Heaven is full of arseholes by C. Sean McGee

heaven is full of arseholes “an unconventional take on unconditional love” Copyright© Cian Sean McGee CSM Publishing Santo André, São Paulo, Brazil 2013 First edition All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, scanning or digital information storage and retrieval without permission from the author. He’s a nice guy, just ask, ISBN-13: 978-1482326116 ISBN-10: 1482326116 Cover Design: C. Sean McGee Interior layout: C. Sean McGee Author Foto: Carla Raiter

this short story was written under the iinﬂuence of: California by Mr. Bungle

“I’ve never felt so…” said The Headmaster, unable to finish her words. “We’re really sorry. He’s not usually like this, I promise. I‘m sure it’s just a phase he’s going through. He’s never done this kind of thing before, I swear” said The Mother, lying ingenuously and twisting a small, colored, cloth butterfly nervously between her fingers. “That is so true. Yes, a phase, that’s how we should look at this. Something he is transpiring. Something we are all going through I think, wouldn’t you say?” said The Therapist; her highly inflected nasal tone slapping at the decency of The Mother and The Father, sitting scolded by the spark of their son’s inner villain whilst resting against the subtle defense of the genuine goodness of a boy, who; through an Arctic stare, looked vacant and desponding at a small insect with a broken wing, hobbling on what could have been a crushed limb, up the length of the wall that divided the tense air between The Headmaster and The Therapist; the latter, dancing on tentative toes around the obvious truth that no amount of doing could ever undo the do that had already been done; this boy was seriously fucked up. “And what do you have to say?” asked The Headmaster in a tone that was less of a question and more of a prodding into an expected expressing of guilt, remorse or a simple apology. The Son said nothing. He continued watching the insect in its slowed ascent towards escape, hobbling up the limestone wall and sputtering about to the left and to the right; to and fro, like an old drunk staggering about in canting solace with his no change in his pockets, no thought in his mind and humming a tune to a song that he could not sing, as he strayed into the path of oncoming truck as suddenly a ruler smacked against the wall, crushing the small escaping insect and returning the boy to his state of discipline. 7

“Well, speak. Don’t make me look stupid. Answer the question? What do you have to say for yourself ? What were you thinking? You thought’ you’d get away with it? What did you think was going to happen?” said The Father. “Well?” asked The Headmaster. The Son started to drift away once again, his heart rate slowing with every long and drawn breath, filling and heavying his lungs like a bag of sand, pulling his consciousness overboard into an ocean of imagination. And before the currents could completely sweep his care away, he looked to The Therapist bemused. “I dunno, I was bored I guess,” he said. “You guess? It’s not a test. Tell her what she wants to hear” said The Father. “What?” “Say you’re sorry,” said The Mother. “Yes that would help,” said The Therapist. “Say you’re sorry,” said The Father. “Say you’re sorry,” said The Headmaster’s stern look. “Say you’re sorry,” said The Father again. “They’re right you know. Just say you’re sorry. It’ll all be better” said The Therapist, winking at The Son condescendingly as she spoke. “But I’m not sorry,” said The Son. “It doesn’t matter what you feel, it matters what you do and what you say, now do the right thing and say you’re sorry for everything you did,” said The Mother finally stepping out of her passive umbrage. “I’m sorry,” said The Son, falling flat against his own empty words, simply sounding them out like an ignorant tourist as if his heart and soul were not connected to their literal meanings. And when he spoke, nothing changed within himself; no remorse, no growth, no closer to the fidgety hand whose fingers tried precariously to curl against his own and canvass some affection and no closer to the ‘himself ’ that others were debating he be. “What now?” asked The Mother. “He did apologize.” 8

“That is so true,” said The Therapist winking at The Son condescendingly. “I’ll have to expel him. I have no option” said The Headmaster. “You can’t expel him. Just give him one more shot. I’ll speak to him. He won’t do this again, trust me” said The Father whitening his knuckles as his fingers clenched the rounded tip of the arm rest, his nails digging into the leather as the extent of his rage and disappointment was kept carefully detached from his words but The Son knew that when his father spoke, his lips would not move. “If I don’t expel him then what sort of example am I sending to the other kids? You saw what he did; there are videos of it circling around. Do you know how embarrassing this is for me?” said The Headmaster inviting a smear of shame across her cheek so as to make her point. “Look, I know what he did was wrong” “It was more than wrong,” said The Headmaster. “Oh definitely, worse than wrong, it was terrible, yes terrible that’s what it was,” said The Mother. “That is so true,” said The Therapist winking at The Mother condescendingly. “Ok, what he did, it was disgraceful. We don’t condone this sort of depravity and I am really sorry that we’re in this situation. Like I said, I’m not condoning what he did, but I think maybe there might be a more fitting punishment than expulsion. Are we really teaching him anything if he gets expelled?” asked The Father. “That is true,” said The Therapist winking at The Father suggestively. “And how do I know he’s not going to do something like this again?” asked The Headmaster. They all turned with pinioning stares, fixed on the boy who was slouched in his chair with his fingers tapping at the leather curve in the arm chair where on his own chair, his father had clawed. The Father’s eyes glowed and every part of him tried to be the dominating threat that he had been in the boy’s infancy when a 9

single glare was enough; like a boring drill into the earth, to extract a well of tears and a blubbering apology. Now that he was older, The Father’s stare couldn’t dig deep enough through his son’s rock of cynical expression and his glowing stare only sufficed in straining his eyes and scolding his own inner sanctum so that he in turn made himself the whipping boy of his own surmounting shame. “I can assure you” said The Father, lifting his heavy weighted stare so that the effect of his anger stowed like a heavy carriage upon the crux of The Headmaster’s attention, dressing every word in a disappointed veil, “if you can see it in your heart, in your intellectual restraint, if you can; this one time, overlook this stupid event from my son I, no we, and my son included, would be gratefully appreciative and I’m sure we can find some way to make it up to the school for being so… generous” he continued, engineering his words with careful consideration. “It seems a shame you know, to expel him, he is so smart,” said The Mother doting on an imagination. “That is so true,” said The Therapist winking condescendingly at The Son and again at The Mother before turning her emotive reference to The Headmaster who sat decided with her fingers firmly entwined in negated attention. “I have spoken to his teachers,” she said to The Headmaster, nodding distractingly, like the bobbing head of a new born child, “and you know, they all say that he has great potential. He’s a smart cookie” she said like any mother would to their entirely average child. “I’m sorry. My decision is made” said The Headmaster bluntly. “Please, you have to reconsider” pleaded The Father. The Headmaster seemed to address little concern to The Father’s plea. His words pulled on her empathetic string with the strength of a grain of sand holding back a hurricane. His look of desperation; which welled in his widening eyes, did little to erode her mount of humiliation that was invisible under the lathered mold of her unstrained expression; that sticks and stones stare of 10

