William Martin Freese

This work is fiction. The apparent location is not the actual location. The persons named, living or dead, are either purely fictitious or fictitious representations. Even if you recognize yourself in this story, the story acknowledges that it isn’t you.

Awakening

He was suffocating, but for some reason, this was not a problem. Then, he was breathing easily and deeply. The air reminded him of summer camp, fresh and woodsy. In the distance, he heard water falling. He kept his eyes closed. He liked to do that when he awoke. He liked to maintain the option of a return to slumber. Once his eyes were open, he could not go back. Although return to dreams of suffocation was not entirely appealing, he kept eyes closed.

Where was he? He could tell there was quite a bit of sunlight somewhere off to his left. The sun was not directly on him, but it was over there. That was the wrong side if he were home. Too much light. And at his house, there was no smell of woods or distant sound of falling water. He was somewhere else.

The better his books sold, the more used he was to waking up in strange beds. He liked to play a game: try to recall the location before opening his eyes. He succeeded more than half the time. Not this time, though.

When he opened his eyes, it might still be a game. Sometimes the room would be memorable. He would recall the hotel, the city, the commitment: a keynote address, an interview last night, or a book signing today. Sometimes he got it right away. Sometimes it took time. Eventually, he always remembered most of what was going on, but he could need details from the schedule on his smartphone. That was fair, especially now that he was getting older. Getting old. But he felt better if he could get it all on his own.

He opened his eyes. “Where in Hell am I?”

This was clearly no hotel room. It sometimes happened that he would be invited to stay at a private home, particularly since one of his novels had been made into a successful movie with well-known stars. There would be a good dinner and conversation that always included questions about what those actors were really like. He did not recall such a dinner last night. He did not recall going to bed last night. He did not recall this beautiful bedroom.

Rich woods. An asymmetric sandstone fireplace with a niche holding a good-sized painted sculpture of a Madonna and Child. A desk built into a floor-to-ceiling corner window. A wall of glass looking onto a bright terrace with a forest beyond. It made him think of his favorite architect: Frank Lloyd Wright. But Wright had worked a century ago. Everything here looked brand new. How could he have fallen asleep in some sort of Wright-revival home without recalling?

He heard a sound in the distance, like someone working in a kitchen. Was he expected to be up? He looked for his phone. The nightstand had a lamp—indirect lighting behind a wooden wedge—and a small sculpture, but nothing of his own. While fumbling for his absent phone, he accidentally knocked the sculpture to the floor. The artwork was heavy, solid, and left a dent. He must remember to apologize to his host.

Sound from below again. What was he wearing? Nothing. Nothing at all? There were two chairs in the room with nothing draped over them. And there was that wall of glass.

He wrapped himself in a sheet as he arose, recreating a Roman toga, not entirely successfully. He saw a door he hoped led to a bathroom. It did, but there was no bathrobe. He found he had no need of the facilities. Was he sure? Yes, he felt fine. In fact, he felt wonderful, with none of the usual morning stiffness he had experienced in recent years. He felt fantastic.

He found a mirror. He shrieked. He looked as good as he felt, and that was far too good. He remembered a scene in a movie, a weakling transformed by a German scientist’s experimental technique into a perfect physical specimen, tall, broad shouldered, with rippling muscles. Apparently, he was the subject of such an experiment. He examined himself. He was not only more muscular; he was decades younger. He must remember to thank his German scientist.

Was he still asleep? Dreaming? No, he was certain that he was not. “What in Hell is going on?”

He crossed the bedroom. This time, he noticed the closet door on the darker side of the room. He hoped it would be full of what it turned out to be full of: beautiful clothing. When he had begun touring to promote his books, he had made the effort to improve his appearance by learning something about men’s fashion. This stuff was excellent. Was his German scientist working with an Italian tailor?

He saw nothing through the windows except trees, as if this house were alone in a vast wilderness, but the real reason he was less self-conscious as he dressed was knowledge of how good he looked. Another mirror revealed that the clothing fit him perfectly. He looked like himself, yet at the same time, like a well-endowed male model. For the first time, it mattered whether he dressed right or left.

The room. The clothes. The body. He was developing a suspicion. Before he left the bedroom, he replaced the sculpture he had knocked to the floor. The dent it had left was serious. This, in all the morning’s madness, was oddly the thing that worried him the most. That and the dream of suffocation.

The corridors were surprisingly narrow. He found a staircase down toward the kitchen noises. He emerged on the first floor. The large, bright, low-ceilinged room, the windows everywhere, the couches, the boulder protruding from the floor divided by a narrow path to the stone fireplace, the unmistakable giant orange kettle—no, not orange, Cherokee red—set into a depression in the wall, all confirmed his suspicion of where he was. Well, one of his suspicions. “This is Fallingwater!”

“Pardon, master?” A female voice from the kitchen.

“This house is Fallingwater.”

“The water is outside,” said the voice.

“Yes, I know. This house is built over a waterfall. This is Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece. To my taste, the most beautiful house in the world.”

“It is lovely.” She came out of the kitchen wearing an apron and nothing else. She, too, was lovely, one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He was pretty close now to confirming his other suspicion.

There was a dining table between them. He asked, “Who are you?”

“I cannot tell you that.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Dante Byron de Vries.”

“Call me Dan. It seems unfair that you should know who I am while I don’t know who you are.”

“It is fair, though. We both know who you are, and neither of us know who I am.”

“Really?” The absence of her clothing disturbed him more than the absence of her name. “Why are you dressed that way?”

She looked down at her apron. “Because I’m cooking.” At that moment, a chime sounded in the kitchen. She looked behind her and then to him. “May I, master. The croissant will burn.”

“Go,” he said. “Do what you must.” Croissant was his favorite breakfast when traveling. Of course.

When she returned, she had a tray that she was taking to the dining table, however, she saw that Dan was sitting on a couch below a broad window, so she brought breakfast to him there. She no longer wore the apron.

“Aren’t you cold?”

She shook her head. “No, master.”

“Do you have clothing?”

“Yes, master, but not here.” She poured steaming coffee into a mug on the coffee table. “Up in the other house.”

“Do you know the bedroom where I woke up?”

“Yes, master.” She added a little milk, just the way Dan liked it. She hadn’t asked.

“The clothes there won’t fit, but you should be able to find something.”

“Don’t you like the way I look?”

He drew a deep breath with a small tremor in it. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for it.”

“I understand, master.” She turned and almost ran to the stairway. Her gait was extremely feminine. With an appealing bounce, she disappeared up the steps.

Dan felt as if her absence cleared his head. He tried the coffee. It was the finest he had ever tasted. A bite of croissant was crisp, flakey, buttery yet airy, with an intense though not overwhelming flavor almost too good to believe. But he was starting to believe it. There were three croissants. They went wonderfully with the coffee. He was finishing his first when she reappeared on the stairs.

She was wearing a shirt. On her, it was big enough to be a dress. It was loose and translucent. “Better, master?”

“It will have to do for now. Why do you call me master?”

She crossed the room, bounced onto the couch beside him, pulled her feet up behind her, leaned close and said, “Because I am your slave.”

“What sort of slave?”

On her face, puzzlement was a charming expression. “What do you mean?”

“What are your skills? Are you my cook? Do you do the cleaning? The laundry?”

“Yes, to all of that.” She leaned, if possible, even closer, adding in a breathy whisper, “And more.” Now she managed a look that was innocent and at the same time seductive. Again, it was a charming expression. He realized that any expression would be charming on that face.

“We are not in Pennsylvania, are we?”

“Where?”

“Pennsylvania. That’s where Fallingwater is located. This house. Only not this house. I never actually got there. Just read about it. Pictures. But Fallingwater must be run as some sort of public trust. Nobody wakes up in the master bedroom at Fallingwater anymore. Too bad. The family who lived there believed waking up inside a work of art was a profound aesthetic experience. No one will ever wake up there again.”

“You just did.”

“Only if this is Pennsylvania.”

“No.” She looked adorably apologetic. “I don’t think it is.”

“Am I dead?”

“We have eternal life.”

He winced. “Am I buried somewhere?”

“Not yet. But when they find your body…”

“Find it? I died alone?”

“In the end, you often lived alone.”

He smiled. “True. My wife didn’t care for all the travel that went with book and film promotions.”

“You enjoyed your time alone. It gave you certain liberties.”

Dan’s face became unsettled. “How did I die?”

“In your sleep.”

“Peaceful, then. Lucky break, I suppose. How long before they find me?”

“I don’t know. That is in the future.”

“Some cultures believe we have two deaths.” He took a sip of excellent coffee. “One is when we stop breathing. The second is when the last person who remembers us dies. I felt there was a third category for people who die alone: that period when you are dead, but nobody knows it yet. I mean, socially, you don’t die until the word gets out.”

