Asmireen
©2024 by Jonathan Scott
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Chapter 21 - My Struggle - 7
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How much would you be willing to pay for a place to lie down? Think about this carefully.
During my travels on Earth, I once was with a woman that I cared about. We were driving from some distant place to another and we stopped one evening at a motel to sleep. The clerk there asked if we wished to have a fifteen or a twenty-five dollar room. My friend, who was thrifty, insisted that we take one that was less expensive. The clerk then gave us keys and directed us to the second floor. As we walked, we noticed that there were other rooms located on the first floor that looked vacant. My friend was exhausted from her travels, so I asked if we could simply use one of the rooms on the first floor instead, thereby avoiding the stairs. The clerk then smiled a slightly evil smile and told us that those were the twenty-five dollar rooms. I and my companion both felt as though the clerk had just spit in our faces. It was a difficult climb. Our luggage and our fatigue made it hard, but the degradation made it even harder.
How much would you be willing to pay in order to not have to climb one flight of stairs? It's an important question, because on that particular evening and in that particular location, the cost of it was ten dollars. Later on that week, I returned in another form, consumed the clerk, and burnt down the hotel. I do not take insults lightly. Since then a truck stop has been put up in its place.
So, my question to you again is, how much would you be willing to pay for a place to lie down? How much would you be willing to pay for a place to sit down? How much would you pay for the right to look at a television? These are all trick questions. I wouldn't answer them too soon.
In a previous chapter, I mentioned a second heaven. At the time I discovered it, I didn't know much about it. But, once I consumed my first blinker and gained the ability to return to Earth, in time, I also found that I had gained the ability to enter this second Heaven as well.
What I eventually found out was that it wasn't a Heaven at all. It was simply a place where Papa Voice put those who didn't merit a place in Heaven, but who also didn't merit a place in Hell. In short, it was the final resting place for the spiritually mediocre and the spiritually apathetic.
I was once in love.
I apologize for changing the subject so abruptly, but it is pertinent to this theme, therefore, I guess I'll bring it up.
The fact that I was once in love comes as a shock to most people when they first hear it. Most believe me to be the absolute and most condensed form of evil in existence. Most believe that I am incapable of anything virtuous, such as fidelity, or adoration. But, nonetheless, I have loved. I have had a family. I have known the peace and tranquility that comes from it. Please allow me to explain.
Once I discovered blinkers, and once I made my first trip back to Earth, I more or less abandoned Hell. From that day on, I roamed the Earth almost incessantly enjoying its sensations. I felt human again, which is a wonderful alternative for a devil.
I found that I was quite fond of riding horses, fighting, swimming and walking on beaches. I spent a lot of my time in many of Earth's major cities. For a short while, I even owned property there. I followed the cultural rituals, paid taxes, and even held a job. I thought it was fun to pretend that I was other than I really was.
One day, after my work was done, I walked home with several people that believed I was their friend. We walked together and enjoyed speaking coarsely and laughing about it. I was thoroughly enjoying the illusion, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman who took my focus from me. For whatever reason, I could not stop looking at her. I read her thoughts, and she did nothing but think about me. She was physically attractive but certainly not what many would consider to be beautiful. There was just something about this woman though that demanded my attention, my adoration.
I walked up to her. She looked quite nervous. She was dressed in the most unremarkable clothing. She was not wealthy. In fact, she was equally as poor as the man that I was pretending to be.
We spoke for some time that evening before we finally said goodbye. Her name was Kim. She was quite short and had an attractive body. Her hair was dark black and her eyes were the deepest of browns. I still cannot tell you what attracted me to this woman. Perhaps it was simply her smile, because she did have a beautiful one. It was bright, loving and very friendly. She had a face that I thought I would like to see many times, especially when she smiled.
Kim died when she was seventy-seven. We had first met just before her sixteenth birthday. We were married two years later. As she aged, I aged along with her voluntarily. The fifty nine years that I lived with her were so filled with joy and peace that they felt like a thousand.
