Asmireen
©2024 by Jonathan Scott
- - - - - - - - - -
Chapter 24 - My Struggle - 8
- - - - - - - - - -
I have an undergraduate degree in math from Harvard. I know that this doesn't seem like a major accomplishment to many of you, especially not for the ruler of all Hell. But, I am quite proud of it.
I later followed up on this degree, with a master's degree in math from Oxford. This I also consider to be quite an accomplishment. It also was much more fun. Spireshire, during the cold war was just a much more enjoyable place to be than New Towne in the 60's.
Of course, even later on, I finished my math education with a hakasegou from Tokyo University. During the first World War, Asia simply provided a much more educationally friendly learning environment than battle-torn Europe or even America. It was hard though. The Japanese tend to be a little more fanatical about pretty much everything than the rest of the world, especially education. Good food though.
Throughout the years, I've picked up all sorts of degrees. I've set foot on every campus everywhere in the world at one time or another. It's been fun. I think I have about 200 undergraduate degrees. I'm at about 100 master's degrees and fifty-seven doctorates.
Let's see. My favorite universities were UCLA (for the women, of course), La Sorbonne (Mon Professeur Austin, il était tres chouette.) and believe it or not, the Kobe Shiritsu Gaikokugo Daigaku was wonderful! (Keddo, onegai shimasu, tokidoki tatemono wo nutte ne?).
My worst educational memory? Well, perhaps, it was while I was at BYU during the early 1990 ADs. I had written some type of foolish paper dealing with Citizen Kane and how it revolutionized the world of cinema for some film analysis class. My professor for whatever reason told me to talk to him about it in his office, and the guy had me sit there for twenty minutes as he scolded me about my having forgotten to mention the time that Orson Welles walked into the room with an axe to hack a hole into the floor so that the camera could be able to shoot a shot from an ultra worm's eye view. Apparently he just wanted to read the phrase "And Joseph Cotten was SO surprised." just one more time.
I didn't know what to do. The guy wasn't even a professor. He was just another shmoe out there trying to get his master's degree. I didn't know if I should laugh at him, or pop him into my mouth like a Tic-Tac®. At that time, I already had my medical doctor's license, not to mention having passed the bar several decades earlier, not to mention also being the absolute and uncontested king of the underworld. My list of accomplishments was so full that sitting there being chewed out by some insignificant mortal about an art form that wasn't even a hundred years old yet seemed a little too unbearably ostentatious. So, I ate him. Do you blame me?
Just kidding. Although, I kind of wished that I had. My attitude about the professor's scolding apparently didn't please the professor, who later managed to talk the dean of the college into talking the standards board into forcing me to take psychiatric counseling.
So, there I was, Asmodeus, the ruler of all hell, forced to sit in a little room with a little man in the basement of the Kimball Tower, twice a week, Mondays at 11:30 am, and Thursdays at 2. I went once. The little guy just kept going on about how fear was really just an acronym for "False Evidence Appearing Real" and then going on to mention something about "catastrophes" and "overflowing toilets." Somehow, it just didn't seem to apply to me.
As it turned out, I was actually kicked out of BYU for not complying with their counseling request. It's the only time I was ever kicked out of a university. Kind of surprising isn't it? One would think that the Devil would be kicked out of a lot of places. As it just so happens though, I'm quite well behaved when I feel so inclined.
Believe it or not, I didn't actually begin my religious education until I had already accumulated perhaps half of my other degrees. You have to remember that I was trying to escape my world. Of all the people in Hell, I would be the one the most capable of enjoying it and even I absolutely detested being there. Not to mention that it just seems a little silly to leave Hell to study Hell, don't you think?
I did begin to study it though one day. I had been roaming the Earth for over a thousand years and one day, I finally just became content. I had roamed the Earth, enough, finally. That was when I began to do my research.
You people will never begin to fathom the amount of sheer inaccuracy you have to deal with when it comes to religion. In the case of math or physics, it's a piece of cake to see whether or not one given textbook is inaccurate. When it comes to religion though, what mortal can know for sure that anything anyone has ever said is false? There's thousands of religions on your planet, and each one has some form of uniqueness to it. This massive volume of variety alone has created such a state of religious tolerance, that anyone nowadays who feels so inclined can start up his own religion and start preaching practically anything they feel like preaching. There's so much craziness out there that pretty much anyone with even an average amount of intelligence could look at the confusion and be forced to think that either there is no Papa Voice or that Papa Voice is somehow weak or that Papa Voice is somehow cruel or indifferent.
I'm glad I thought it up. You'd be amazed at how my kingdom has grown because of it: the confusion.