a trained professional that she wore like her favorite blouse. She blinked once; clearing dust from her eye, as her hands delicately turned the notebook she had been guarding so that the a look of shock and dissenting dismay slapped The Father and The Mother affectionately across their unexpected faces, shortening their defenses like the creaking of footsteps on wooden boards would, to conspiring hands, busy, painting themselves red. The Therapist gulped and swallowed deep into her belly; into her special vault, the negation of human indecency, the wondering belief that people only dressed as monsters to survive the plight of monsters, that underneath, they were all innocent, merely the effect of scorned fragility and that this trembling innocence needed to be plucked from the darkness of one’s emotional and sentient abandon and loved so that it had no reason to fear and its fear would no longer boil at its core and serve to erupt in violent, anti-social depravity such as what played to her eyes on the screen now before her. “This poor boy” she thought to herself, wanting to unshackle The Son from the sweet affection of his growing insanity, imagining him as a small kitten, trapped deep in a well where only her kindness and her other perspective; the gift that god gave her, could help to pull this child out into the light so that the warmth of love and reason could once again wash the discontent from the pores of his skin and steady the shiver in his soul that trembled and quaked by the time it reached his devising hands, a cry of desperation that by the time it touched his tongue, sounded more like the howling of wolves. “So you see what I mean,” said The Headmaster, “I have no choice. His actions are beyond reproach. And this wasn’t the ﬁrst occasion either and it won’t be the last. Your son has made an art form of obscenity and I really worry where this will all end up. Who’s next and to what extent? He’s inhuman” said The Headmaster. “I agree,” said The Father, “but what can I do, he’s my son.”

As they left the school, the sound of their shuffling feet hollowed out the silence that canted from whispering tongues and spying eyes as all about them; like the final sprint of a marathon, students and teachers gathered and stood, holding their loud disapproving breaths so as not to expel themselves into the path of volatility as the three walked with their heads held high; bound in conscious blind, towards their waiting car with only The Father looking each and every person coldly in the eye, defending; not his son, but of his own reflection, leading castigating eyes to his intimidating, mastodonic size and away from the toxic lure of his poisoned fruit. “I honestly don’t know how much more I can take. I tell you, I’ve tried, I really did, but there has to come a point where you just stop trying, don’t you think?” said The Father, casting his disappointment onto The Son for being something for him to blame, the smoke unto which his eyes drew themselves out of warning but through which he could not see. In the backseat, The Mother was listening to every word but the meaning and hurt from which those words had gathered fell apart before the gentle swishing hairs in her ears could court with their song, so that all her mind could assume, was a strained mumble, a collection of sounds that brought her little sense so she simply stared out of the window in presentable dearth, still holding in her hand, the tiny colored butterfly, twisting it around her fingers and hearing only the sound of crumpling plastic as the toy twisted and turned. The Father too retired into his own detention, making himself a comfortable prisoner in his cerebral theatre where his mind pained him with portraits of young, happy girl, her fidgety hands pulling at and picking pieces of dirt out of her straw like, strawberry, blonde hair, her hazel eyes alive and magnetic, inviting him into dare; to cast of his ripened posture and be as a child, 12

eschewed from his instruments of work and buried like her, in the premise of game. Tears welled in his eyes as the young girl haunting his mind dove at his leg; clawing and climbing and pulling and drugging and begging and wanting and prying and crying and singing and shouting and willing out loud for daddy to play for a while. His hands clenched the wheel and his breath left the residence of his chest as a long debasing sigh taking part of his soul; the part that carried the face of the girl, out into the open air where it caught wind of its liberation and knew that for this, right now, he was not ready and as he inhaled; the sadness that cancered his hope and meaning, that hollowed out the tone in his voice that once shook with surmounting love, that very same breath he had willed to exude, came rushing back into his body, warming his faintly beating heart with a welcomed cordial depression. “You still blame me for what happened?” said The Son. “This is why you’re acting out? Because of what happened to your sister?” said The Father. “It wasn’t my fault or it was my fault; whatever but you can’t fucking treat me like this. It’s not fair. You’re so fucking quiet. Say something, anything” yelled The Son. “What do you want me to say? That it’s your fault? You should have been watching her? You shouldn’t have left her there all alone? What do you want me to fucking say?” screamed The Father; his knuckles glowing white as around his twisting ﬁngers, the raging blood that coursed from his spiting heart piled against his skin wanting to burst his ﬁst through something unbreakable. “You should have been there. You shouldn’t have left us alone. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my…” said The Son, his words trailing into audible absence, disappearing in the onset of The father’s conscious rage, like a grain of salt dropped into an ocean of water. What he wanted to say was that it was all his fault; and that he should rot in hell and suffer worse than what she suffered; and that he should feel the horrible hurt that only a father can feel when 13

he has no choice but to think these terrible things. He wanted to say “I hate you”, but all he could muster were the words to his favorite song. As the old rattling car rattled along the old winding road, its lights flickered intermitting. The smiling, young girl haunting The Father’s mind ran in the garden before him, looking over her shoulder as she ran towards a flaming house that was brighter than the sun, as fire ripped from its belly and blistered the weather boards, retching plumes of thick, choking, black smoke out of the windows and up into the air, making hostage of the sun and the blue sky. His sight was his beleaguered, crippled companion as before him, the smiling young girl waved her hands invitingly as she looked over her shoulder adoringly before running straight into the thick black plume of smoke and vanishing as a ball of fire swallowed the house, the air, his heart and her invitation. The Father breathed heavy again, spitting air like crumbs, picked from his nattering teeth. He looked with descending grace at his son who he saw only with the spark of villain, feinting behind a veil of remorse, in the stone of his eyes. The rattling car rattled some more and all The Father could think of was the smile on his daughter’s face and how each time that he imagined her, her image faded that little bit more. And the only image he could keep in his mind, the only one where the little girl smiled, was the horror that painted how the little girl died. The Father gripped the wheel. The Mother clung negating to the colored butterfly. And The Son stared at the skin on his arm. The tense air, piled upon The Father’s reserves, taking his reason and having him imagine; in the flicker of light, the abandon of everyone from their suffering. As The Mother started to weep, The Father hummed his favorite song, the words spitting from his mouth like rasps from the horseman’s whip but unfixed to The Son’s care as he held loosely to the wheel and stared absently out of the window, stretching his 14