“Interesting,” she said. “If a person is still alive but forgotten, are they already in that kind of death?”

“I suppose so, in some sense.”

“Or if they are forgotten and then die in some wilderness where nobody knows about it, have they really died at all?”

“If a man dies in the forest and nobody hears about it, does it make a memorial?” He laughed.

She was puzzled again. “Is that funny?”

“I was alluding to the old philosophical story about a tree falling in the forest.”

“I don’t know that story.”

Now he was puzzled. “I thought everybody knew that one. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?”

“It would make a big crash.”

“It is a question of physical vibration in the air versus auditory perception. Is a sound a sound if it is unperceived? Does sound occur in the air or in the mind?”

“Do you always think about things like that?”

“No.” Although perhaps he did. “Why am I talking about falling trees? I just found out I’m dead. And who are you?”

“Your slave.” She said this with pride.

“What is your name?”

“I cannot tell you that.”

“Yes. You said you don’t know your name. Don’t you have a name, or have you forgotten it?”

“I lost it. They didn’t give it back.”

“They?” He took a sip of coffee. With each sip, he was surprised again by how good it was. “Who are they?”

“The ones who made this place.”

“Made Heaven?”

“No, made this house. This forest. Brought us here.”

“But this is Heaven? I mean, the house, the strong young body, the great food, the gorgeous slave girl.” She blushed at that but seemed pleased. “Everything here is perfect. This must be Heaven.”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?” He mulled this over for a moment, along with some of that second croissant. “Does everyone in Heaven have a slave?”

“No, only you.”

“And a house like this?” He looked around the room. “Furniture. Works of art. Worldly possessions. Only me again?”

“Yes, master. Only you.”

“I think I understand. You are an onion.”

This revelation took her by surprise. “An onion?”

He nodded. “Dostoevsky’s onion. You are here to test me.”

“I am a person, just like you.”

“And we are in Heaven?”

“Yes.”

“So for me, Heaven is living in a beautiful home with a beautiful person who is my slave.”

She nodded emphatically.

“And for you, Heaven is being my slave?”

She stopped nodding. “No. I am not in Heaven. I mean, I’m here, but I’m not one of the blessed.”

“What are you, then?”

She looked down at the shiny stone floor. “Damned.”

“And an eternity as my slave is your damnation? Definitely an onion.”

“No, it’s not like that! And what is all this about an onion? Is this onion in a forest?”

He laughed. “The onion is in a novel: The Brothers Karamazov. A woman dies and is condemned to Hell.” He noticed how his slave winced when he said this, but he went on. “The only kind thing this woman had ever done in her life was giving an onion to a hungry peasant. An angel, hoping to intervene on the woman’s behalf, tells God about the onion. God tells the angel to lift the woman out of Hell with that same onion. As the woman is being lifted, other sinners cling to her. She kicks at them and says, ‘This onion is mine.’ In that moment, the onion breaks, and the woman falls back into Hell forever.”

His slave jumped off the couch, backing away from him. Her face was contorted in fear. Even this looked good on her, a fact he found disturbing. Dan went on, “It was a test, you see. God would have known exactly what would happen. When the woman reclaimed her only gift, she was doomed.”

His slave trembled in a most appealing way.

“You are a test. I cannot have a slave. We don’t do that anymore. We fought wars. Passed laws. Slavery is illegal because it is immoral. That’s right, isn’t it? If I accept you as my slave, I go to Hell.”

She began to cry. How did she manage to stay so beautiful while sobbing? “No, master. No! You must accept me as your slave. If not, I am the one who goes back to Hell.”

“Back? You’ve been in Hell before. You are a demon.”

“No, I swear it.”

“I renounce your enslavement.” He shouted this with great conviction, as if he wanted the words to carry throughout Heaven.

She had stumbled backward, tripping over the boulder before the fireplace. The division in the boulder cracked, revealing a pit beneath. She began to slide into that pit. “Master, I beg you, don’t send me back to Hell. I am a person.”

“Swear it in the name of God, then.” The triumph of righteousness was in his voice. The smell of smoke and more was coming from the pit. “Swear if you dare.”

“I swear in the name of God the Father, his Blessed Son Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, his Mother Mary, the Holy Spirit, and all the Saints, I am not a demon. Have mercy on me, master. I beg you.”

This speech took him by surprise. By the time she had gotten it all out, half her body was beneath the floor. It crossed his mind that he was making a mistake.

She cried out, “I am not an onion. I am a human being.”

He reached for her wrists. She grabbed his. He pulled with all the strength of his newly muscled form but could not lift her. The terror on her face was unbearably beautiful, but also just unbearable.

“All right! I accept you as my slave.”

Whatever had been pulling her into the pit released her. The two of them tumbled back onto the couch with her on top of him. She kissed him with emotion that overwhelmed them both. “Thank you, master. Bless you.”

He found it impossible to resist kissing back. This was the best thing that had happened yet, even better than the croissant. Still, now that he had committed to having a slave, he was again unsure of the decision. “You swear to me you’re not some sort of test.”

“If I am, I think the test was when you pulled me out. You enjoyed watching me being pulled down into Hell.”

In a morning of disturbances that had included the news of his own death, this was the most disturbing detail. She did not know her own name, but she knew him too well.

The crack in the floor had vanished leaving only a mild smoky odor to remember it by. Together, they had finished the coffee and croissants, with her joining in only when he insisted he would not eat alone. Another worrying idea crossed his mind. “How old are you?”

She smiled slyly. “Old enough.”

“I am not sure. You look very young.”

“How old are you, and how old do you look?”

“Good point. But when a man acquires a horse or a slave, he should know its age.”

“I don’t know mine.”

“In the same way that you don’t know your name?”

“In exactly that way.”

“They took the knowledge from you.”

“Or didn’t return it.”

“The they who built this place, this sort of Heaven. Who are they?”

“I don’t know their names, either. They said I can’t know their names. Not because they are a secret, but because my mind won’t hold them.”

“But you have seen them?”

“Yes. There are two of them. An angel and a demon.”

“A demon?” He glanced toward the fireplace. “Are you sure we’re not in Hell?”

“Positive.”

“But only sort of Heaven?”

“On the border, I guess. I didn’t realize how close we were until that boulder split.” She shuddered.

“Is this Purgatory?”

“No. They told me there is no Purgatory. That was something people made up when they decided Heaven and Hell were not enough.”

“Or Limbo?”

“Nope. Heaven, Hell, and the World with Earth in it. That’s the whole thing.”

He looked out the windows. The forest was much as he would have expected to see on Earth, although perhaps a bit too perfect. He could not spot any deadwood. “What do they look like?”

“The angel is beautiful. Not in a sexy way like me, but in a way like dawn or sunset. The demon is dark and beastly. I know he is a friend, but he still frightens me every time I see him. Really, they both do.”

“A friend? How often do you see him?”

“He and the angel did all my training. They taught me how to care for this house. And for you. They taught me to speak English.”

“English is not your native language?”

“I am not sure. How to speak was one of the things I had forgotten.”

“Whoa! When you were in Hell, you forgot how to speak your own language?”

“I forgot everything. When they took me out, the only thing I could do was scream.”

He glanced back at the boulder by the fireplace, remembering the look on her face as she was being pulled down into the pit. “I’m sorry for what I did today.”

“No, master. Don’t apologize. If not for you, I would still be there. They told me it was you who got me out.”

“Me? How did I do that?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.”

“Good idea. Will I get to meet them?”

“Yes.” She sounded certain.

“When?”

“Whenever you wish.”

“How?”

“Summon them.”

“Summon them? An angel and a demon? I just order and they appear?”

“Yes.”

“Can you summon them?”

“No.”

“But you know how I can do it.”

“You go out on the terrace and tell them you want to see them.”

“How do I tell them if they are not already here?”

“They are always watching.”

“And listening?”

She nodded.

“Out in the woods?”

“No. But wherever they are, they are aware of us.”

“All right.” Dan stood and made his way to the broad doorway leading to the terrace. He was startled by what he found. “I didn’t expect to meet him here.”

She followed. “Meet who?”

“That Bodhisattva.”

“Who?”

“The bust.” He pointed to a large cast iron sculpture in the middle of the terrace. “I had not anticipated meeting a Bodhisattva in Heaven.”

She walked out onto the terrace and put her hand on top of the sculpture. “I like this. I didn’t know it was named Bodhisattva.”

“That’s not his name. A Bodhisattva is an adherent of Buddha?”

“Who?”

“One of the most important religious figures in human history. But not a Christian.”

She took her hand off the statue. “Why is he here, then?”

“Because he is in Fallingwater, I suppose. An accurate copy.” She came back to the doorway and stood silently by Dan’s side. He asked, “So, I just call for them?”