I wanted to be with Kim forever. Forever. Not just till death did us part. Not just until I or she passed on. Forever. I know that this was greedy of me, but, for my own sake, I did it nonetheless. I knew that were Kim to be a good woman, "good" meaning to be like Papa Voice, meaning "godly", that she would pass from this world to Heaven. Were she to live in Heaven eternally, I, being barred from Heaven, would be separated from her forever. Therefore, for purely my own sake, I chose to help Kim become ungodly.
Kim had actually been quite a spiritual person. She was not wholly pious, there were rough edges to her. But, she was the sort to attend religious services from time to time. She was the sort to help those in need. She was also the sort to pray. It took decades for me to work these traits out of her. Luckily for myself, there was actually a portion of her that wanted freedom from these characteristics. Had she ever made the decision to be good in spite of my distractions though, I don't think I could have succeeded. Luckily for myself, Kim was willing to be led away from Heaven.
After our marriage, it just so happened that we found gold on our land. Of course, this finding was engineered. I caused it to happen. I had to have something with which to distract my wife. And with the riches that came, we filled our lives with luxury and fun. We danced. We played. We travelled. We saw all that the world had to offer. We had friends by the thousands. We lived a life of perfect entertainment.
And so I succeeded. I had carefully wooed Kim away from spirituality to the point that, when she died, she was almost wholly self-serving. She rarely thought about religion. She rarely thought about helping those around her. She rarely thought about anything other than her hobbies. Our children had been conveniently whisked away to boarding schools at a very young age. We had servants to take care of our home. We had lived a life void of responsibility and had somehow never seemed to know it. Our children, having been raised in a spirit of half-apathy, grew to be equally as half-apathetic as ourselves. They smiled when they were around us. They were polite. But their hearts had an unfortunate coldness to them. Later on, when our children suffered through divorce after divorce, and even when one went to jail, we had become so completely apathetic to them, that our own entertainments, our own happinesses, never ceased in spite of their misery.
Of course, we did feel somewhat bad for their failures. We tried to help. We gave them all the money they felt that they needed. And when the money failed to solve their problems, we offered them a never ending stream of shallow advice. Of course, the problems never ended, but at least I and Kim were entertained, and so all was well. I hadn't realized it, but not only had I helped my wife to be with me for the rest of eternity, but my children would come with me as well...not that I really cared either way.
Anyway, Kim died. Shortly thereafter, I died too. I felt like leaving. I only really cared for being with Kim, so, leaving Earth seemed like the logical choice. Our children, having been left with as much money as anyone could ever hope to have seemed to not mind us leaving. Granted, their problems still flourished and their misery still burned within them. But, at the very least, they could experience their problems and misery dressed in the finest clothing available.
This was when things became strange. You see, I didn't really know anything about the Middle Kingdoms (The Second Heaven). I'd never bothered to investigate it at all.
I met up with Kim on a busy street in a very large city in the Middle Kingdoms. She was beautiful. She was even more beautiful than I had ever seen her on Earth. She saw me from far away and slowly walked through the throngs of people that swarmed around us towards me smiling her beautiful smile. We embraced and walked away together.
We passed by the ramshackle shops and the crowds of people. Some of the buildings were beautiful, a few were absolutely magnificent, most though were quite wretched and desperately in need of repair. The people themselves though were all beautiful. All were young. All were fair. Their clothing though seemed to mirror the physical state of the buildings around them. Some were clothed beautifully. A few were clothed magnificently. Most though were dressed in rags.
Everyone seemed to have a look of sullen despair to them. Everyone seemed to be unhappy. I and Kim walked by a billboard advertising "Grassy Eight by Fours" which showed a picture of a beautiful bikini-clad model reclining sexually on a plot of lush grass covered land. In her pose, she watched a television set, the watching of which seemed to fill her entire soul with some type of sexual joy. In fine print, below the TV screen was the phrase "Your distance to the PPU may vary." In larger bolder letters was something that appeared to be a price. It said "6,000/20 or 10,000/12." Kim looked at me and said "Wow. Grass sure is expensive. You can get sand or gravel for a third of that. Who would pay twelve hours a day for 10,000 years just for some grass? I wonder how much the property tax is?"