soul out onto the white dotted line being crept upon but never over by the flickering beam of the old car’s headlights. The Mother wept some more, The Father heavied his hum and The Son, lost all control. “Shut up” he screamed and as he did, his voice cast out through the windscreen and travelled along the white dotted line that raced against the flickering light from the car’s closing eyes, trying to escape the deafening roar of what would be his last breath. In the wake of his words, a gentle swell of silence washed upon the frozen bodies of The Mother and The Father, whose sadness, disappointment and anger were spoken only of in ambushed fright as the air that swept through their mind; blowing out their conscious fuse like the call of sleep against an evening candle, travelled through and around their strangely contorting bodies, past their mouths agape, across their frozen stares and under the rattling body of the old car as it twisted and turned in midair, dancing with blind grace, into the arms of chance. The impact was quick. It was more of a sound than a feeling. It was the sound of closure. Of a turbulent moment, crushing to an end. The glass shattered and the air about them spun in circles. So fast that the trillions of little bits of glass, they hanged in the air before they fell all over them. And they looked more like rain than they did glass. Sure felt like glass, though. Nothing was said. Not a sound. Only the echo of The Son’s belligerent request that they all followed accordingly as the flickering lights on the old rattling car cast its stare in a way that a car should not, seeing the world from such a height that the ill of concern might address as amusing, flashing upon the branches of tree, at first on its side and then upside down and as they twisted and turned; watching the red beam of lights to their front, it looked as if the world were standing on its head, seeing existence through the spinning eye of a washing 15

machine. And the road went round and round The flashing lights went round and round. And the glass, it went round and round too. And then so did they. The Mother, though, she didn’t have a belt on. She went round and round the most. The rattling old car lead by flickering lights smashed into the bitumen, ending the flight of its pirouette through the still, dark night. The Mother screamed. It was loud, but it wasn’t as loud as the sound of metal twisting, ripping and folding around them as the car, caught in the spell of tragedy, flipped and rolled and smashed into a tree, hitting at first, the door where The Son was clinging to in despotic fright and then, like the closing arms of a lover’s embrace, folding around the tree so that the entire car ripped completely in two. Its engine tore from its mount and flung somewhere down the road into the stretch of flashing amber lights and horrified screams while The Mother was sent through a mesh of broken glass and into the quiet dark, somewhere far from where The Father laid, catching his last breaths under a heavenly stupor. The silence that threatened their ears was drowned only by the sound of their breathing as The Father and The Son gurgled on the long heavy breaths their bodies fought desperately to take. In the distance, the sound of panicked voices grew louder as more and more amber lights lit up the night sky but The Father could not tell their origin or the plight of their concern for he was entrenched in every breath, feeling his way in and out of his sunken lungs, the rattling old car like a rattling old cage, shaking his mind off its perch so that it laid with him, somewhere beneath the ruin of which he had no idea he was belonging to at this critical moment at the end of his life. “It should have been…” said The Son, his face masked in a thousand shards of broken glass, his left hand still clutching the handbrake and death, taking host in his bloodied body. “What have you done? You killed your mother and your 16

sister. What have you done?” said The Father hurtling every word from his heart. The Son took his final breath as The Father fought to build enough strength to find the boy’s hand and take it in his own but as he struggled to twitch his fingers; his ears were nursed with a defeated groan, an expelling of half a breath and then, immediate silence.

The Father seemed to lift through the wreckage like steam from an engine’s bonnet at the end of a long arduous drive on an icy cold eve. As he went with the currents of time; part of a billion particles sharing the work in assuming the bridge of his ascent from one life to the next, The Father looked down and saw a million lights flashing and hundreds of pressed people, rushing about with worry at the tips of their fingers and a seasoned dread in their hearts for their eyes were scorned with useless tragedy. He wondered to himself what all the commotion was about. They all looked so frantic, yet he was so far removed from the sting of their desperation. He simply watched the scene unfold like catching the tail of a foreign film; allowing his eyes to dress against the color and drama but understanding nothing of what had happened until this point, hearing nothing of what was being spoken and not knowing if while he was watching this play of light and sound, whether he should laugh out loud or cry sullenly. He saw; in the final flash of sight before his eyes were blinded white, the image of three black bags or what looked like, three black holes, haloed by a bright beam of light that emanated from a large van with flashing light and placed neatly on the road, side by side. Then a whiter white flooded his sight.

“Next” yelled a voice. “Next” it yelled again. “You. Move the line” the voice screamed, this time prodding a blunt object into the back of The Father’s neck sending him crashing to the ground. The Father squirmed on the ground, catching his breath before lifting his head. The blow reverberated through his body and shivered at his fingers. He had no idea where he was or what happened at all. All he had in his mind was the sound of his shouting voice, travelling out from his angered breath. It wasn’t the words that echoed, but the awkward stillness that sat in his throat, hollowed and uneven. It felt like a shadow that he was unwelcome to, a shiver he couldn’t shake. “Get up” yelled the voice that had knocked him to the floor. The Father lifted his sight. Everything around him was glowing white. It burned at first, but it was becoming clearer now as his eyes caught drift of shapes forming all around him. He wasn’t alone. He was in a line. Behind him, there were outlines of maybe hundreds of thousands of people and they all carried the same sense of disheveled conscious appreciation to where they were and what was happening. It was like everyone was waking from a dream to find themselves in a queue they couldn’t remember joining. But as he stretched his sight and wore out the sleep in his muscles; arching his back like a morning cat, he felt less estranged knowing he was sharing this sense of absence with someone else; a lot of someone else’s, all wiping their blinded eyes, slowly hobbling forwards towards a grand golden arch where at its feet sat a single grey table attended by a man with neatly combed hair kept under a grey wide brimmed generals hat with a symbol of an eagle sitting above a silver skull and adorned in a domineering grey and black fitted uniform that seemed to command adherence 19

to the finer detail of his pending rule. “Next” spoke the man in sitting at the grey table. The uniformed man hovering above The Father picked him up by his collar and shoved him forwards so that he collapsed at the foot of the table, just by the uniformed man’s feet. “Where am I? Where is my family? Who are you?’ asked The Father despondingly. “You are at the dispatch center, your family is fine and fair and faring well. Please tick the appropriate box” said that man at the grey table sliding a piece of paper to The Father. The Father took the pen he was handed and looked at the question. It was less of a question and more of a declaration. It had two words: I and God. And below it was three boxes and beside each box, a word. Beside the first box was the word ‘Fear’. Beside the second was the word ‘Love’ and beside the third was the word ‘Submit’. The Father looked at The Man with the Stamp confused. “I don’t get it,” said The Father despairingly. “If your belief is not listed, choose one that best fits your belief and tick it, any box, it doesn’t matter, just tick one…” said The Man at the Grey Table. “But I don’t believe in God,” he said. “Please tick one of the boxes. It is not terribly important what you believe or what you tick. I couldn’t care less but for proper dispatching, it is vital that you do choose one or the other.” The Father pushed the paper back to The Man at the Grey Table. “Sir. I have had a long and quite stressing day. Please do not make it any worse. If you would care to please tick one of the three boxes. Do you a fear god, b, love god or c, submit to god?” The Father shook his head. “You have to choose one of the three. You cannot pass without making a choice. That is your free will.” The Father shook his head again. “I cannot make the decision for you. You must exercise free 20

