded by a tall and imposing forest of large, stately conifers. It was late in the day, and the sun had already dropped below the boughs of the great stand of trees to their left. A cool breeze blew from the forest, carrying with it the wonderful and very unmistakable odor of pine.

“I’ve always enjoyed my seclusion,” Johann said. “It’s not that I don’t like people, but I like my space. It gives me time to think, to contemplate creation.”

Chris nodded, gazing at the sylvan setting. He looked back at Johann’s house. He really hadn’t noticed anything about it when they had arrived. Actually, he hadn’t recalled the arrival at all. Kepler’s house reminded him of the sort of quaint architecture he had seen in travel shows about central Europe and the Alps. The home was of stout wooden construction, painted white, with a very steep roof and a stone chimney. The large ornate windows had wooden shutters that could be closed against the winds of winter or opened to the summer breezes. Chris wondered if this region of Heaven had four definite seasons.

“We had best be on our way,” Johann said. “We have much to accomplish today.”

The portal appeared rather abruptly before them and Chris followed Johann into it. They emerged at the very gates of Zion. Here, of course, it wasn’t early evening, but midday, as it always was.

“The city that never sleeps,” Chris thought, as the two hurried through the tall gates and into the city itself. He was both nervous and in a hurry. Would that they might have materialized directly in front of the Hall of Records itself, but that was not possible. Everyone had to enter the city on foot.

Under normal conditions, the journey through the city might have passed quickly, but not on this occasion. Time seemed to drag, and the journey to the Hall of Records seemed a very long one indeed. Johann wasn’t one for chit chat along the way either. He seemed deep in thought, and nothing around him seemed to disturb his quiet contemplation.

Chris was hesitant to interrupt him. Perhaps his mind was already working on a plan that could save the day. Yet Chris’s mind was still awash in emotion. He had so many more questions.

“How could Serena survive in the terrible heat of the sea of fire? I don’t understand. I was a health professional on Earth and have a pretty good understanding of the chemical and biological processes of life. Her blood must have been boiling in that horrible sea.”

Johann glanced briefly at his companion. “That sea of fire would elevate her blood somewhat beyond the boiling point of water, I’d expect.”

“OK, Then how could the hemoglobin in her blood carry oxygen at that temperature? Why wouldn’t her cells simply explode? She should be at least unconscious. Why does she just go on suffering?”

“You have much to learn about Heaven and Hell, my young friend,” Johann said, his gaze focused on the road ahead. “Your perception of reality is jaded by your lifetime of experiences on Earth and your own preconceived notion of reality. So it was in my time. In your era, the work of physicists like Einstein, Bohr, and Schroedinger have expanded those horizons somewhat; but the people of your time are still very shortsighted. The physical laws that govern Heaven and Hell are very different from those that hold sway in your world.” Johann paused for a moment. He really hadn’t wanted to become involved in this discussion right now. “I suppose you have seen the artisans that dwell here in the city, those who create physical works of art by simply envisioning them within their mind.”

“Yes,” Chris said.

“Surely, no such thing could be accomplished on Earth, would you not agree? It would violate several laws of physics or require vast amounts of focused energy to accomplish. Yet, with practice, these artisans make it look easy—how?”

Chris was stumped. He had seen these things done often. It had become almost commonplace to his heavenly experience. He’d come to accept it as a gift from God. “Are they using God’s own power to somehow manipulate matter, transmute it into new forms?”

“You are thinking in far too complex terms,” replied Johann. “Suppose I were to tell you that the reality you perceive here is shaped by God Himself. Both Heaven and Hell are spiritual realms, quite unlike the universe with which you are familiar.”

Chris looked around, felt the gentle breeze, saw the bright reflections from polished stone and glass, heard the sounds of Zion. “Spiritual realms? But it all seems so real. Are you telling me that all this around us isn’t real…that it’s some sort of mass hallucination?”

“No, of course not,” Johann said. “But it’s not the sort of reality you knew on Earth either. Understand, matter on Earth seemed solid. You could touch it, taste it, and feel comforted by its presence. Yet surely you realize that what you perceived as solid objects were mostly composed of empty space. Only one hundredth of one percent of anything was truly solid, the overall solidity of matter was an illusion, created by the fields of electrical force that surrounded protons and electrons.

“Yet to us it was no phantasm, no illusion, it was real because we all perceived it to be real. That is the true test of reality—perception. We are all spiritual beings here in Heaven. The Spirit of God gives us form and substance. God fashioned Heaven to take on a form similar to the Earth we left behind. He did this because He cares for us. Things may seem in many ways to be as they were on Earth. Yet I assure you, they are not. This in no way makes them less real, only different.