She nodded.

“Angel and demon who created this copy of a house, if I may, I would like to speak with you.”

The response was instantaneous. Before the echo of his last word faded, spheres grew rapidly on either side of the Bodhisattva, one bright, one dark. The bright one held the slave’s gaze, although eventually it became so bright she had to turn away. Dan fixed his attention on the dark one, blacker than night. Deeper. He felt its pull.

Then both spheres were gone. In their places, two beings stood, each magnificent in its own way, a bright angel, a dark demon. Dan would have been reluctant to assign either of them a gender, or possibly a species, although both had many human characteristics. Each had one head with one face. Dan appreciated that. From what he knew of the Bible, it could have been otherwise.

Both stood quietly, looking at Dan. So did his slave now. “Welcome. Shall we go inside?”

Angel and demon looked to each other for a moment. Then both advanced. Dan and his slave fell back to let them enter. The new arrivals had to bend to get through the doorway. In fact, the ceiling was too low for them. After an awkward moment, the demon spread itself along a couch. The angel found a high spot, a ceiling coffer, where it could stand almost erect.

“All right,” said Dan.

“I should clean up the dishes,” said his slave. “If you do not need me.”

“You are welcome to stay,” said Dan. She did not and vanished into the kitchen with a loaded tray.

The demon watched her go and then said, “Just as well.”

“Yes,” said the angel.

Dan waited for more, but both fell silent. So he asked, “What in Hell is going on here?”

“In Heaven,” said the angel.

“Right,” said Dan. “What in Heaven is going on here?”

“Just what we want to know,” said the demon.

“Hold it. I thought you two created this place.”

“We did,” said the angel.

“For me to spend eternity?”

“In theory,” said the demon.

“In theory? What do you mean in theory?”

“Well, eternity.” The angel shrugged. “Problematic.”

“I am the only one in this situation, with a house, with a slave. Is that correct?”

“It sure is,” said the demon.

Dan pulled a chair to a place between his guests and sat facing them. “What is it like in Heaven? The rest of Heaven. What do people do there?”

“They glory in the divine presence,” said the angel.

“Just that? For eternity? It must get old after a while.”

“They never seem to tire of it,” said the demon. “I don’t get it, either.”

“What about that?”

“They would suffer if it were anything less than eternity,” said the angel. “Only forever is long enough, or so I am told.”

Dan and the demon exchanged a doubtful glance. “What about me? I don’t get that glory?”

“You do not,” said the demon.

“Why not?”

“Because you are a being of pure evil,” said the angel.

“I don’t think I’d go that far,” said Dan.

“In your heart,” said the demon. “To your core.”

“Then why am I not in Hell?”

“You led a blameless life,” said the angel, “in action if not in thought, and at the last, you called upon your Savior.”

“An intellectual decision,” said Dan.

“Pascal’s wager.” The demon laughed. “A soulless philosophical bet on God’s existence.”

“And that was good enough?”

“No,” said the angel. “It should not have been. But you meant it. You understood it. You did not live a blameless life as a ploy to get yourself into Heaven. No, you were good for the sake of goodness despite having absolutely no instinct for it.”

Dan looked to the demon again and pointed to the angel. “I don’t think he—she, it—likes me.”

“That is not true,” said the demon. “We both like you very much. We have waited a long time for you.”

“You have?”

“A long time,” said the angel, “only when not measured against eternity. My friend is impatient. And it will be fine.”

“Why are an angel and a demon friends? And why were you waiting for me?”

The two of them looked toward the kitchen door, behind which came sounds of washing up.

“For her?”

Two large heads nodded.

“Am I here to be her companion? She said she was my slave.”

“She is,” said the demon.

“She must be,” said the angel.

“That is the deal. She obeys your commands, gives you pleasure, makes your existence bliss"—the demon stretched clawed hands—"or I drag her back into Hell.”

“Why? She is a sweetheart. What could she possibly have done to deserve that?”

“She is the opposite of you,” said the angel. “She is a truly good being, but in the last days of her life, she renounced her faith and committed a single unforgivable act. Well, two acts.”

“What acts?”

“She must never recall them,” said the demon. “If she did, it would haunt her so completely that she would be unable to serve you properly. The acts had consequences. Many deaths.”

Dan whistled. “And that’s why she doesn’t know her own name?”

“She knows nothing about herself,” said the angel. “By the time we pulled her out of Hell, her mind was gone. We restored only what was necessary, not her identity or her crime.”

“Many deaths? What did she do?”

“The two of you will be together forever,” said the demon. “If you knew it, eventually, you would tell her.”

Dan sighed. “Problematic eternity. Makes sense. I’m still missing something here: an overall purpose.”

“Exactly,” said the angel.

The demon said, “Seven hundred years ago, that woman was sent to Hell. Because she did not fit in, I was assigned the task of designing her punishment. Because I did not fit in.”

“What does that mean?”

“We are as out of place as the two of you,” said the angel. “This is why we were assigned the border country.”

“Border between Heaven and Hell.”

“Right,” said the demon. “So, I tried to think of a proper punishment. Something not too horrible, but not so easy I’d be in trouble for it. I came up with a prison cell inside a thousand feet of rock. No windows. No door. No light. But no scorching fire either. No freezing winds. No cruel tormentors could get close. I thought it would be peaceful.”

“Jesus Christ! Seven centuries in solitary confinement?”

“That term did not exist at the time,” said the angel. “Nor the research into its results. You people on Earth have learned much since. We had no way of knowing the effect it would have on her.”

“We? You were in on this plan?”

“Not that much,” said the demon. “Mostly my fault. The point is, it was a horrible mistake, but once the punishment was defined, it was set in stone.”

“Literally,” said the angel.

“And it took you seven hundred years to find an excuse to get her out,” said Dan. “To find me.”

“This is where it gets strange,” said the demon.

Dan laughed and then laughed harder. “Strange! I woke up in bed at a World Heritage site. I’m dead. I have a slave. I’m talking to a demon and an angel. But now, it gets strange.”

“We did not start with you,” said the angel. “We had others like you. We had other plans. For hundreds of years, we proposed ideas. We would take them to our superiors. In both Heaven and Hell, the answer was always no. We were sure it would be no this time as well. But it was yes. With you, with this building you loved despite never having seen it, with her to be your slave despite your dislike of slavery, the word came back to go ahead.”

“Why? Why now? Why with me?”

“We would love to know that,” said the demon. “We have what we wanted, our goal of centuries, but we don’t know why.”

“Do you care?”

The angel looked up into the ceiling as if it were not there. “Yes!”

Closets

She came out of the kitchen still in his spotless shirt. It occurred to him that she probably wore the apron while doing dishes. Possibly only the apron. Or perhaps spots on the shirt cleaned and dried themselves? Her being his laundress might not be a challenging task. She was his slave, but he now understood this house was made for her.

She glanced around. “Are they gone?”

“They are.”

“Were they able to answer your questions?”

“I was unable to answer theirs. Apparently, they are not omniscient. Not even in their own neighborhood.”

“Did you expect them to be?”

“I suppose not.” He switched from the chair to a couch, only partially aware of why he did. “God is the one who is supposed to be all-knowing.”

“Is he?” She sat close beside him.

He found it pleasant that she smelled faintly of dish soap. “Until this morning, I doubted God’s existence. Next time I see those two, I must ask for details. Omniscient? Omnipresent? Omnipotent? Omnivorous? Although I get the sense they might not know.”

She nodded. “They tell me what they want me to hear, not what I ask about, but I thought as a blessed master, they’d be more willing to answer your questions.”

As he listened, he caught himself looking her up and down. “You said you had another house. Where is that?”

“I stay in a house just up the hill from this one?”

“How do you get there?”

“A stone stairway.”

“A curving stairway? Covered?”

“Yes.”

He thought for a moment. “Your house has a room with a fireplace in the corner. It has big windows looking out on the main house. It has its own swimming pool. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Wright designed that one, too. A perfect detail in the larger work. You live in the Fallingwater guest house. You must be history’s best accommodated slave.”

“Is that a problem, master? I could stay elsewhere. I can sleep outside.”

“No. No problem. I enjoy the idea. How well off does a man have to be to keep his slave in such luxury? And it isn’t as if we were expecting guests.”

She considered. “I suppose not.”

“Everyone in Heaven is too busy basking in the divine aura. I imagine they wouldn’t stoop to sleeping in such a shack. And I gather getting out of Hell is not an easy task.”

“They told me I am the only person who has done it. But there are the angels and the demons. Perhaps they would be guests.”

He laughed. “From what I’ve seen so far, I doubt they’d fit. Wright was famous for building on a human scale. That angel had to slouch to stand under the ceiling’s highest point. The poor demon would never get his neck and knees in your bed at the same time.”