will before you can pass processing. Do you fear god, love god or submit to god? You have to choose one. Which will it be? Please tick one of the three boxes and exercise your free will.” “What if I don’t?” asked The Father. The Man at the Grey Table had no expression on his face whatsoever. His emotion was as mixed as the color of the table in which he sat. He merely stared The Father dead in the eye whilst tapping his index finger on the table before him three times and on the third, a gloved hand reached over The Father’s shoulder, taking an inked feather between its fingers and placing hits hand neatly over The Father’s so that when the gloved hand moved to strike an x in one of the boxes, it was The Father’s hand that guided the inked feather to mark the paper. Do you like cheese?” asked The Man at the Grey Table. The Father lifted his eyes to the man’s chest. He had no idea what it meant, but the word Eichmann was written on his breast pocket. The Father didn’t reply. “Next” said The Man at the Grey Table., stamping the piece of paper and placing it neatly on a pile that was taken away by a neat looking woman with short blonde hair, dressed in a tight fitted grey skirt that pinned her knees and kissed the unblemished skin of her legs just below her knees as to invite a lingering stare without being slutty. “Come with me sir,” said The Girl in the Grey Skirt. “What’s happening?” asked The Father as he hobbled after The Girl in the Grey Skirt, his legs giving him no reason to believe he could run; bound by the fabric of fear alone. “So you are a Christian. Ok then,” she said. “I’m not a Christian. I don’t believe in god,” said The Father. “Well, it says here you are Christian. You ticked the box” said The Girl in the Grey Skirt. “I didn’t tick anything. Where am I? My family, have you seen them?” he asked. “Halt,” yelled a booming voice just before the grand golden 21

arch. The Father stopped and looked around. The hundreds of thousands of people he had seen were gone. The man sitting at the grey table was no longer sitting at a grey table that was no longer at his sight. Around him, everything glowed painfully as if he were pressing his open eye against the refrigerator light. When he turned back to the golden arch, a giant uniformed man in front of him extended its fist and knocked him backwards and as he fell down, uniformed men from the left and right rushed like the onset of eve onto his trembling body and pinned his arms and his legs while the great uniformed man in front; with his mastodonic hands, ripped his shirt from his body then tore of his jeans and underwear leaving him trapped, vulnerable and naked; pinned to the floor by men following orders. “Depilation, delouse, rinse, brand,” said The Girl in the Grey Skirt, reading a directive to the uniformed men and though they already knew, she and they were just adhering to protocol and being useful and efficient. The Father cursed and spat, kicking away at his legs and thrashing his arms but to no avail. He couldn’t shake the grip of the men or monsters or whatever they were holding onto his limbs and keeping him steady whilst The Giant Uniformed Man took a cutting machine to his head and body, shearing off all of the hair. The buzzing noise; as the machine tore out clumps of hair, played as a harmony to the dire bellowing of The Father whose warm tears streamed down his thrashing naked body. When every last hair was removed, the uniformed men surrounding The Father liberated his trembling body into a defeated slump as he curled into a foetal ball, pinning his knees into his chest and burying his face into his arms, rocking back and forth as he wept and blubbered the names of his children. “Delouse,” said The Giant Uniformed Man in a heavy accent. The Father simply braced, he could do nothing more. 22

Several of the uniformed men came running like a gust of wind from the emptiness of space about him, each carrying in their hands, a see-through bag filled with white powder. The uniformed men emptied the bags over The Father who held his breath and tried to keep himself caged in his defenses, but it was no use. They prodded his skin with machines in their hands, sending waves of electricity through his body that pulsed through his skin and flapped his body about like a fish out of water; his nails, ripping off his fingers as they spread wide and clutched at the cold concrete floor, his eyelids peeled back somewhere in the crevice of his skull and his jaw spread wide open in a look of absolute awe as if his all of his beliefs had just been broken. As he thrashed about, the uniformed men emptied the white powder onto every inch of his flesh and into every orifice of his body and the more he thrashed about, the easier their work became. With every scream, the white powder filled his gums and it coated the back of his throat. It tasted like fire. It felt like he was inhaling a volcano. The uniformed man brushed his skin so vigorously that many of the metal bristles of their stabbing and probing utensils broke off and lay like pine petals, beside The Father’s white body. “Rinse,” said The Giant Uniformed Man immediately the other uniformed men retreated into the bright light and from another side came more, this time carrying a long hose. The Giant Uniformed Man nodded once and the others braced themselves as water burst from the hose, sending The father sliding along the ground, struggling to work himself to his knees and pull himself in a ball again but the closer he got to his own skin, the more his eyes and throat stung from the white powder that was painted on his skin. The uniformed men held the hose on him for seconds that at the mouth of the flood, felt like an eternity. “Branding,” said The Giant Uniformed Man. “Please, help me,” blubbered The Father lifting his head just 23

barely, enough for The Girl in the Grey Skirt to see the desiccated look in his eye, his anger and fight now seared from his skin and washed away along with his dignity. The Girl in the Grey Skirt ignored his outstretched hand and beseeching eyes having spent a lifetime in her day injecting green fluid in small tiny unwanted animals, learning the art of separation from the necessity of her work. A heavy set man, more so than any of the others, came into the room and picked The Father up by the scruff of the neck. The Father had no struggle in him. He went limp like any dog would and slumped in the steel chair where he was sat, his wrists and ankles cuffed as his body slouched over a metal table so that the back of his neck was exposed. The Heavy Set Man wore small black rubber gloves on his hands. His body was a work of art. There were thousands of drawings along his skin and they all shifted and shaped around as if they part of a moving gallery. There were three black horned beasts shaded on his back that swept over the crest of a mountain where below, sketches of men in robes lit triangular fires and prayed upon a stone altar. The Heavy Set Man threw The Father’s head forwards so that the back of his neck sat clear enough for him to scribe. He then took a long needle, one brutish enough to hold together the stern of a ship, and with a firm grip of his hand, and with his fingers latched soundly, The Heavy Set Man dragged the needle across The Father’s neck, cutting through the fine hairs that curled over, looking for the right patch of skin to write upon. The Girl in the Grey Skirt looked on, picking dirt from beneath her nails in strained boredom. The Father, though, he could look nowhere else except for the table where his head was being pressed. And in the reflection, he could see the bridge of his nose and the shadow of his ears that stuck out from his shaven head. And he could see, towering behind him, a great hulking mass of a man, holding a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other. The Father shuddered as he watched that hulking mass of a 24