I originally came up with the idea long ago when one of my soul stalkers came across a man who simply refused to believe a portion of the scriptures. As we dug into him deeper, we found out that the one particular section of the scriptures that he refused to accept happened to deal with a sin that he was quite fond of. Anyway, I got my soul stalker to talk him into "Being Brave" and "Righting the Wrong" and becoming the first and only true saint of Papa Voice's true religion. Both I and my soul stalker sat there with our mouths wide open in shock when we saw how readily he accepted the lie. We had never seen anyone who worked so aggressively to teach something that was so obviously wrong. He was the perfect servant until the end of his days.
We use this method regularly now. One time, a man happened to want a divorce, and the religion of which he was a member refused to give it to him. So, we simply talked him into starting a new religion of his own that permitted divorce. He was so enthusiastic about it. And, luckily for us, his religion took off like a shot. Of course, he being the king and all helped out quite a bit.
Stupid little conceited fools will sometimes literally giggle at the opportunity to become leaders of new religions. It is actually quite amazing. And for those that need a little more encouragement, there's always money. Take any person who has any kind of religious dilemma, and then talk them into believing that they are somehow more enlightened than their own church leaders, and then throw money at them on top of it and you'd be amazed at how many of them will jump exactly in the direction you would wish them to jump. And most of them, by far, will completely believe the lie with absolute sincerity.
All we really did was talk them into doing it. I more or less left the soul stalkers to deal with the details of the types of religions that would be created. Until I began my actual studies of earthly religions though, I had no idea of the actual damage that we had done. We had created a world where virtually every variation of any aspect of Papa Voice was supported somewhere somehow by some religion. We created a world where anything that anyone could ever wish to believe was true. It was complete and perfect confusion.
So, I began my studies. I must admit that it is very hard to study things that you know are not completely true. There's just not the same sense of satisfaction. It feels much more like drudgery. But, to accomplish the goals that I sought to accomplish, understanding this pile of falsehood somehow seemed important.
The act of studying earthly religions is actually kind of an endless task. There are so many already and, of course, there are new ones being created each year. :) And, very often, each of these religions will write their own variations of the scriptures. In fact, some will even write their own new ones.
Then, on top of all of that, each religion has its own collection of spiritual "superheros" who also write books, each containing their own personal assortment of philosophies, revelations and interpretations. You could study earthly religions for a thousand years and never completely finish the task.
You want to know what my favorite religious story is? It's not really the same as it is for most people. Most people are quite fond of the time that Natha jumped on the back of the Hydra and forced it to vomit out the souls of all those it had consumed. Others love to hear about the time that Papa Voice will throw the Great Wolf back to Hell, chain him with ten thousand chains and then bury him in the pit of his own making for a thousand years. The more barbaric of you love to hear about the time of the great fire and the repurification of the world.
The story I like the most though deals with Kafet. You remember the story of Kafet right? He was one of the closest counselors to the Great Kitat. He had been there personally for each and every one of the most glorious miracles that your little world has ever seen. He personally had heard each and every sermon preached by the Great Kitat himself. He knew Kitat personally. And then, when the time came, Kafet somehow managed to ignore all of those amazing things that he had witnessed and sold Kitat to the authorities who were pursuing him. Kitat was then burned at the stake. You remember this, don't you? He was perhaps the person responsible for the most evil act that had ever been committed on this planet. Can you imagine knowing all that Kafet knew and then ignoring it all just for some silver? and not even that much of it? And thanks to him, we managed to slaughter the most precious of all the prophets who had ever walked this planet.
I cannot tell you how much effort we had to put into that one. Of the dozen or so counselors that Kitat had, Kafet was the only one to have any sort of a weakness, albeit a small one. I had to allocate half of my soul stalkers to him. We worked on him day and night for years until he finally gave in. Then, poor Kafet, we just turned the switch off on him as soon as we didn't need him anymore. All those soul stalkers that had been speaking to him day and night for years, we just reallocated them to other projects and Kafet, finally alone and at peace, realized what he had done and almost immediately threw himself off the top of the highest building he could find.
Here's the fun part though, I stood there under the Entry and waited for him. It was so exciting. I got to watch the soul responsible for the greatest sin of all time fall. I allowed him to land in my hand actually. Were there any one soul that one could ever hope to consume, this would be the one. I wished to savor the experience. I actually wanted to talk to him for a while. I thought it would be fun to gloat.
Kafet. Laying there in my hand. What a memory!
But, that wasn't all of it though. Something happened that day that I never would have guessed. My stupidity! I can't believe that I hadn't been able to deduce this one. You see, I simply believed that this man would become a blinker here. And it was true, he did become one, but he actually became more than that. He became more than just a blinker.