I couldn't help but notice that the look on the model's face did not whatsoever match the looks on the faces of any of the people that were on the road, except, perhaps, for the looks of those who were magnificently dressed. By far, the looks of the people around me were filled with nothing but either intense concern or forlorn abandon.
From time to time, as we walked down the street, we could see a few well-dressed people haggling for merchandise. We saw billboard after billboard until we almost forgot what color the sky was. We saw many drinking. We saw others stumbling as though they were drunk. We even saw one fight that had broken out at a bar when one man, while drunk, had tried to pick up on another man's girlfriend. A crowd of people stood around the confrontation to watch as the two drunken immortals uselessly pummeled each other.
Kim talked to me as she cuddled with my left arm. She talked about how beautiful it was here and talked to me about how happy she was that she had made it to Heaven. A man carrying handouts for a psychologist gave us a leaflet that featured coupons, with the biggest and boldest entitled "Ladies Night: 30% OFF!"
Kim talked about how she had made a trip to the edge of her world and had been allowed to look into Hell and how happy she was that she was not forced to live there. We carefully walked around a homeless man that was sleeping on the sidewalk. A loudspeaker on a building blared out another commercial for another psychologist. "Eternity Got You Down? Sad that Suicide is No Longer an Option? Come See Dr. Bill! He'll put that smile back on your face for only five hundred an hour!"
I looked at Kim with a look of shock as the relentless throngs of humanity bumped past me. It had never occurred to me. The people in this place did not know that this was not Heaven! Papa Voice had chosen to never tell them. Apparently they only knew of the existence of this place and that Hell somehow lay around them. I contemplated telling her about the true Heaven, but chose not to. I just knew it would break her heart and I didn't want to hurt her. I just couldn't believe though that she could think that this crowd of confusion could be Heaven. I looked at Kim as though she were insane.
We passed a store where a crowd of people were watching a television commercial for some product called an "Enhancer 212". Many looked at the screen and sighed. It seemed as though they had two emotions within them that fought each other. The first was one of desire. The second was one of shame. I looked at the TV screen to see a thing that looked like a hat that had a pair of binoculars set into them in the front and something that looked like a smallish umbrella set into the back. It looked like such a ridiculous thing that I laughed at it at first, but then when I saw the pained looks of desire on the faces of the others that were watching the screen with me, I ended my laughter out of respect for their sadness and walked away.
I asked Kim where she lived and she looked at me sadly. She told me that she hadn't found a home yet and that she was still looking. When she found out that I was not yet "registered" at the "housing office" she escorted me, walking, several miles away to a large white dingy building, within which, were thousands of others waiting in monstrously long lines. On large signs at the front of each of these lines were different words. Some said "Tubes." Some said "Plots" and some said "Real Estate." The "Real Estate" line held perhaps ten people. There were perhaps thirty different "Tubes" lines, each of which held over fifty people.
We stood in line for over two hours talking and cuddling. When we finally approached the front of the line, a beautiful young woman looked at me and asked me to fill out some forms. She then asked me to hold out my left arm where she then stamped it with the number "94,767,769,876." I then looked at Kim's arm to see the number "94,767,652,867." She told me that there was not a tube available for me and that I should check back every morning until one was.
I frowned at her in ignorance. She immediately responded by saying, "Take a pamphlet, it'll explain everything."
She said "Next." and I was pushed out of the way by the next woman in line. On the floor, I then saw a small booklet that was covered in dirt, ripped and torn from having been stepped on repeatedly. It was entitled "Welcome to Heaven! Employment Opportunities Available." On the cover was a young handsome man lying within a tube, smiling, and holding his closed hand up in the air with his thumb extended upwards. All about him were other beautiful people in other tubes with similar looks of friendly happiness also all holding up their closed hands with their thumbs extended skyward.
I stood there for several seconds wondering what to do. I looked at the lady at the desk and began to feel rage grow within me. What was this place? What in the world was a "tube" and why did I have to wait several days to get one? What was this number on my arm?