man or the monster or both, lowering the tip of that needle, that thick ferine nail, into a vat of steaming black tar. And he shut his eyes, when the nail disappeared somewhere over his neck and the hammer, ambitiously high, out, away from the orbit of his thoughts. And the steel clapped as the hammer came crushing down on the end of the needle, puncturing the thick skin on the back of The Father’s neck, who with every pounding drive, clutched fretless at the soles of his naked feet, doing his best to curl his body once more, to round off the searing pain. The hammer clapped. The needle stabbed. Ink poured in. Blood flowed out. And an equation was scribed on The Father’s neck. The Father screamed as the needle tore through his flesh. It felt like his skin was on fire, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t move so instead he submitted and gave himself to their will and surrendered to the pain while The Giant Uniformed Man continued to carve the last of the numbers and letters into the back of his neck, stopping momentarily to appreciate the extent of his art, whilst wiping away streams of blood. It took an hour; maybe three or four. It might have even taken a day, maybe two. And the whole time, The Father slipped in and out of exhaustive comas in the paltry interludes between the needle tearing in and ripping out from the open wounds in his skin. And in that second, as The Heavy Set Man hacked at the back of his throat and spat a thick yellowish phlegm onto The Father’s neck to wipe away the smears of black and red, The Father tumbled backwards into a stupefied and numbing slumber, his consciousness becoming blacker than the thick oil and tar that was inking his skin. But as quickly as the silence and the searing pain lulled The Father into conscious abandon, that sleep was broken as a calamitous hand came crashing back down onto his neck, swinging from a great height, as if it were breaking through an iron wall, and rupturing the thick skin of The Father’s neck, as if it were puncturing a balloon. “Finished,” said The Heavy Set Man. When the branding was done, the uniformed man backed away and let The Father gather his senses, immediately pulling his hand to the back of his neck and wincing as he grazed the swollen tender skin. He 25

ran his finger over the markings and sounded out the symbols in his mind. There were letters and numbers and symbols of equation, but he had no idea what the equation meant. “Take the clothes,” said The Girl in the Grey Skirt, handing a pile of grey clothing to The Father who was on his feet but curled over himself shamefully trying to hide his genitals with his trembling hands. “Shall we?” she said congealing. Her voice was so considerate. He felt like some kind of dumb and unwitting contestant, being taken from one wrong outcome to the next but he felt a little less stupid in her hands. They reached a golden arch. The Father was stunned by its beauty. His eyes first caught the shimmer from the floor and they widened in amazement as he looked up and saw that there seemed to be no end; that these golden arches soared further than his imagination would allow. In front of him, the gates of golden arch creaked and opened slowly. He stood right at the foot of the arch where the two sides were begging to part, looking up towards an infinite end where the gold arches continued well past his imagination and into the realm of the impossible. He looked around and the uniformed men were all gone. There was nothing but the stinging white blinding his eyes, that and the neat looking woman in a grey skirt. “Welcome to heaven,” said The Girl in the Grey Skirt smiling, lifting her left arm to usher The Father with kind invitation, past the golden arches and into The Kingdom of Heaven.

The Father passed golden arches looking warily to his left and to his right. He entered a hallway that was narrow and on every side stood men in uniforms; the kind he had seen just before, all of them holding truncheons and basting them against their fists to the beat of his every step. The ground had a specific color about it. And the walls too, that from the ground, erected high into the air, a lot further than he could see, they and the ground beneath his feet, they had a specific color about them. They were the color of degradation. They were the color of filth, of disease and depravity. They were the color of suffering and of starvation and abuse. The Father could see, in a room beside him, a great winged beast, sharpening its talons against the round of a human skull. Beside it, two men fought to the death while, beside them, Death stood in front of a burning lamp, trying to capture his own shadow. And beside him, a lonely poet hanged himself. Over and over again. “What were you expecting? Rainbows and unicorns?” mocked the poet. The Father hobbled into the main corridor. He was standing on a strip of yellow tape that led from the golden arch, through the main courtyard and into the dormitories. His feet stood on either side of the thin strip with his knees buckling from fear. He had his body hunched and twisted and his arms crossed over thighs, covering his naked genitalia. As he edged forwards, his feet sloshed about in some foul smelling decay, feeling, between his toes, a warm sticky fluid and what felt like broken bones and tiny shards of glass, the kind that could not be picked out too easily. The Father kept his eyes anchored to the yellow strip, lifting his head only briefly to glance to his left and to his right before quickly withdrawing back to the filth about his feet, that which swished and swayed about as he moved, giving glimpses in the distance of the yellow strip coming to some kind of a bend. He tried to look only at his feet, but he could feel hundreds of 27

millions of eyes all following his every step, dressing his concern with their predatory stare. Some of them just looked on, welcoming another soul past the heavenly gates while others whistled and jeered and taunted his fright with threat and alarm, raining spit and bodily fluid in his direction, casting insult upon his ear and inviting him into violation. As he moved, his head banged against something wrought and something iron. He cowered further, keeping his hands cupped around his crotch, but he didn’t stop, he didn’t dare. He looked up briefly from his lowered stare, leaving his head hanging where it was, but staring up from beneath his furrowing brow. Above him, from a roof he could not see, a roof that was surely colored the same disparity as the walls and the floor, hanged scores of chains and from them, blunt and rusted razors and hooks. And some of the chains were slim, and there were a great many linkages, and others were tremendous and immobile, the kind used to slow ships. And everywhere he looked, his path was painted, in and out of their jagged rusted barnacles and sharp catching hooks. And the smaller chains, of which were there a great many, they swung about freely in the air of hilarity that billowed from both sides of The Father as hundreds of thousands of millions of faces, all them surly and repulsive, all laughed and snorted and snarled and hurled a fashion of abuse at the naked, frail and shaking soul who had just entered through Heaven’s gates. The Father lowered his stare once more. He edged along, one foot after the other, feeling all sorts of strange sensations between his toes and trying to numb the thought, of what they could be. He ignored too, the temptation to look into the eyes of those who hurled abuse like confetti, inviting him as a guest of their no good intentions and their vile presumptuous ways. “New meat” screamed one man. “I’ll have that ass” screamed another, licking his salacious lips. The hundreds of thousands of millions of faces all erupted 28