She joined in his laughter. It was a sound so charming that he stopped laughing just to hear it. “Master, I would love to see that. He would have to sleep with both feet and both hands on the floor.”

“It does conjure up a picture. One I will imagine better when I have seen that bed. Why don’t you give me a tour of your home. While we are there, you can put more clothes on. You said you had clothing there.”

“I know we can find something you will approve.”

She led him back up the stairs, taking a turn into a corridor and outside onto the covered curve of stone steps. An artwork met them. “I love this.” She reached to caress a sculpture of three children with a puppy. “You know who they are, I suppose.”

“No idea. I never saw a picture of it. Didn’t know it was here.”

“So, you don’t know everything about this house.”

“Is this in the original?”

“Like your Bodhisattva? I don’t know. I know I like it.”

“Maybe the angel put this here because it would please you.”

She admired the sculpture with new eyes now. Was it possible this was here for her? Two girls and a boy. Plump. Smiling. “You have children, master.”

“I do.” There was pride in Dan’s voice. “And grandchildren. And life insurance. And savings. And royalties. Now that I think about it, those kids are well taken care of. I managed that. They should appreciate it. I don’t suppose there is a way I could get a peek at my funeral when the time comes. Listen in. Hear how I’m remembered.”

“I don’t think so. They never let me look at Earth directly. They just tell me about things I need to know.”

“What about you? Do you have children?”

For the first time since his arrival, Dan saw an expression on her face that failed to please him. But it vanished in an instant. “No idea.”

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know your past. Not even your name.”

She shook her head, gave the statue one last pat, and started up the curve of stone steps.

He followed. “First time I saw a photo showing this pathway, all that was visible was the stepped canopy above it. I thought the canopy was the walkway.”

She giggled. “That’s silly. Although, I guess I can understand. It does resemble stairs hanging in the air.”

“The oak tree!” He had stopped to examine the open area surrounded by the semi-circle of steps.

“What about it?”

“At the original Fallingwater, Wright used that tree as the center point of this curve, but years after the place was built, the oak died. There was just a stump. Here it is, alive again.”

“I guess we’re not the only ones with eternal life.”

At the guesthouse, the walk paralleled a broad wall of red-framed glass panels looking into another beautiful room with another built-in couch and another architecturally fascinating fireplace. Dan said, “Welcome to the slave quarters.”

“Thank you, master.”

“May I come in?”

“Of course. You need not ask. Everything here is yours.” Her emphasis on the word everything was provocative.

“Where is your clothing?”

She walked past a set of shelves holding pottery and came to a closet door in the bedroom. “What do you want me to put on?”

“What do you have in there?”

“Anything you want.”

“Oh, really? How about a ball gown and big red clown shoes?”

She opened the door. The closet was small and empty.

“Didn’t think so.”

She stepped into the closet, pulling the door shut behind her. It swung open again immediately. The closet was so small that the big red clown shoes flopped out into the room. The ball gown was gorgeous, although as much out of place as the shoes.

He stared. “So…” Despite his having seen her naked not that long ago, he found her bare shoulders alluring. He wasn’t really a fan of ball gowns, but she looked marvelous in this one. “So, you have a magic closet?”

“That’s right.”

“Pretty sure Fallingwater doesn’t have one. In fact, I recall reading that the closets there were inadequate.”

“That won’t matter here.”

“No, I can see that. I should have asked for something else. Those shoes aren’t working with that gown.”

“Anything you wish, master.”

“OK. For the moment, how about blue jeans, a flannel shirt, and sneakers.”

She tried to step back into the closet, but the clown shoes wouldn’t fit. She finally ended up taking them off and carrying them in with her. The door closed and opened again. She stepped out dressed as ordered, executing a pretty spin. Everything fit her perfectly.

“Do that again, but slower.”

She smiled and turned around.

“Hold it.” He bent to examine a label over a back pocket on her pants. “Garden Fresh.”

“Pardon?”

“The label on your jeans. I recognize it. Embroidered vegetables. I know those jeans. And that shirt. And those shoes. These are my wife’s clothes. She wore these back when we were newlyweds.”

“Did you like them then?”

“They were my favorites. Especially the shirt tied up that way. How do they happen to be in your wardrobe?”

“Because they were in your mind.”

“Are you saying your closet can read my mind?”

She gestured broadly. “The whole house can read your mind. In the kitchen this morning, the ingredients you would want for breakfast were waiting for me.”

“Heaven. Right. Makes sense.”

“If we couldn’t read your thoughts, how could we anticipate your desires?”

“My desires.” He sounded worried.

“Is that a problem, master?”

He shook his head. “Any costume I can think of, you will have?”

She nodded.

“I recall a lingerie catalog. Wish I had a copy. Might be useful now.”

She went to the shelves. He had not noticed anything there before but pots, yet she pulled a slim catalog off the bottom shelf and handed it to him.

“Yes, this is it.”

“Anything you’d like to see me in?”

He flipped through pages. “I may be biased. I have a favorite model in this collection. I think I may prefer things just because she is wearing them.”

“Which one?”

He held open a page and pointed to a dark-skinned woman in a red lace teddy.

She stepped into the closet. The dark woman in the teddy stepped out.

“Oh!” His eyes were wide. “I hadn’t expected that.”

“Not what you wanted?” The voice was deep and unfamiliar.

“Go back.” He waved her toward the closet. “Go back one.”

She stepped in, flipped the door, and came out as she had been before in jeans and flannel. “Like this?”

“Yes. Sorry. You took me by surprise. I hadn’t expected a complete change of person. Was that you or someone else?”

“It was me. Did I do something wrong?”

“It was just…” He appeared confused. “I was afraid.”

“I thought you liked the way she looked.” Bee peered into the catalog again. “She does not seem frightening.”

“No. I was afraid I’d lost you.”

“No danger of that. I’m here as long as you will have me. Whoever comes out of that closet is me.”

“I mean… What do I mean? I mean, I was afraid I’d lost this version of you. I didn’t know there were other options. I like this you.”

“We picked this look to please you. I’m glad it works.”

“This isn’t what you really look like? Looked like?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know how I looked on Earth.”

“Of course not.” He chuckled. “You are as mysterious a woman of mystery as one could hope for. I’ve seen you naked, but I still have no idea what you look like and neither do you.”

“I can look any way you please.”

“Yeah, I got that. But I like this look. If you go through a bunch of changes, how can I get this one back again.”

“Ask for it.”

“By name?”

She thought a moment. “You could ask me to assume the same appearance and personality you encountered on your initial arrival in Heaven.”

“A name would be quicker.”

“But I don’t…”

“I know. You need a name. A name for this version of you, at least. Masters renaming slaves has a long tradition. An evil tradition, of course, but since you lack a name, I doubt it will hurt. Do you think it might be appropriate to call you Miss A?”

“Why appropriate?”

“A is the first letter of the alphabet, and this is your first form.”

“Except it isn’t. Whatever I looked like on Earth was my first form. Shouldn’t A be your woman of mystery?”

He waved a finger in the air. “Good point. You should be B.”

“Is B the second letter?”

He lowered the finger. “You don’t know the alphabet?”

“Apparently not.”

“Yes, B is the second letter. Also a better name. We’ll spell it B-E-E. Bee is a real name for a woman. I used to watch a television program with a character named Aunt Bee. Yes, you, in this form, are Bee. All right?”

“That is appropriate. A slave should be busy as a bee.”

“Right.” He sounded doubtful. “Although a slave can rest from time to time.”

“When she gets tired, and her master does not need her to perform a task?”

“Yes. Like that. Let’s try an experiment. I’m thinking of a scene in a movie.”

With no further instruction, Bee stepped into the closet. The door closed and opened. What stepped out was a tall, willowy blonde in a tight, short red dress, an open black blazer and minimalist chain-strap stiletto sandals. He had forgotten about the chain straps. Or had he? It was a powerful look, but those chains made it more slavish than he had intended.

And she was dripping wet. Now he remembered that in the movie scene he had recalled, the woman had come inside from a downpour. She shook her head, throwing droplets from her tresses, a few strands clinging seductively to her face. How many times had he seen that face on movie screens, on TV, in photographs? And here she was in person.

“I’m awfully sorry. I’m afraid I’m dripping on your floor.”

Despite knowing who she was not, he was absolutely star struck. He shook his head but could not say a word.

She turned with her whole body, taking in the room. She flowed to the window like a breeze, looking out at the pool, the oak, the house. “Why, this is delightful.” She turned to face him, the movement like a dance. “Is all this yours?”

He nodded yes, then no, then yes again. She laughed gently at his confusion. He smiled at the sound. “It is an honor to have you here.” Or was it? He was not sure.

