Souls - XLIII
I'm not sure if I technically passed out as I remember the landscape, fiery hail storm and all, pretty well. But I know I went into a place that wasn't quite consciousness. I remember passing the blue hole, I remember passing the diner in Tucumcari, I even remember passing the dirt road I went down to meet my daughter, but none of it registered. My brain had gone somewhere else. It was busy trying to solve the puzzle that Lucifer just laid in my lap.
I am the devil.
It seems insane, I remember my childhood, I remember my college year, I remember preaching the word of God. None of this seems very Prince of Darkness. Yet, here we are. I think we're somewhere in Kansas by the time I manage to regain the power of speech.
"I'm hungry."
"She speaks." Lucifer smiles. "We'll get you some food at the next exit."
I lean my head back on the window. All I can do is think back. Think to my very human memories. When I fell off my bike, trapping my calf in the chain and ripping my flesh to the point of needing stitches. I remember my Dad carrying me to the car, my Mother waiting behind the wheel to speed us to the hospital. This was all real. I've seen my flesh, I've seen my bone. I am human.
"You are not what you think you are."
All of this seems less like disbelief and more like denial. As soon as he had said it, I believed it. It felt true.
I am the devil.
But how?
Jesus turns back to his father, mindlessly rubbing Emily's back to keep her relaxed and calm.
"You gonna just let her brain spin back there, or you gonna explain?"
"If a diver comes up to the surface too quickly they get oxygen bubbles in their blood and they die. They have to raise up slowly. Let her float to the top, don't rush it."
"Where was all this fatherly wisdom when people were spitting on me and hammering things into my body?" Jesus turns back to the road.
"Stop it, you sound like a teenager who didn't get a car for his birthday."
Jesus scoffs and mutters under his breath, "What the fuck ever." He never stops rubbing Emily's back with comfort through any of the tension.
That's when the second trumpet sounded.
My daughter was still doing the heavenly Christ thing, but why? That's the moment it clicked, the irony of the child of Satan ordering celestial trumpets being blown signaling the rapture for the holy.
The sky turns from purple to orange, the color of an atmosphere reflecting a giant fire.
"She is a busy girl, I didn't expect the second trumpet so soon." Lucifer sounds giddy, like a Father who's daughter just scored a goal in a primary soccer game.
I remember this trumpet as well, a fiery mountain. The world's oceans now made up of blood instead of water. She is following the book.
"Why is she doing this?" This is the first question I've attempted.
"You know, that's what makes this so interesting. I honestly don't know. She knows what you know, probably more, yet there she is following biblical protocol. She knows there's no pearly gates, no eternal salvation. She's standing on the edge of nothingness up there. Yet, those trumpets...very curious."
I think of a possible world, the world where I'd understand her motives. Where I was a mother who knew her daughter better than anyone, but that is not this possibility. I am a stranger, I am a vessel that delivered her to this world. I know nothing more. I couldn't blame her if she wanted to end it all, end all of us right there.
I needed to talk to her, before this is all over. I need to let her know the truth, or at least the version of the truth I know.
Then my brain shifts, memories hitting me hard and suddenly. The entire trip coming back to me. Shock wearing off, reality hitting me aggressively.
"You're daughter has to die."
What did he mean? What was she before she took the initiative of slamming a holy soul into her cornea?
"What did you mean my daughter has to die?"
Jesus looks over his shoulder at me.
"You have a real fuckin' weird and sporadic memory, ya know that? It's all kind of moot now, since she's role-playing as Jesus up there."
"Tell me."
"Fine, you are the devil as my father so eloquently dropped in your lap. Your daughter, well she's something different. She's a sacrifice.
She's the antichrist."
I am the devil.
It seems insane, I remember my childhood, I remember my college year, I remember preaching the word of God. None of this seems very Prince of Darkness. Yet, here we are. I think we're somewhere in Kansas by the time I manage to regain the power of speech.
"I'm hungry."
"She speaks." Lucifer smiles. "We'll get you some food at the next exit."
I lean my head back on the window. All I can do is think back. Think to my very human memories. When I fell off my bike, trapping my calf in the chain and ripping my flesh to the point of needing stitches. I remember my Dad carrying me to the car, my Mother waiting behind the wheel to speed us to the hospital. This was all real. I've seen my flesh, I've seen my bone. I am human.
"You are not what you think you are."
All of this seems less like disbelief and more like denial. As soon as he had said it, I believed it. It felt true.
I am the devil.
But how?
Jesus turns back to his father, mindlessly rubbing Emily's back to keep her relaxed and calm.
"You gonna just let her brain spin back there, or you gonna explain?"
"If a diver comes up to the surface too quickly they get oxygen bubbles in their blood and they die. They have to raise up slowly. Let her float to the top, don't rush it."
"Where was all this fatherly wisdom when people were spitting on me and hammering things into my body?" Jesus turns back to the road.
"Stop it, you sound like a teenager who didn't get a car for his birthday."
Jesus scoffs and mutters under his breath, "What the fuck ever." He never stops rubbing Emily's back with comfort through any of the tension.
That's when the second trumpet sounded.
My daughter was still doing the heavenly Christ thing, but why? That's the moment it clicked, the irony of the child of Satan ordering celestial trumpets being blown signaling the rapture for the holy.
The sky turns from purple to orange, the color of an atmosphere reflecting a giant fire.
"She is a busy girl, I didn't expect the second trumpet so soon." Lucifer sounds giddy, like a Father who's daughter just scored a goal in a primary soccer game.
I remember this trumpet as well, a fiery mountain. The world's oceans now made up of blood instead of water. She is following the book.
"Why is she doing this?" This is the first question I've attempted.
"You know, that's what makes this so interesting. I honestly don't know. She knows what you know, probably more, yet there she is following biblical protocol. She knows there's no pearly gates, no eternal salvation. She's standing on the edge of nothingness up there. Yet, those trumpets...very curious."
I think of a possible world, the world where I'd understand her motives. Where I was a mother who knew her daughter better than anyone, but that is not this possibility. I am a stranger, I am a vessel that delivered her to this world. I know nothing more. I couldn't blame her if she wanted to end it all, end all of us right there.
I needed to talk to her, before this is all over. I need to let her know the truth, or at least the version of the truth I know.
Then my brain shifts, memories hitting me hard and suddenly. The entire trip coming back to me. Shock wearing off, reality hitting me aggressively.
"You're daughter has to die."
What did he mean? What was she before she took the initiative of slamming a holy soul into her cornea?
"What did you mean my daughter has to die?"
Jesus looks over his shoulder at me.
"You have a real fuckin' weird and sporadic memory, ya know that? It's all kind of moot now, since she's role-playing as Jesus up there."
"Tell me."
"Fine, you are the devil as my father so eloquently dropped in your lap. Your daughter, well she's something different. She's a sacrifice.
She's the antichrist."
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