I and Kim walked out of the building and turned a corner. There walked a man handing out balloons to passerbys. Each balloon had the same cutish logo printed on it which read "Dr. Robby Bobs, the Best Marble Finder in Town!" Below the logo was an address and a telephone number. We walked several miles down the road until we saw a largish building in the background.
"I asked that we be placed in here. It's close to where I work." Kim said.
She held me closely as she explained that there were simply too many people for us to be able to live as we used to. The competition for resources was so great that we would simply have to content ourselves with less. That wasn't true though. I had seen this heaven myself from the outside, and had seen the large expanses of empty land that were not yet populated.
As we came closer to the building, I noticed that it wasn't really just one building at all, but rather a collection of hundreds of tall, wide and strangely thin buildings. Between each wafer of building there was a thin apparatus spotted with television screens. Then, within the wafer thin buildings, I saw people, thousands of them. I now knew what the sign meant when it said "Tubes." because these wafer thin buildings were nothing more than just a large collection of tubes, with people lying within them. The tubes were stacked perhaps one hundred high and a thousand wide. The holes were roughly three feet in diameter and looked to be roughly seven to eight feet long. Between each column of tubes there were ladders. I eventually figured out that the up ladders were blue and the down ladders were red. I did some quick math in my head and almost vomited when I realized that maybe as many as ten million people were housed in this monstrosity that took up less than one square mile of land.
Occasionally, within the tubes I could see a man or a woman who wore an "Enhancer" device of some type and was watching TV. Those that were around them looked on jealously. Apparently, the TV screens were far too far away and the volume was far too small for adequate viewing. I found out later than many considered an enhancer as some sort of a necessity to life much as water and food were to us on Earth.
A drunk man who was climbing up a blue ladder then stumbled and fell two hundred feet to the ground, knocking two others off of the ladder as he passed by them. All around him, the people cheered at the man's misfortune as he and his fellow victims regenerated in embarrassment.
"Are we to live here?" I asked Kim.
Kim began to cry as she held my arm tightly. I looked at the buildings to see the thousands as they discontentedly lay in their tubes watching commercial after endless commercial.
"If we get a plot, they show normal shows sometimes. Eight by eights are expensive though. And all the good ones are usually taken." she responded sadly.
Just then a beautiful but sad lady dressed in nothing but an advertiser's sandwich board bumped past us. Her sign advertised the "Enhancer 212." A loud speaker that was attached to the corner of a building where we stood blew out a loud plastic tacky cartoon show theme as a voice began screaming to the world about "Titan Air Pillows and Air Mattresses: Eternal Rest as Papa Voice Intended It to Be."
I asked Kim to wait for me for a second. I then lost myself in the crowd, turned invisible and flew into the air. I had been in this world for less than a day and I was more enraged by it than I ever was by hell. The level to which it dehumanized was purely insane. I simply could not understand how this society could content itself with such a state of mass deprivation.
I began to blink everywhere within this world to try and understand the predicament my wife now found herself in. I went miles into the air to look down to see large areas that were excruciatingly densely populated. I saw others though that were as green and lush and empty as was most of the real Heaven. I went back in time to try and see how a world such as this could come to be and what I saw sickened me.
Back towards the beginning, thousands of years ago, as this world's new entries first began to come, they each took for themselves large sections of land. At first, it was quite peaceful and cooperative. Then, as further new entries arrived, and the available land began to dwindle, factions and political contentions arose. Eventually kingdoms came into existence. With everyone being immortal though, there were no successions. Kings remained kings until they were forcibly dethroned by an opponent. And with the land being as scarce as it was becoming and with there being so many as discontented as there were becoming, these opponents became numerous. Therefore, civil war, anarchy, and coups became quite common as well. Today, all land, no matter how abysmal has been claimed and cherished by someone. Over half of the land belongs to the Kings and Queens. The military, the police and other aristocracy consume another thirty percent and the general population (nearing 100 billion) attempt to content themselves with the remaining twenty (roughly 4 million square miles not counting water). This means that every square mile must support approximately twenty-five thousand people (a thirty-three foot by thirty-three foot section of land for each). This sounds bad at first, but then you have to consider on top of that that even amongst the non-military and non-aristocracy there is also intense competition for resources, which makes this all even worse. Shops, stores, walk ways, public buildings, etc. also shave down this number even further.