“I cannot begin to tell you what a pleasure it is to be here.” She stepped close. He stepped back and felt the edge of the bed behind him. How did that get there?

She reached up and brushed his hair. Something in her gesture. He knew exactly where it happened in the movie.

“You are not the actor.”

“What?”

“You are not being the actor. You are being the character she portrayed.”

“Is that not what you desire?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what I expected.”

“Would you prefer the actor?”

“Can you do that?”

“Sure.” She walked across the room, turned, and came back. “Dan, if there’s anything I can do, it’s take direction. In fact, that’s how I got into so many movies. I’m easy to work with. Ask any director in Hollywood. They’ll tell you how easy I am.” She laughed heartily.

He noticed what a different laugh this was. Everything was different: her walk, her gestures, her posture, her accent. He had not thought about the fact that she had an accent until she dropped it. “You really can do it. You can be multiple people.”

“That’s my craft, Dan.” She made an exaggerated bow. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

“No, not you. Not the actor. I mean Bee. Are you still in there, Bee?”

Her posture transformed a third time. Although her physical form did not change, and she still had the same voice, he could see the slave was back. “Yes, master. I guess you could say this actor”—she indicated herself—“and I share the craft.”

“So you do. You really can be anyone I desire?”

“Absolutely! I am guaranteed to fulfill your every wish.”

He thought of wishes he did not wish to wish at this time. Setting those aside, he grinned mischievously. “What if my dearest fantasy was a threesome with twins?”

The closet door opened. The actress came out again despite already being there. “Not a problem.”

“Which one of you is Bee? Or are you both?”

“Both is correct, master.”

“I occupy both bodies.”

He looked back and forth between them. “I find that hard to imagine. What is it like being in two places at once?”

“It was difficult the first time I tried it.”

“But with practice, I’ve gotten used to it.”

“Practice?” He sat down on the bed, not entirely intentionally. “You’ve been practicing being two people?”

“More than that.”

“We built up over time.”

“Two, three, four…”

He was at a loss for words.

“Once, we were a squad of cheerleaders.”

“A squad?” She had given him words again. “How many in a squad?”

“We based that exercise on a professional sports team.”

“There were thirty-six of us scattered throughout the house and grounds.”

He laughed. “I doubt I could make use of such a mob.”

“You could if you were the team.”

“I suppose so, but… Wait. What are you saying?”

“Your closet can do everything this one does.”

He stood and faced them. The beauty of just the two of them was formidable. “Are you saying I can be other people? Multiple other people? At once? A football team? Maybe an orchestra? A pirate crew? The cast of 12 Angry Men?”

“You will need time to get used to it.”

“But once you do, I know you will enjoy it.”

He walked to the window and looked out over the house and grounds. “OK.” He turned to face them. “OK.” He looked at the closed door of the closet. “I guess I can see where that might take the edge off eternity.”

Back in his room, he stepped out of his closet. Then, with her nodding approval, he stepped out of it again. She was Bee. Just one Bee to reduce confusion.

One of him was wearing white, including gloves and shoes. The other Dan was in black. That helped. She directed him/them to stand before a mirror. That helped, too. He had thought that it might not, quadrupling instead of doubling, but the mirror gave both of him an overview of the scene that would be lacking for either of him alone.

Following her instructions, he shook hands with himself. It was a good first task, symmetrical, but then she had him shake hands with her, first one of him and then the other. This led initially to confused bumping. With practice, he got it down. He had not thought it would be possible, much less easy, but his brain here seemed to have new capacities, and not just because there were two of them.

Then she kissed him, one after the other of him. Somehow, he perceived each kiss as fully being his. Then she invited him both to explore her body. He had known for quite some time that this was coming—she had hardly been keeping her intentions secret—but he had not foreseen that their first coupling would be a trio, that he would have so many parts.

Yet that made it easier. Every awkwardness could be excused by the newness of the situation. He could make wry observations, chuckle appreciatively at his own remarks, then advise himself to shut up, all in the form of conversation rather than interior monologue.

“Do you always talk to yourself like this?”

“Talk to myself?” he asked. “Certainly!”

“But like this?” he asked. “Never!”

“They told me that you did,” she said. “For that reason, you would take naturally to being multiple people.”

“Did they?”

“Now why would they think that about me?”

“They said that it was how you wrote your dialogues.”

“Now that you mention it.”

“That is exactly how I do it.”

They had reached the bed. Things happened there that he had thought about on Earth but never tried. The idea of two men and one woman appealed to him in the sense of what could be done with that woman but repelled him in the near-homosexuality of the situation. Not that he disapproved of homosexuality, just that it was not for him. But with him taking both male roles, he found it entirely acceptable, as well as excellent practice for the being-two-people thing.

He did have an odd moment when he raised both of his faces above her head and, coming eye to eye with himself, recalled a cartoon he had watched in childhood: a snail with eyes on long stalks turning its eyes toward each other, looking at each other on a split screen and blinking. Like that snail, he blinked simultaneously and burst out laughing.

He apologized, but she made it clear that no apology was necessary. He returned to what he had been doing. He felt he was improving with each minute. She seemed to agree.

They had a late lunch. When he learned the meal would be egg salad sandwiches, he was disappointed. Egg salad always disappointed him. Hardly a meal for Heaven. But when he took a bite, he recognized his error. Egg salad always disappointed him because it was not this egg salad, not the egg salad of his youth, specifically the sandwiches he got when he visited the home of a friend whose mother used a secret family recipe. He had spent a lifetime trying to find egg salad like that again. Here it finally was. Egg salad to die for. Literally.

In the afternoon, they strolled the grounds. There were a lot of grounds, falling water, running water, trees, bushes, flowers. Everything was perfect. He was reminded of, and told her about, the grounds of a theme park where any plant wilting or not in bloom was taken back into the greenhouses and replaced with one currently at its best. This place was natural, yet it had that look.

They saw birds, fish, and small animals. She told him nothing here would bite them. The same was true of the insects, pleasant humming, flashes of color, but nothing with a sting.

They walked a long time, sometimes admiring the house from a particular vantage, other times admiring its absence from view. He wondered how far they could wander in one direction. She explained that no matter what direction they took, they would always end up back home. He compared this to a video game and then had to spend some time explaining what that was. He thought he might miss video games. She doubted that.

Dinner was the spaghetti his college roommate’s grandmother made, the best he had ever tasted. Dessert was the tiramisu from that restaurant that had closed when he was in his thirties. The wine was one he had never had before, because he had never had wine that was good enough for Heaven. Now, he had.

After dinner, they had guests.

Celebrity

The angel and the demon joined them near the fireplace. On Earth, some architectural analysts considered this portion of the original house to be the first important conversation pit despite its all being on one level. It had that spirit. Dan and Bee curled up together on the couch below windows framing a darkening evening. The angel took a covered bench close to the wide doors through which it and the demon had entered. By stretching its legs beside the coffee table, it found adequate room. The demon reclined on a set of raised cushions, with its back to the fire and easy access to the bar from which it helped itself frequently during their chat.

Dan expressed the view that he was getting the hang of Heaven. As he described his first day, everyone agreed. The angel and the demon wanted to go over each detail. They seemed to be looking for something and not finding it. When he got to his lesson in being two people and what that led to, Dan found it difficult not to brag.

“Yes,” said the angel. “We were impressed by your performance.”

“Oh, that’s right. You two are always watching, aren’t you. I forgot. Glad I did. I’d have been self-conscious otherwise. I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun.”

“Why not?” asked the angel.

“There are times when one wants privacy. When one wants to know one is alone.” He smiled at Bee. “Or two of us are alone. Or I guess sort of three of us, in this case. But two really.”

“You were alone.”

“But you were watching.”

“Not watching. Just aware.”

“If I want it, would it be possible to designate times when you were not aware?”

“Why?”

It seemed to Dan that the angel could be a bit obtuse. “So we can have privacy. So we can know that what we do is for us and unobserved.”

“But in that sense, you have never had privacy. No one ever has or ever will.”

Dan, after thoughtfully tasting excellent cognac from a snifter he had been warming in his hand, offered a sip to Bee. “Are we talking about God?”

“Of course,” said the angel.

“So, God really is omniscient? Knows everything?”

“Absolutely.”

“Unavoidably,” added the demon. “Every time I scratch my hairy ass, God knows.”

“God knows everything in Hell?” asked Bee.

“God must know everything everywhere,” said the angel. “Otherwise, God would not be omniscient. The path to Hell is the broad one. Not knowing Hell, God would observe only the smaller portion. Satan would choose to know both Heaven and Hell. Who then would be the master?”

“Is Satan real?” asked Dan.

“Look at me.” The demon stretched and flexed his claws. “Who do you think I work for?”

“And you have met Satan?”