in laughter, sick decadent laughter. Most threw whatever was in their hands or nearby. Some threw cups and knives and splinters of wood, picked out of their teeth while others threw rocks and pebbles and handfuls of dust. And others threw soiled papers, their feces and semen. And it all rained down on The Father. Some of it splashed in the water by his feet, which then splashed up into his face and wet his shivering lips. Some of it smacked against his shoulder blades as he twisted and turned his body, ducking his head into the curve of his shoulders, in the same way, he had seen others, escaping the accosting annoyance of the afternoon rain. He shut his eyes and imagined himself walking straight, right through a river of black fetid water, following the yellow line that submerged and emerged from the sweat and excretion of this wretched place. He dared not think of what it was that now ran from the tip of his head, into his ear and then hanged off his lobe to the run down the back and between his buttocks. The Father edged on, wishing he were somewhere else. “Hey sweetie,” said a voice. “You aint got no friends, do ya? You can be mine if you like.” The Father didn’t respond. He kept his head low and continued slushing though the water. “Don’t be mean baby?” the voice said. “I aint like the rest of these brutes. Baby, I’m gonna love yah. You wanna be loved, don’t ya?” Laughter echoed through the courtyard and with it, the rattling of rusted chains. “Everybody needs be loved,” said the voice, sounding heavyhearted. The Father ignored the sobbing. He ignored the stickiness on his skin. He ignored the cutting and pulling from hooks that caught on his legs and on his elbows. He ignored too, the violent threats and the sexual taunts. “Be my baby,” shouted the voice as The Father scuttled off 29

through the courtyard. “Be my baby. Be my baby please baby, be my baby. Be my baby or ‘I’ll make you my fucking bitch.” The taunting started again and no matter how far along the yellow line he was, The Father was forever surrounded by jeering faces and their torrid verbal abuse. And the horrible things that they said and the way that they described them, violently masturbating and sticking their tongues out with their eyes wide, crazed and white as they listed adjective after adjective and verb after demented verb. And he knew, he could feel it, there was no exaggeration in the things that they said. “Hey, you” shouted a young man’s voice, to The Father’s right, but further ahead along the yellow strip. “Hey,” he said again. “Holy shit, it’s you. Holy shit. I know that guy.” The voice, it didn’t sound as vulgar as the others. It sounded familiar, like a face that he couldn’t put a name on. The young man pushed through row after row of men, women and children, all hurtling abuse and vile defecation. “Hey,” he said; his smile now maddening. “I know you. Hey, it’s me.” The Young Man shouted out through the front rows of emaciated aggressors and stumbled out onto the yellow strip, just behind The Father who was steady and focused in how he pretended that none of this was real. “Slow down, hey slow down. I’m not gonna hurt ya.” The Young Man caught up with The Father and walked at a scratching pace along the yellow strip with the hunched over soul. He went to put his hand on The Father’s shoulder but was shuddered away; first, by The Father’s nervous bother and second, by he himself, from his fingers pressing against the lathering filth that stick to The Father’s skin. “Hey you, you’re new here. It’s ok man, you can trust me. You just died?” spoke a voice, pointing out the obvious. The Father turned his head and saw The Young Man walking beside him and he saw too, for the first time, the collage of 30

murderous and maligning faces beyond the yellow strip, all of them sneering and snarling in some way or another; some of them biting and gnashing their teeth, others licking their cracked and salivating lips like horned and thirsted lizards. The Father held his breath, tightened his skin and walked with head low while the worst that he could imagine rained down on him from the worst sort of monsters who jostled about, climbing over one another like insects, crawling into his inner sanctum and scaring him from the core of his soul to the thick of his skin. “It’s like this for everyone. Don’t feel too bad. But worry though yeah? Oh man, I can’t believe it’s you.” The Father lifted his head and saw a boy standing before him smiling, his hand outstretched welcomingly, his bright orange hair, long and unkempt, his long skinny arms, blotched with bruises and millions of orange freckles, his teeth and the tips of his fingers stained a dirty brownish yellow, his finger nails, long, crooked and clogged with black dirt and filth and his eyes, looking differently to where he spoke. “Holy shit it is you. Do you remember me? It’s me, Bradley. Remember? We went to school together. Holy shit, this is awesome. Man, we used to have so much fun” said Bradley, pointing his dirty finger in The Father’s chest and bouncing back and forth in a fit of apparent joy. “Who?” said The Father. “Bradley, remember? From school. We played all the time. Had lots of fun and shit. I hanged myself during assembly, in the boy’s toilets, remember?” said Bradley. The Father looked with strained eyes, training his mind to calculate the look of the boy in front of him and divide by his sense of familiarity. Then; in between the beating of his heart, it came to him. He knew this boy and they had gone to school, but they were never friends. “Fun? You teased me. You picked on me. You bullied me. You hurt me in front of the other kids. They all picked on me top you know, because of you, cause they didn’t want to be bullied by 31

by you so they hit me” said The Father, but as he spoke, he remembered his fear of the boy and even though he was a man, he felt that fear like he felt it when he was just a boy himself and he no longer had the courage to say the things he needed to say. “Don’t be a little faggot. What are you, a little faggot?” said Bradley, stepping closer to The Father and pushing into his body as he did so that the clothes he carried in his hands dropped to the floor. It all seemed so acquainting, the same feelings sinking his stomach and trembling his toes, spelling his lips into a dancer’s quiver so that the words he wanted to say were dressed in a shaking shiver, riding the oscillating air of fright. Around him, the jeering and chanting monsters of men all encircled around him, edging him closer to Bradley, their fists pumping into the air, their voices aligned, all canting the want of a fight. When he was a boy, The Father had spent the entire of his school years, scared of this boy; scared of telling a teacher scared of telling his careless father and scared of hitting back. He dreamed about it time and time again but when he needed it, he couldn’t fetch that same strength from that same well of requital from unto which he drank deeply upon his own company, carving with a thin rusted blade, every ‘fuck you’ he wished he could say into his pale white arm in long thin concealable cuts. The Father looked at his arm where the think lines once gone now rose in red, swollen tints across his arm. He felt them burn and the burn made his heart beat hard, making his blood feel warm and full of venom. He thought of his wife who he had seen last, flash past his face and fly into an open field as the car he was driving wrapped itself around a tree. Then he thought of his daughter, whose last memory etched as a last breath being taken, nothing more. A hollowing sound that echoed in his mind and willed his heart to boil his blood. And then he thought of his boy, who had done so much wrong, many things worse than he would dare imagine, but unto whom the fires in his heart burned strongest. “Fuck you, Bradley,” he said stepping forward and taking the 32