You see, as it turns out, he blinked in three different shades of light, not just two. He was dark sometimes. He was normal sometimes. But then, HE EVEN BLINKED WITH LIGHT SOMETIMES! I sat down right there and then and began to think the most aggressive thoughts I had ever thought in my entire eternal life. Lightless blinkers had allowed me to return to Earth. Lightless blinkers had allowed me to enter the Middle Kingdoms. What would this one do? Were I to consume him, COULD I ACTUALLY EVEN ENTER HEAVEN?
I stared at Kafet as though he was the most precious possession in the entire universe, because indeed he was. Kafet simply lay in my hand and wailed for the thing that he had done. His guilt and shame were so overpowering that I don't think he even noticed me. The smallest portion of me even felt sorry for him. The overbearingly large rest of me though looked at Kafet with absolute ravenous hunger.
I swallowed Kafet and my world opened up. The infinite and endless once again became possibilities to me. Before, when I had swallowed my first blinker, I had felt as though I could return to Earth. This time, with the same certainty I knew that I had the ability to enter Heaven. My body began to tremble at the thought of it.
I forgot everything. My mind went completely blank. I was frantic in anticipation. I stood and walked away from the Entry, ran actually, straight to the walls of Heaven. Luckily for myself, I had some presence of mind. I was so completely overwhelmed with the possibilities that presented themselves to me though, it was as if I was drunk. Luckily though, I had the presence of mind to stop myself. You see, my first plan was to simply throw myself through the wall and content myself with finally being there. Fortunately though, I considered what Papa Voice might do were I to enter His kingdom, especially on the same day as the death of the Great Kitat. So, I stopped myself and began to consider other alternatives.
Perhaps this was weak of me, but I had to do something. I knew that I should not enter, but, after all these millennia, I just had to somehow see, confirm, that I was now truly free to enter Heaven. I just had to know. I walked up to the wall of Heaven. Far below my eyes stood the sign that the lights had made for me so long ago. In my mind, I recited the words that I had memorized from the sign that were now too small for me to read.
You cannot live in Heaven, because wherever you live Heaven cannot be. Because you are not serene, a place of serenity cannot exist around you. Because you are not peaceful, a place of peace cannot exist around you. Because you are not giving, loving or pure, a place of giving, loving or purity cannot exist around you. You live in hell because that is what you create. Heaven could not be Heaven were you here, therefore, so that a Heaven may exist, you are not here.
"Are you sure about that?" I said to myself as I looked at the sign.
I raised my titan-like right hand and placed it close to the wall. I then made a fist and extended my index finger. I then slowly moved my hand forward until it came into contact with the invisible barrier that surrounded Heaven. Except that it didn't actually come into contact with it. It went through! My fingertip was in Heaven!
I sat there like an alcoholic staring at a bottle of his favorite whisky fighting each and every fiber of his being to walk away, but then with each and every fiber of his being fighting right back with an equal amount of strength. I just stood there. I shook and I quivered.
I finally withdrew my finger and sat down on the ground. I was fully frustrated.
Papa Voice would never let me into Heaven voluntarily, especially not after having seen to the death of His Great Kitat. I had to enter Heaven. Somehow I just had to. The only question was, how could I do it safely? How could I do it in a way where I would not have to be concerned with interference from Papa Voice?
Then somewhere, from some place in my mind, came a thought that struck me with such absolute clarity that I knew it to be true immediately.
"Well, how about if you just consume Papa Voice?"
Some moments of inspiration are pure. Some are so pure that one is entranced by them. Some are so pure that one is possessed by them. This thought had been so overwhelming to me that I could do nothing but sit there in my huge giant magnificent body and wait for my mind to heal from the beautiful damage that these nine monumental words had inflicted on me. It was not in my power to do anything else.
Consume Papa Voice? What an idea!
You see, I'd been deathly afraid of Papa Voice ever since I came to Hell. He was so strong, and I literally had no power before Him. I knew that there was nothing I could do to Him. It would be like asking the puniest of cartoon characters to kill Joe Lewis. First of all, the cartoon is not real and Joe Lewis was. And even were that hurdle somehow miraculously capable of being cleared, then you would still have to figure out how something so puny could successfully kill the greatest fighter of his time. We simply are not real in the same sense that Papa Voice is real. And even were we real on the same level as Papa Voice's reality, we simply could not compete with his absolute power.
But, thanks to Kafet, I now was real, having the same level of reality as Papa Voice. I could enter Heaven. I could interact with heavenly beings. I believed that I could even interact with Papa Voice. And I also was no longer a mere new arrival. I was over a thousand feet tall. I had no idea how much I weighed, but I knew it was getting close to, if not over, a million tons. I could fly. I could blink. I could throw fire, acid and ice. I was nothing compared to what I was. I was a monster of monumental proportions!
Was it possible? Could I consume Papa Voice?
I began to think.