“Me? Never. Not important enough. I doubt I have ever met anyone who had met anyone who had met Satan.”

“Like God and me,” said the angel. “My demonic friend and I are not high in either hierarchy.”

“What are those hierarchies like?”

The demon rolled onto its back, reached up with arms and legs, and spread claws wide. “High, high, high.”

The angel said, “Whenever we made a proposal, we submitted it to our superiors. We would get reports as it advanced each step along the chain of command. At some point, though, we would stop getting reports. It would have gotten so far above us that our supervisors had no idea where it was.”

“We would wait,” said the demon. “Weeks or months or years would pass, by your way of reckoning time. At last, a no would come back down.”

“Until this last time, when it was a yes,” said the angel. “But we had no contact with anyone who knew how it had been approved. We suspect it must have been near the top.”

“Where we stand in the hierarchies of both Heaven and Hell,” said the demon, “is pretty close to the bottom.”

“Yes,” said the angel. “The bottom.”

“One of the poets for whom I was named,” said Dan, “described a Hell where the top of that hierarchy was at the bottom of Hell’s pit.”

“In that case,” said the demon, “I’m at the top.” This was followed by a deep rumble that Dan took for a chuckle.

“Our positions in the hierarchies is not the issue,” said the angel. “Your role here is.”

“What about my role?”

“We are interested in what you plan to do.”

Dan and Bee gazed into each other’s eyes. “Today was pretty nice,” said Dan. “I think I could spend quite a few more like it.”

“Quite a few,” said the angel. “You understand we are speaking of eternity.”

“I do.”

Bee smiled at the angel, something she had never done before. “Dan said that he and I being multiple people would take the edge off eternity.”

“That coupled with Dan’s imagination,” said the demon. “But I don’t think he’s really getting into it yet.”

“No,” said Dan. “It opens up a lot of possibilities. I have to admit that the idea of holding an orgy where I am a football team and Bee is a squad of cheerleaders is exciting.”

“An orgy?”

“Or do we have limits of some sort we must observe?”

The demon sat up on the cushions. They had each been designed to seat a person, but it sat on two at once, one for each massive cheek of its fuzzy fanny, its tail hanging down between, with its knees up under its chin. “The only limit here is coming from you. I sense you have been holding back your thoughts. You don’t need to do that, Dan. We know who you are.”

“All of us,” said the angel. “Including Bee.”

“I see what you are getting at,” said Dan, “but I think it is possible you don’t fully understand me.”

The demon stood. To keep from bumping its head on the ceiling, it had to bend over the couple on the couch. “I think it is possible you don’t fully understand what you have here, Dan.” The demon rested one hand on Dan’s shoulder and one on Bee’s. It did not push down, but the weight was noticeable. “You are still worried this is some kind of test.”

“That thing about the onion?” asked the angel.

“Yes, that,” said the demon. “I think Dan needs a demonstration.”

The angel sighed and nodded reluctant agreement.

The demon shifted a hand from Dan’s shoulder to Bee’s scalp. The hand was so huge that the palm could rest there while clawed fingers curled under Bee’s chin. The demon suddenly pushed down on her shoulder while pulling up on her skull. She started a scream that was cut short as her neck was ripped in half. The angel yanked back its legs as the demon threw Bee’s decapitated body over the coffee table onto the stone floor and then plopped her head down on the corner of that table so her dying eyes would have a last view of her squirming limbs.

“Jesus Christ!” shouted Dan. He would have shouted more, but at that instant, a flash of light came in through all the windows of the house. Their discussion had been by firelight as night had fallen. Their eyes were not ready for such brilliance, as if a bolt of lightning had hit directly in front of each of them.

The light subsided but did not go entirely away. They heard a sound like a medieval army sharpening all its blades at once. Dan, the demon, and the angel turned blinking toward the windows behind the couch. What Dan saw outside on the terrace, hovering above the head of the Bodhisattva, was…

Dan had once written an essay on how the word awesome had been much diluted over the centuries and particularly during the period of Dan’s life. What he saw now was awesome in the original meaning of the word and helped him understand it better. A set of concentric rings, burnished beyond luster, with edges razor sharp, spun in multiple opposing directions and three, or perhaps four, dimensions. On each ring, giant eyes flashed like gemstones. Dan felt how they saw him. At their center was a faceless humanoid of light and darkness, somehow both at once.

This horrifying apparition moved across the terrace, down toward the door. It was obvious to Dan that once those spinning rings made contact, they would slice the house to ribbons. He wanted to shout a warning. He wanted to run and hide. At the very least, he wanted to throw himself to the ground and cover his eyes. He could do none of these. He was turned to stone by terror. The only part of him that moved was his head, following those mighty rings as they approached the doorway.

But all that came through the door was a child who looked to be about twelve years of age. The rings were gone. Dan realized that he was not the only one affected. The angel and the demon also stared at the child in shock, but it ignored them and walked toward Dan. When it reached the coffee table, it placed a hand on Bee’s head. Her lips stopped twitching. Her rolling eyes closed. The body on the floor fell still.

“You have not been upstairs,” said the child.

Dan found it difficult to speak. “C… can you heal her?”

The child looked down at Bee and smiled. “No need. She recovers overnight. Did they not tell you?”

Dan looked to the angel and then the demon. The demon shrugged its shoulders in a human way.

“I think I would like her alive now,” said Dan.

“Then you should have made two of her,” said the child. “I said you had not been upstairs.”

Dan found the priorities of the statement baffling but felt an irresistible compulsion to respond. “I woke up in the master bedroom. That is upstairs. And we, Bee and I, went up to her house, the guest house.”

“I mean this building,” said the child. “The third floor.”

“Third floor? No. Not yet.”

“You should have a look.” With that, the child turned and ran across the room. One of the outstanding features of Fallingwater is a staircase that descends from the living room to the stream over which much of the house hangs. The top of this stair is enclosed in a glass box. As the child approached, glass gates swung wide and covering glass panels slid back. The child descended into darkness.

By necessity, Dan recovered the use of his legs to run after. “Wait! What about Bee?” As he came to the top of the stairs, he was blinded by light from below. He heard a single slash of metal on metal. When he could see again, there was nothing to be seen. He climbed down the stairs to the platform suspended above the stream, hearing water rushing below him in the dark. The platform was empty. The child was gone.

As Dan carefully returned up the stairs, he heard the demon asking, “Was that…”

“No,” said the angel. “No, definitely not.”

“But it came when he said…”

“Coincidence,” said the angel. “That was a messenger.”

“Coincidence my itchy ass,” said the demon. “You call that thing a messenger?”

“Messenger?” asked Dan. They turned to look at him.

“From up in that hierarchy we were talking about.” The angel pointed toward the ceiling. “Far, far up. I have never seen that type of angel before. I never expected to.”

“So, a powerful being?”

The angel tipped its head from side to side. “Depends on how you think about power.”

“I think it might have done more for Bee.”

The demon laughed. “No need. It was right about what happens tonight. She’ll be fine by morning.”

Crossing from the top of the stairs, Dan had to step over the headless corpse to confront the demon eye to eye. Or eye to chest. “What in Hell is wrong with you?”

“Oh, come on, Dan. Look at her. You know where I got that idea.”

“You should go upstairs,” said the angel. “To the third floor.”

“We need to talk about this first,” said Dan.

“No, you do not. When a messenger like that tells you to have a look upstairs, the only thing you need to do, and do it right away to the exclusion of all else, is to have a look upstairs.” The angel’s emphatic tone was inspired by a residue of awe. Dan and the demon both caught it.

“All right.” Dan stepped toward the narrow stairway he had first come down that morning. He hesitated. “Will you two come with me?”

“Not that way,” said the demon. “We’d never fit.”

“We’ll climb the terraces,” said the angel. “We’ll meet you up there.” They went out into the darkness. When they were gone, Dan found himself looking at Bee’s head and body by firelight. The damned demon was right. He turned away and marched up the stairs.

A few things became apparent to him. On this first day in this imitation of Fallingwater, the sun was up when he awoke. After dinner, they had been sitting by the fire as the sun went down. He had never had reason to locate a light switch. He had no idea where they were. Only a short way up the stairs, he was in darkness.

He had come down these stairs twice, and only gone up once, following Bee to the guest house. Following his nameless slave. She had not been Bee yet. Was she still Bee now? At any rate, he had paid no attention to the stairs to the third floor. Where were they? Where were the lights? Where was he?

In the dark, he found a sort of ladder of railings near the top. He followed it up and around. The railing made a right-angle bend. Another bend. Further up. This must be the way, but after a short time, a third bend and another rail. The stairs had run out after only a few steps. He thought he remembered now, a short flight from the landing. He must still be on the second floor.