red headed boy in an embrace. “Your mother gave you to your father’s cruel punishment. They left you alone. You were hurt, but the only way you knew to express hurt was by hurting people, like your father, hurt you. You were messed up. It wasn’t your fault. It’s just a fucked up world. I know your father did things, bad things. Nobody should ever have to confuse those sorts of things with love, but you did and that’s fucked up. I don’t want to hurt you. I just wanna say, fuck you Bradley” said The Father, squeezing the red headed boy tightly until the fibers of the boy’s heart bled from the pores of his skin and ran up The Father’s arms turning to a light cloud of dust by his eyes and then vanishing into nothingness. “Keep moving” ordered a uniformed man, beating him over the head with his truncheon. The Father leaned down carefully and collected his pile of clothes and continued walking down the corridor, pushing through the monsters of men who had encircled him, lifting his head high, looking left and right through every uniformed man standing about for the shape of his family. The corridor seemed to stretch on forever and with every step he encountered more and more insult as if the will of heaven alone were to try and break him and to reduce him to nothing. Whereas before, he looked only to his shuffling feet, now he stared each face long in the eye and counted familiarity in each stare looking back. He had thought them all as mad strangers and this corridor as some carriage through hell, but now that he lifted his sight he could see it was oh so much worse. He knew all of the faces and remembered all of their affronting voices, each and every one having acted some cruel part in the absurd play of his life. There was the guy who always begged for food at the corner of his work who would curse and bitch and moan irefully when he given what he asked instead of a trickle of gold coins. There were all of the drivers that had toiled with his days, the ones that cut him off, the ones that flashed their lights incessantly, the ones that honked and screamed like mating boars and the ones that never let him in. There was his high school teacher; the one who ended up arrested for improper conduct, who thought he was doing all of the children a favor by smacking their hands with his correcting stick to teach them that reward was the absence of punishment. He stood there amongst the 33

piles of people, smacking the ruler against his hand and licking his lips like a sun parched lizard. Everyone round him was somebody that he had known; some arsehole that had rained on his parade at some point in his life and they were all lined up to welcome him to eternity. The Father returned his stare to the path set out before him and; under guard, continued his walk along the long corridor, ignoring the taunts and abuse and brushing off the stinging pain as this and that, hurled from here or there ricocheted off his skin and rattled across the floor. He held in his mind, the image of his family; his wife standing by the door of his house, leaning adoringly against the wooden frame, his daughter rushing from the side of her mother with her arms spread like an eagle’s wings, caught in a moment of flight before her joy tripped one foot over the other and beside him, in the passenger seat of his car, his son, looking out through the stained windscreen, his arms folded tightly over his chest, his deflated rebellion anchoring his feet but keeping his eyes locked on his father who was; like the echo of one’s voice, returning to where his heart belonged. And as he thought this, there before his sight, huddled beneath and a wooden rafter in a cold abandoned corner of heaven was his wife and she looked adoringly at her husband as he walked bravely along the corridor, naked and bleeding with a pile of grey clothes folded in his arms. “Look who I found,” said The Mother. The father winced, his heart almost collapsed and the air of heaven captured a tear from his eye as a smiling little girl with straw like strawberry, blonde ran towards him screaming with delight, her arms waving haplessly, her excitement eventually putting one foot too close to the other until she tripped and fell through the air onto her hands and knees. The Father held his breath, watching his little girl and waiting for a smile or a flood of tears. The Girl lifted her head and chose to smile instead of cry. She picked herself up and kept running to her father who leaned 34

down and took her in his arms, weeping as he held her close to his chest, feeling her heart beating against his, listening to her breath whisper in and out of her mouth. “Can we play now?” she asked. “Are you busy? Do you have to work?” she asked again, the spell of innocence that spilled from her eyes, leaving the father in a state that words cannot describe, that in heaven, is an emotion that one speaks only through the pores in their skin. “Can we play now daddy? Mummy bringed my butterfly” she said in her own way. “You’re alive,” he said. “Don’t be silly daddy. I’m dead, like you and mummy and…” “Your brother, where’s your brother?” he said looking around desperately hoping to see his son standing somewhere behind him looking on disparaging, but looking on nonetheless. “They took him,” said The Daughter. “Who took him? Where did they take him?” asked The Father. “The soldiers. We didn’t come through together. He did something, that’s what they told me, I’m not sure what. But they took him and I don’t know where” said The Mother. “Are you ok? Did they hurt you?” he asked, taking his wife in his arms and patting down her body, causing her to wince as his hands passed over bruises and small healing cuts. The Mother looked despondent. She said nothing. The Father could tell though that something had happened, for her eyes, they spoke of a truth that her educated tongue could not. He knew from her silence that horrible things had been done, no worse and no better than what he himself had endured at the gates of heaven at the hands of these cruel dictators. “I have to find him. I have to find our son. No one deserves to be alone here, not in this hell” he said. “Is this hell? This can’t be heaven” The Mother asked. “Are we in hell daddy?” asked The Daughter. “Guard” screamed The Father, “I need to speak to someone, 35

a warden, a general, whoever, someone in command. I want to know where my son is and I want to know now.” Thunder clapped magniﬁcently in his ears and lightening in his eyes, ﬂooding his sight a bright and blinding heavenly white. He squeezed them shut for a second and when they opened; his wife and daughter were gone. “Good morning, my name is Adolf Hitler, I am the chief chancellor of heaven,” said the only other man in the room.

“Am I in hell?” asked The Father. “You were greeted at the golden arch. What did the woman in the grey skirt say to you?” asked Hitler. “Welcome to heaven” replied The Father. “We don’t lie here in heaven,” said Hitler. “But if this is heaven, why are there bad people?” asked The Father. “I’m sure they’re not all bad people,” said Hitler. “Each and every one I’ve met, every face I’ve seen except for my wife and child, were and still are; arseholes. Every one of them. And here, in heaven, they’re just the same. Is this a joke?” asked The Father. “Everyone is an arsehole to someone. I’m sure there’s someone out there who just saw you enter and thought, ‘oh great, here comes that arsehole, well that’s not fair’. Everyone’s an arsehole and every arsehole is welcome in The Kingdom of Heaven,” said Hitler. “What happened here? I mean, you should be in hell. You’re Hitler. You should be rotting in fucking hell. The fucking Nazis are running heaven. Those were Nazis, right? At the gates? They beat me. They did things to my wife and god knows if they did anything to my daughter,” said The Father. “God doesn’t know. Outside the gates is technically transitional and therefore kind of tricky with the rule of heaven so we only really have say on what happens inside” said Hitler. “Where is God in all of this?” said The Father. “It is in every one of us,” said Hitler. “No. God wouldn’t permit this. That’s why it created hell,” said The Father. “So you believe in god now and you know what it wants,” said Hitler. “How could he approve of this? Turning heaven into a prison,” said The Father. 37

