The Seventh Day
“Now, Mr. J, what have we told you about all your nay-saying and ill humor?”
It was Miss Lilith. To either side of her stood Mr. Daze and Bubba, their arms folded across their chests. The old man called Mr. J shrieked and tried to run past them. In a blink, Bubba shifted sideways and Mr. J bounced off of the brute like he had hit a brick wall. Bubba picked the old man up with one huge, muscular arm and tossed him over his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Gerry,” Miss Lilith said smoothly, “even here we do have our troublemakers and rebels. Our little dissidents.” She teased, waving a finger under Mr. J’s tearful face.
“Now Mr. J, whatever are we going to do with you? What do you think, Amos?” Mr. Daze stroked his chin for a moment.
“I think a week straight of rest and reflection in the Room should set matters a-right, don’t you Miss Lilith?”
“I agree, Mr. Daze. A week it is, then. Bubba, if you please.” Mr. J began to scream as Bubba effortlessly hauled the old man away.
**********
On the seventh day, the gongs of Hell began to toll. The mournful cry echoed throughout the carnival, cutting short the laughter and screams. Once, twice, three times it crashed until the last remnants of mirth had been smothered.
The crowds slowly began to trudge toward the center of the carnival, forming lines as they walked. From atop the walls, Mr. Daze, Miss Lilith, Bubba, and other staff looked down on us with gleaming eyes.
The procession converged in the epicenter of the carnival, in front of a cylindrical monolith over a hundred stories tall. Without anyone telling me, I knew this was the Room. It seemed strange that I hadn’t noticed it until today. The Room was completely smooth, utterly devoid of any decoration, carving, or ornamentation. There were no windows, no ways to see inside. The only entrance was a small portal at ground level.
One by one, each person in front of me walked in, silently swallowed by the waiting shadows until at last I stood alone in front of the doorway. I peered inside, but may as well have been staring into the farthest reaches of space, or the blackness that was before creation. Having no other choice, I closed my eyes and stepped into the darkness.
**********
Imagine the worst moment of your life. Now multiply the pain of that moment by infinite and extend it to forever. This would have been preferable to what happened in the Room.
Darkness flowed into me through every orifice and pore. It permeated every fiber of my being. All the pain, all the hardship that I had ever caused was distilled, concentrated, grown, and flushed back into me like a hellish river. It was physical and mental anguish to a degree no mortal could stand. Yet I was no longer mortal, only an ethereal spirit of lost flesh.
I saw my life laid out before me: a pitiful mockery, a meaningless map that led nowhere. My sins, from the tiniest indiscretions to the most awful, were landmarks of a futile existence. I saw myself through my wife’s eyes as I drove her away into the arms of another. I watched myself kill her, the only woman I had ever loved. As one flesh, I became her, and felt my own hands wrap around my neck and watched the horrific expression in my eyes as I choked out my life. I saw my eyes light up in ghoulish triumph as I died.
Time has no meaning in the Room. To a mind drowning in pain and madness, every second lasts an aeon. Have you ever been hurt so badly that everything else vanished? All thoughts, all hopes, fears, and desires gone? Nothing existing but agony and you would do anything…ANYTHING! to make it just go away. In real life, hopefully you’d pass out from shock into merciful oblivion.
What if you couldn’t pass out?
What if you were kept awake, and kept aware? We were overloaded with such pain that it should have driven us mad, yet we were not driven mad, not allowed to lose ourselves in the brokenness of insanity. We were kept aware of everything, every single cell of pain fed through us. And with this awareness came the most horrible knowledge of all.
We had chosen this.
These were the fruits that we had sown throughout our lives, and now we were reaping them. The knowledge that your mind, heart, and body is being torn apart is awful enough, but the realization that you had brought it on yourself made it the most horrible thing ever. I screamed and screamed and screamed.
***********
When it was done, we found ourselves standing in the hall where first we’d met Mr. Lucas. Everyone looked hollow, as though something inside had been burnt away forever. At last I understood. No wonder smiles were so forced, laughter so loud. If they could forget, lose themselves in the carnival, it would be alright. But they never would. And this was the most brilliant stroke of all: the very dark vices that had so dominated them while living now became a pathetic mocking attempt at compensation. Like a drug addict, the next fix would never be enough. The carnival’s pleasures were as useful as faulty earplugs, never quite able to block out the grinding, whispering horror of the Room.
A small hand caressed my shoulder. I turned to see the beautiful Miss Lilith smiling at me.
“Mr. Gerry, hello. Sorry to disturb you, but Mr. Lucas would like to speak with you for a moment,” she said. I followed her down a dark hallway to an office. The glass door had the word PRESIDENT printed on it in small type. As I sat down, Mr. Lucas glanced up from some papers he was reading.
“Ah, Mr. Gerry. Charley wired ahead about you, but I had already received a communiqué you were coming. Most unusual situation. Never one quite like it before, actually.”
I waited for him to continue, but he said no more for a time. He just looked into my eyes and I must admit, at that point I once more felt afraid. Mr. Lucas’s mouth may have formed a small smile, but it never reached his eyes. They remained cold, frozen blue pits with pupils darker than the blackest night in hell.
The office disappeared. Mr. Lucas’s eyes expanded until the darkness within them blotted out everything. I felt as though I was falling through an endless black hole. As I fell, it seemed as though all the deeds of my life started to tumble out of me and were held up for Mr. Lucas’s cold scrutiny.
“Well, well,” he said, “isn’t that interesting.”
From far away, I could hear a faint sibilance at the end of his sentence. I must have passed out, for the next thing I remember is hearing the sound of papers being shuffled. I glanced up to see Mr. Lucas pointedly reading what looked like some kind of dossier.
“Most unique situation,” Mr. Lucas muttered under his breath, “highly unorthodox. We shall have to see.”
Then, looking up at me he said, “Officially, Mr. Gerry, you are not a guest here. According to our files, you were not due to arrive for some time. Unfortunately it appears as though you have been…double-booked. Both my competition and I have you down as a future resident.”
I asked how that was possible.
“You wouldn’t think that it would be. Usually we can accurately predict where an individual will end up by the time he or she is 33 years of age. However, every once in a while through the ages there comes a soul who is perfectly balanced, pinioned between the darkness and light.”