The rail stopped at a wall. He felt his way along it and found a door. At last, a light switch. He was in a bathroom, one he had never seen before. And there was a bedroom, again one he had not seen. The bathroom light let him find his way back to the railing. The ladder of railings enclosed a planter. Below him were the stairs he had come up. Across them was a wall with an opening. In the distance, he could faintly make out… Would that be a staircase going up? How to get there? Climb the railing and jump over the stairwell into darkness? There must be a better way.

Speaking of climbing, he could hear the demon and the angel crawling up the outside of the building. He even thought he heard them in dispute about what route to take. Were they as lost as he was?

He came back down the short steps. Ahead, he saw a wall of glass. Or no. It was a door. He opened it and stepped through. Was he outside? He thought so. A covered terrace? Only darkness above. Stairs went down into more darkness. Not the way.

But should he go down? What was really going on here? The day had been so pleasant, yet so disturbing. Now Bee had been beheaded. And that bizarre messenger. Lost in the dark, Dan had to wonder if this was going to turn out like one of his own short stories, a twist ending. Was Hell waiting for him on the third floor?

Or was it waiting down these stairs? Already found, they were the easy path and represented disobedience to the messenger who could see into his soul. No. He went back inside.

He thought he was going the right way, back toward the corridor that led to the guest house steps or on to the master bedroom. Yes, here was the short flight he had remembered. And there in front of him, lit dimly by the distant bathroom light, steps going up. They were narrow, stone, lined with shelves on one side and more stone on the other, leading into darkness again. He did not hear the angel or the demon anymore.

What was up there? He had the sensation of being watched. He turned and looked behind him. Across the first-floor stairwell, he saw the boxy railing in the light from the bathroom. He had stood there by that railing a moment ago, looking this way. Was that what he felt, his own presence in the past? Why would such a thought even cross his mind?

He knew the answer to that. Only this morning, he had stood and looked across a room to see himself looking back. And why should he ever feel unwatched in a universe where everything was observed by an all-seeing God?

And what of the messenger with the many eyes? Was Dan right about it seeing into his soul? “Although who doesn’t, these days?” Dan was following the command of that monster, that child who ran away rather than restore Bee, a child who produced one last clashing metallic sound before it vanished. “Am I climbing into Hell on the advice of a kid who runs with scissors?” The joke, weak as it was, helped Dan to go on.

He emerged into a gallery with a glass wall looking out onto another terrace. The angel and the demon were waiting there. He could see them because the angel glowed faintly in the dark. The demon was a featureless hole in the night. Claws opened a glass door. “Where have you been?”

“I’m unfamiliar with the house. I got lost. It sounded like you two might have done the same. I heard you climbing. Why don’t you have wings?”

The angel and the demon looked at each other. “Because we are not birds,” said the demon.

“Well, anyway, I found one light. It gave me enough illumination to climb the stairs.” Dan stepped out onto the terrace. “Why is it so dark out here?”

“The sun went down. It is night now.”

“Yes, I know that. But why in Hell is this night so black?”

“In Heaven,” said the angel.

“You sure?” Dan looked up. “I’ve never seen such a sky. No moon. No stars. Nothing!”

“We were just discussing that,” said the demon. “We are sure we wrote them into our proposal.”

“What came back down to us after the approval was a much larger set of specifications than we had sent up,” said the angel. “In truth, because we had anticipated another rejection, our plans were incomplete. Those above us expanded and modified them. For example, the magic closets you and Bee have were an add-on from somewhere.”

“I don’t think they cut the moon and stars, though,” said the demon. “I’d have noticed that.”

“Where are they, then?” asked Dan.

All three looked up into the sky. The angel sighed. “No idea. I’ll have to ask.”

“You know,” said Dan, “I may have seen a sky this dark once. When I was a boy, on a camping trip, on clear nights we saw the stars better than you ever could at home, but we had some cloudy nights, and it was this dark. Nothing like the city.”

“You don’t have clouds in cities?” asked the demon.

“We do, but they are always visible. Lit from below.”

“Even if there are clouds up there, not much down here to light them.”

“Do we get clouds here?”

“You will,” said the angel. “The plans include all kinds of weather. We thought you would enjoy that.”

Dan nodded but then wondered if anyone could see him nodding. “You are glowing.”

“I am,” said the angel.

“That,” said the demon, “is the light of Heaven shining through.”

“Is it really?” asked Dan. “Not very bright.”

“I am suppressing it,” said the angel. “If I did not, we would have no night.”

“What? You glow like the sun?”

“Not me. Everything. The light of Heaven is everywhere.”

Dan looked doubtfully skyward. “Because we are in Heaven?”

“No,” said the demon. “The light our friend is talking about is supposed to be everywhere that is: Heaven, Hell, and Earth. You can’t get away from the stuff, right?”

The angel nodded.

“Only we can’t see it. Not sure what the point of that is: light that can’t be seen.”

“On Earth?” asked Dan.

“On Earth,” said the angel, “it is called Tabor light.”

“You sure about that? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Because no one there has seen it in millennia.”

“Light that nobody can see.”

“You get my point,” said the demon.

“Yeah.” Dan nodded in the dark again. “Anyway, I suppose if there were clouds, the only light to reflect off them would be from you, the fireplace downstairs, and that bathroom light I turned on. All the light in our little world.”

“And the light through that door back there,” said the demon.

Dan turned and looked back into the house. “Oh, yeah. What in… Heaven is that?”

“No idea. Kind of weird.”

“It is a strange sort of light,” said the angel.

“Yeah,” said Dan. “It reminds me of something. But it couldn’t be. Shall we go have a look?”

“We?” asked the demon. “In that cramped space? Through that tiny doorway? I don’t think so.”

“We will wait here,” said the angel. “You look and tell us what you find.”

Dan went inside. The angel and the demon watched him walk hesitantly into the odd glow.

“You really don’t remember what is in there?” asked the demon.

“Do you?” asked the angel.

“Some sort of study, I think. A desk. Shelves. Storage space.”

“And the unusual light?”

“No idea.”

“Shall we extend our awareness?”

“I’d rather wait for his report. Enjoy the mystery.”

“If he ever gets around to reporting.”

“Dan,” called the demon, “you seeing anything?”

“Computers.”

“What?” asked the angel.

“The glow is monitors.”

“You mean calculating machines?” asked the demon.

“They do a lot more than calculate. I do my writing on a computer.”

“Your writing,” said the angel. Its tone was thoughtful.

“And my research. I don’t suppose these have Internet access.”

“I don’t know,” said the demon. “They weren’t in the original specifications we drew up. Someone above us in the hierarchy must have added them.”

The angel and the demon waited for Dan’s response. They heard clicking noises and then, “I’ve got Google!”

“Google?”

“It’s a way of doing research. I can look things up. You don’t suppose I can communicate with the living back on Earth, do you?”

“I would say absolutely not,” said the angel. “But try it.”

More clicking noises. “No email.” Clicking. “I can’t log in to my social media accounts.” More clicking. “I can edit my private cloud files but nothing that I’ve shared. All I can send is questions to Google.”

“This Google is not a person, is it?”

“No. An algorithm. A machine.”

“That makes sense,” said the angel. “We can receive information about Earth, but communication is tightly controlled. On those rare occasions when one of us is sent to Earth, our message is carefully prescribed. We say only what we are told to say. We don’t answer questions unless they were anticipated and responses planned.”

Dan came through the doorways to join the angel and the demon on the terrace. “This is great!”

“You like computers?” asked the demon.

“I curse them every day, but yeah. What’s great is that I know what’s supposed to happen here.”

“What,” asked the angel.

“We are supposed to write.”

“We?” asked the demon.

“Bee and me. She comes back in the morning. There are two workstations in there. I don’t write with a keyboard for each hand. This was set up for two people.”

“Doubtful,” said the angel. “Bee does not write.”

“Maybe not yet, but I’ve taught writing classes.”

“Bee does not read.”

“Lots of people don’t. That doesn’t mean they can’t.”

“Bee can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She never learned to read.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Dan. “I remember. She didn’t know the alphabet. You taught her to speak my language but not to read it. Why didn’t you teach her to read?”

“Never crossed our minds,” said the demon. “She didn’t read on Earth.”

“She didn’t? Why not.”

“She died in 1347,” said the angel. “A century before the printing press. Most people didn’t read.”

“Are you telling me that I have an illiterate slave?”

“Yeah,” said the demon. “I guess we are.”

“Is that a problem?” asked the angel.

Dan stalked across the terrace. He looked down into the darkness. Bee’s corpse was down there somewhere. “You better believe it is.” He turned to face them. “We once had laws to prevent slaves from learning how to read.”

“So, it should be natural,” said the demon.