The ending result being that the rich thrive in opulence as the average lay in utter malcontent in tubes or on small plots of land barely large enough for them to lie down on and for which they are charged nearly infinite prices.
To help keep the peace, PPUs (Population Pacification Units: Televisions) were installed all over this world. At first the programming was quite wonderful. Then, as it became more and more difficult to exist financially, the TV stations began to sell more and more commercial time. Today, except in the regions that can afford to pay for non-profit programming, commercials have become the staple.
On Earth, food, water, and shelter are absolute necessities to one's life. Here, they are not, therefore all types of consumption oriented activities are only affordable by the rich. Only one such consumption oriented activity is still affordable for all and that's alcoholic beverages. To further pacify the public, and to reduce the general state of malcontentment, alcoholic beverages are always priced affordably with credit being generously offered to those who are short on funds.
I could not tolerate Kim being forced to endure such animalistic slavish treatment. And so, I saw to it that we became rich again.
There wasn't much I could do for wealth here though. The entire commerce system was so locked down by the kings and corporations that no one new could get a foot in anywhere. So, I did the only thing that I could do. I went back into time and became one of the original new entries. I claimed an immense piece of land for myself and encouraged the other new entries to do the same. After that, it was easy. I just hired people to work the land in return for smaller portions of it. They were all so happy to hear that they could own land personally that they didn't seem to mind it when I charged them a small annual property tax. Of course, all these property taxes alone, when added up, brought me a king sized fortune year after year. And whenever someone failed to pay their taxes, I just repossessed their property and sold it to someone else for another near infinite amount of money or time.
I then quickly blipped back in about every decade or so to make sure that my affairs were being managed properly until I finally met up with Kim again on the street, with my massive amount of wealth intact.
We were rich again. And with the riches, we jumped right back into the life that we had on Earth.
We danced again. We played again. We travelled again. We saw all that the world had to offer again as the billions around us tried their best to content themselves with the virtual slavery that I and others like myself had created. We had friends by the thousands again. We lived a life of absolute entertainment again. We explored our world and all of its wonders as the endless fields filled with those who had purchased their eight by fours, their four by fours, or their eight by eights wept and yawned.
Our happiness was doomed though. I didn't know this at the time, but the Middle Kingdoms are also a hell, just a different version of it. Rich or poor, a similar unfortunate fate rests for everyone here. Had I known that this would happen, I might have even encouraged Kim to become godly. I might have allowed her to live separate from me eternally just for her own mental health.
One day came, a day like so many others that I and Kim had shared, and to my mild surprise Kim simply said that she just didn't feel like doing anything that day. She sat down in front of our PPU and stayed there. At first, I didn't mind, but then over the years after that, her desire to do nothing increased. It became more and more difficult to get Kim to do anything. And then, even when we did, she never seemed to be happy about it. Eventually I gave up and let her do exactly as she wished. I ended up sitting with her there in front of our PPU for several decades before I finally gave up and moved on. More than likely, she's still there. I wonder how long its been since she's even spoken to anyone?
Eternal wealth. Who would have thought that this would be a curse? When you are allowed to do whatever you feel like doing, you will do whatever you feel like doing until you don't feel like doing anything anymore. This fact is solely responsible for all the horror in Hell, all the routine virtual death of the Middle Kingdoms and all the joy in Heaven.
In Hell, people have given their freewill over to addictions; addictions to violence, addictions to sex, addictions to cruelty, addictions to power. In Hell, people never run out of energy. They simply obey their addictions whether they wish to or not. They are never in a state of not wanting to do something, because their addictions are always demanding their obedience.
In Heaven, people have given their freewill to Papa Voice. Whenever their conscience makes a demand of them, they obey. Whenever Papa Voice makes a request of them, they obey. And then, with their remaining time, they do as they wish. Their own desires act as a spice to their lives and not the bulk of it. Therefore, those in Heaven also never get bored and also are never in a state of not wanting to do something.