“How many children do you have?” asked Hitler. “Two,” said The Father. “A boy and a girl, yes?” asked Hitler. “Yeah, what about it?” asked The Father. “Your girl was a good girl, not very bright for her age, but she was a good girl. And your son?” asked Hitler. “He was a good boy, he just made some mistakes. A lot of people made mistakes” said The Father. “Do you know what fractals are?” asked Hitler. “What?” “It’s a type of mathematics, geometry actually. The equation on the back of your neck, the tattoo you got at the dispatch center, do you know what it means?” asked Hitler. “No” “Z=Z²+C. It’s what we call a god equation. It is god’s reflection, god’s voice, in formula” said Hitler. “I don’t get it. What is it?” asked The Father. “It explains existence. It explains god and it was supposed to prepare you for heaven” said Hitler. “I’m not a mathematician, I don’t understand,” said The Father. “Imagine god as a mirror ball and existence is that mirror ball shattered into a billion tiny fragments; all the same shape, some tiny, some tinier and the image of god is caught in every single piece. You can pick the smallest piece and you will always find the image of god looking back at you and you can shatter that piece into a billion more and you will never be a stranger to what you find. For every piece; as a division of the whole is the whole itself as it’s being divided” said Hitler. “So I am God.” “No, you are not. Well kind of ” said Hitler. “I still don’t get it” “Have you heard the term Agape?” “Yeah, It’s a Greek word for love.” “A type of love.” 38

“Not any love. This is not the love for your lover or the love for your brother. This is a love that cannot be acquired or learned or taught or bargained or stolen. This is a love that is born.” “The love of god amidst any trial. The love that man has for god.” “No, it is not. That is what your idiot theodolites thought. The love of god is debatable. It is transferable. It is returnable. And it is doubtable. But god’s love of its children, there is no bargain, there is no debate. This is Agape. This is unconditional love. Not for man to god, but for god, to mankind, to each and every child. God’s love is undivided. It is as pure with one as it is with another, regardless of what one might have done to another on Earth or as it is, in Heaven. Your son. Do you love him?” “Of course,” said The Father. “Explain this love,” said Hitler. “I don’t know. He was my ﬁrst child. When he was born it felt like my heart exploded. I cried for the ﬁrst time. I started to really feel; this bitter sweet cocktail of fear and love together” “Your son did a lot of bad things. Some very bad things, in fact, but you still love him even though the effect of his wrong upset you, embarrassed you, angered you” said Hitler. “He made a lot of stupid decisions, but he’s my son. I love him. It doesn’t matter what he does. He’s my blood, from my heart and I’ll pick up his pieces as much as I have to until he’s whole” said The Father. “Even though he killed your daughter?” said Hitler. “It was an accident,” said The Father. “That’s not what your heart says,” said Hitler. The Father said nothing. “I had a dog once. I very much loved him in that way. I spent a week once with Goebbels and Himmler, preparing our Russian offence strategy. It was perfect. When we came back from tea the dog had chewed up all of the wooden tanks and shat on The Netherlands. I shot him immediately, but I loved him, just like you love your son. His name was Nibbles” said Hitler. 39

“What does this have to do with god?” asked The Father. “You son and your daughter, they fought all the time. Kids, they always do. One has something the other wants; one hits the other, the other cries and blah blah blah. Now, when your children are arguing in the car, slapping and cursing and racing your blood when you get home, do you choose one over the other? Do you make one sleep on the street?” asked Hitler. “Of course not,” said The Father. “God is no different. It doesn’t matter what its children do to each other, it can’t choose one over the other. It loves them all unconditionally and all of them are welcome home. There is no hell. It’s just something god says. Like when your kids were young and you told them you’d run away if they didn’t stop ﬁghting. You were never going to run away. It’s just a god thing. And the equation on your neck, that is the signature of god” said Hitler. “So we are children of god and no matter what bad shit you do, you’re welcome into heaven? There’s no hell?” asked The Father. “Exactly. This here, this collection of souls; this is God. God is the sum of all the collected parts. God is the whole equation and part of the equation. It prepared you for this” said Hitler. “Why do you say it? Isn’t god a man?” asked The Father. “God is it. Remember the general at the grey table; Eichmann?” asked Hitler. “Yes,” said The Father. “He was God. And you met a striking girl in an alluring grey skirt. Alluring, but not slutty, yes?” said Hitler. “Yeah, I did,” said The Father. “That was God,” said Hitler. “God is a hermaphrodite?” asked The Father. “God is whole, what equates from any sum. It prepared you for this” said Hitler. “How?” asked The Father. “Oh, you saw it everywhere. The conscious mind to the subconscious mind. You to your son, a rider to a horse, a conductor to 40

an orchestra, zero to one, the government to its people, the preacher to the preached, a teacher to a student and man unto dog… I could go on for an eternity. Every part of existence played its part of the whole, replication in its own unique vibration, the same existence was a fractal of god, it was the nature of god repeated more and more minute. Together it looked very complex and when swept up by human emotion it was very easy to get confused and be taken away by the seriousness of it all but at its core, everything was a reflection of god. Existence is singular; an infinite singularity caught in its own mirrored reflection going on and on and on and on again. Your son killed your daughter and he killed your wife and he killed you, long before that crash. You died along time before your heart stopped beating. We’ve had your soul here, part of it anyway, waiting for this very meet. He tore up the hand brake to spite you. Children do this. They love to spite god, to spite their beliefs. Do you still love him? You told him that you blamed him. You said it was his fault before you died. Do you still carry that torch?” asked Hitler. “No.” “So you forgive him.” “Yes.” “Why?” “I can’t explain.” “But you want to see him again.” “So very much.” “Now you know how god feels. It doesn’t matter what his children have done. His love is louder than their rebellion. It whispers consolingly in their hearts as they sleep. Just as your love for your son has you here now, forgiving me” said The Son, as before the Father’s eyes a trick of light brought a flood of relief to his heart and he rushed forwards and took his son in his arms. “I didn’t mean it,” said The Son. “I love you,” said The Father. “I set that fire,” said The Son, tears flowing down his face and streaming onto The Father who had a smile on his face, one 41

he had only felt in the moments his children were born. “I know,” said The Father. The Father held his son to his chest. His eyes caught in a heavy rain, the thick clouds that had circled his mind all of these years, ﬁnally pouring down on his soul and washing away the stains of his depression. “I’m so sorry dad,” said The Son. “I hate you,” said The Father holding his son for the ﬁrst time.

Also by C.SeanMcGee: A Rising Fall (City Book 1) Utopian Circus (City Book 2) Coffee and Sugar Christine Rock Book Vol I: The Boy from the County Hell Rock Book Vol II: Dark Side of the Moon Alex and The Gruff (a tale of horror) The Terror{blist} The Anarchist Happy People Live Here The Time Travelerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Wife

www.cseanmcgee.com www.facebook.com/c.sean.mcgee www.goodreads.com/c_sean_mcgee www.issuu.com/cseanmcgee 43