In the Middle Kingdoms though, people have given their freewill over to their pleasures. This sounds good, except when you figure into the equation immortality and the fact that people get tired of things. Pleasure decreases over time. Some have a talent for it. Some can somewhat happily pass away the years playing tennis and studying foreign languages. Most though can't. And eventually, everyone winds up in the exact same situation; standing in front of a never shrinking eternity of time with no desire to do anything with it. Shortly after one gets to this point, sadness, despair, and insanity usually follow closely.
For those who aren't rich, there is routine, and the routine offers them a partial escape from the boredom. In order to keep their plots, to keep paying their property taxes, those who aren't rich must work. They must work hard and they must work long. But, because they have something to do, their lives have a form of direction and purpose to them. Their own poverty saves them from the eternal boredom that the rich cannot escape.
At first, the rich play. Then, as the happiness they receive from their play becomes increasingly bland, flat and tasteless, they begin to choose to work. They don't work because they have to. Instead they work merely for the sake of alleviating their own boredom. Those who are lucky develop a daily routine that centers around this work. From that point on those who can live their lives in constant obedience to this routine can achieve some happiness because of it.
Eventually though, no matter how well these people lose themselves in their work...no matter how well they teach themselves to not think...no matter how well they pretend otherwise, eventually they all begin to ask themselves the one question for which there is no answer. Why? Why do they work? Why do they do anything? If none of the work changes anything and if none of the work matters, then why do it? And this is how the spiritually self-centered lose their minds and learn how to yawn and cry and weep and moan eternally.
The happiest of all of the people here though stumble across one activity that so many others never even consider: Service. Helping those around them to be happier.
So many here go crazy following after their own pleasures and infatuations. It is like they are at a party for thousands of years constantly trying to find some new aspect of diversion or novelty in dances and songs that have been heard and done billions of times before. Pleasure dies over time and the unfortunates here continue to force themselves to dance with their pleasures like an insane man who forces himself to dance with the corpse of his loved one long after the life has disappeared from her.
Those who lose themselves in service though discover the one thing everyone else here desperately longs for but has habitually forced themselves to run away from: work that matters: a near infinite supply of activities that truly do have meaning. Losing yourself while attempting to increase the happiness of others means purpose and value and satisfaction and these are the commodities that are the hardest to find in this world.
There are very few here that follow this path though. On Earth, those who devoted themselves to service all went to Heaven. These are the gods of the future. The people here though were the people who chose entertainment and unevil personal pleasure above all. In order to adopt this new lifestyle though they must fight against their own deeply-ingrained natures. It is a difficult fight, but there are those here who do succeed.
But even for these though, even for those who have successfully repented after the point when repentance is no longer possible, these learn that there is a end to the satisfaction that one can receive through service as well.
Papa Voice made us. We are His children. He lives His life perfectly focused on us for the sake of helping us live the best lives we can live. He has given His entire eternal existence to us and asks nothing in return. He longs for our happiness.
This is how the gods spend their days.
Once perfection has been reached and all of your fellow immortals have been assisted and guided as much as they can be, there is an end to the work that is available to you. There is a point, for those whom are immortal but are not gods, when you will look and realize that everything has been completed. There is no more service that can really be given. And this is when the sweet delicate sadness of a never relenting eternity of valueless time falls atop the heads of those who chose to become belatedly righteous.
For the gods though, for those whom the eternities have allowed to wield perfect power, there is no end to the satisfaction, nor the purpose, nor the value. There is only an eternity of countless future progeny to be created, assisted, befriended and beloved.
As for me, I've stumbled across a different path: the acquisition of power. It's been an enjoyable lifestyle so far. So far, it's worked for me. I have my goals. I have my enthusiasms. I have my contentment. I have not yet hit my limit of acquisition though. There is still more I can do. I wonder if the same fate as Kim's awaits me though? I wonder if one day, once I have consumed everyone I can consume, once I have learned everything I can learn, once I have achieved as much as can be achieved, if I too will become bored, give up and content myself with my PPU.
I really don't know.