“Evil is what it is,” said Dan. “We kept slaves illiterate to help keep them enslaved. Even worse, we wanted to believe they were only fit for slavery. By keeping them uneducated, we could tell ourselves that they were naturally stupid. Our system of slavery depended on ignorance all around. You have forced me to accept a slave, but I will not accept one who cannot read. I will teach Bee to read. Or does Heaven have a rule against literate slaves.”

The demon looked to the angel. At least, Dan thought it did. It was difficult to be certain from the featureless silhouette. The angel said, “As far as I know, there is only one slave in Heaven and no such rule.”

“OK, then,” said Dan. “Two computers. Someone in your hierarchy wants Bee to read and write, and I am going to see to it that she can.”

Before he went to bed, after the angel and the demon had returned to wherever it was they came from, Dan went back to the first floor. He sat on a raised cushion and looked down at Bee’s body. “I’m sorry about this. It’s all a misunderstanding. I’m going to straighten it out in the morning. And I’m going to teach you to read and write. I know this is supposed to be Hell for you, but I also know now that somewhere far above us, someone sees value in you beyond just serving me in the kitchen and the bedroom. I’m going to make this better for you. I really am.”

He made his way to bed, turning off lights as he went. He made his closet give him comfortable and stylish pajamas. The last thing he noticed before turning out the lights was the dent he had left on the bedroom floor when he had dropped the small sculpture. He had told no one about it. Who would he tell?

Did it make sense to pray when one was already in Heaven? He had hardly ever done so on Earth, but he prayed now. He prayed that what he had just told Bee was true. He prayed that this was not a story with a twist ending. And also that all that good coffee he drank today would not give him a headache in the morning.

Solutions

There was quite a bit of sunlight somewhere off to his left and, in the distance, the sound of falling water. He opened his eyes. He happened to be looking over the edge of the pillow down at the floor. There was no dent. Was yesterday a dream?

Or, with repeating sun and water, was this one of those stories where the day looped? Meet Bee again? The angel and the demon? The messenger? Would that make this truly Heaven? Or would that be Hell? He was not sure. He raised the covers and looked beneath them. Elegant pajamas. Day two in Heaven.

In the bathroom, he needed only to urinate. Made sense. Only liquid had had time to get through his new body. But why did he have a body in Heaven, anyway? Probably because souls really are the emergent properties of the flesh. Otherwise, we would never have needed bodies on Earth. Unless that whole theory about the material world being a test were true. Earth as onion.

He stepped into the closet and came out in another beautiful suit. He had not had to take pajamas off or put the suit on. He simply became the wearer of it. What a great closet. For such a suit to be this comfortable, this must be Heaven. And no headache from yesterday’s coffee. Speaking of which, what was that aroma? Coffee. Bacon? More!

When he got to the stairs, he examined the landing. No wonder he had been confused last night. Mr. Wright had brought quite a lot together at this location. Not at all confusing in daylight, though. Drawn by the aroma, he bounded down, calling, “Bee, what’s for breakfast? It smells fantastic!”

“French toast and sausage,” came the response. The wrong voice.

“Bee, are you all right?”

The actor came out of the kitchen. “I’m fine. Would you like to have breakfast on the coffee table again?”

He looked around. No head on the coffee table and no corpse on the floor. No blood stains, either. “I would like to have breakfast with Bee.”

“I am Bee.” The actor smiled warmly.

“I think you know what I mean. I want to see Bee again. The woman who welcomed me yesterday. Looking as she did. Being who she was.”

The actor stepped around the dining table. “It really is me, master.”

“I understand that, but I want version one. This is important to me.”

“All right.” The actor did not sound happy about this. “She’ll be down in a moment.”

“Look, nothing against you. You’re marvelous. I’ve loved you in everything you’ve done. It’s just that…”

“Not a problem, master. Your wish is our command. Shall she join you here or at the coffee table?”

He looked to the coffee table again. “Here might be better.”

“I agree.” The actor went through the kitchen door.

Dan sat with his back to that door, facing the stairs. What did he hear up there? Too much noise was coming from the kitchen. Did he see movement at the top of the steps? A shadow? Reflected sunlight? Then, down she came. It was Bee. He had not realized he was holding his breath until he was breathing again. “Good morning!”

“Good morning, master.” She was wearing the same simple clothing he had requested yesterday. It had no blood stains. She sat across from him, keeping her eyes down, not meeting his gaze.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, master. I am fine.”

The door behind him opened. “Breakfast is served.” The actor placed the tray on the table. She set two places. French toast was done exactly as his mother used to do it. That was right. His mother made an unusually thick, flavorful batter. He had given up ordering French toast in restaurants because he disliked the disappointment. The sausage was also the way he liked it, almost but not quite burned. The coffee was just as it had been yesterday. The first sip surprised him with its excellence.

“Will there be anything else?”

He noticed now that the actor was wearing a maid’s costume. He had seen her in it before in some movie. It looked wonderful on her. “No, thank you.”

“If you need anything.” She withdrew into the kitchen.

“Bee, I am so sorry about last night.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about, master.”

“Yes, I do. That demon did what it did because of me.”

“Of course, master. Everything done here is for you. This is Heaven. We exist to give you pleasure.”

Dan put his coffee down firmly enough to send a few drops flying. “That did not give me pleasure.”

Bee still had not looked up. “I am sorry, master. I suppose you will wish to do such things with your own hands.”

“Stop that!”

The actor called from the kitchen, “Is there a problem?”

“Yes, but you are not a part of it.”

“I’ll just stay in here then.”

“Bee, I don’t know what they have told you about me, but I can guess. You think I’m some kind of sadistic monster.”

Bee shook her head, still not looking up. “No, master. A monster would not be sent to Heaven.”

“All right. What am I, then?”

Bee thought for a moment, selecting words with care. “You are a person who lived a life, doing good for others when you could, avoiding doing harm whenever possible, participating in your community, raising a family, working, teaching, writing, all while secretly taking pleasure in imagining the torture and murder of beautiful women.”

“Did she miss anything?” asked the voice from the kitchen.

Dan sighed. “No.”

“And now, you have passed the test of life and graduated,” said Bee. “You asked for and received salvation. You have tenure in Heaven. You are free to do anything you desire with no fear of consequence. You have a slave who was condemned to Hell and fully deserves to be the victim of your most violent whims, a slave who can take on any form that you desire, as can you, for the fulfillment of your most wicked fantasies. A slave who will gladly suffer any agony and even death to give you pleasure.”

“Sounds like a dream come true,” said the kitchen.

Dan shook his head. “Not my dream!”

“We’ve seen your pornography collection.”

Dan looked to Bee. She nodded confirmation.

“When was that?”

“It was part of my training,” said Bee. “To prepare me for what was coming.”

“Quite extensive,” said the voice from the kitchen. “Quite varied. Quite imaginative. Quite intense.”

“OK,” said Dan. “I understand the misunderstanding. It would be easy to get the wrong impression.”

The kitchen door swung open. The actor came in and placed a sheet of paper beside Dan’s breakfast. It was a cartoon drawing of half-a-dozen naked women. “I thought this one was particularly well executed. Both the drawing and the girls.” Two of the women were headless. Two more watched in horror while the fifth was beheaded by the sixth. “Packs an emotional punch. They told us it was one of your favorites.”

“Yeah,” said Dan, without enthusiasm.

“I don’t see a lot to misunderstand there.”

“Not in the drawing, no.”

“And you had plenty more like it.” She put down a photograph of a woman being hanged.

“I know the collection,” said Dan.

“I bet you do.” She bent to kiss Dan on the cheek, but he pulled away.

“We can make your dreams come true,” said Bee. “That’s why we are here.”

“No, I don’t believe it is.”

“Sure it is,” said the actor. “Don’t be shy, Dan. You know what you want.” She dropped another cartoon on the table: a frightened woman watching as a second woman was electrocuted. “And so do we.” Another cartoon: two women sliding a third into an oven. “And how you want it.” More cartoons and photographs: drownings, stabbings, shootings, disembowelments, impalements, usually involving multiple women, some terrified, some willing participants.

“Where are you getting these?”

“Off the buffet.”

Dan turned to look behind him. “Is that all of them?”

“So far, but there will be more if I need them.”

Dan’s chuckle was sardonic. “Prosecuting attorneys dream of such buffets.”

She scooped up another sheet and placed it on the table. “This is very well done. Japanese, right?”

“Yes,” said Dan. “They handle this sort of thing better than most Americans.”

“Why is that?”

“I think it has to do with cultural history.”

The actor nodded. “Believable.”

“Wait a minute. How did you know that was Japanese?”

“The style. Those huge eyes. The pointy hair. Energetic angles. Must be manga.”

“I was told you had died in 1347. This style evolved during the US occupation of Japan, six hundred years later. How would you know about it? Was that part of your training?”

“No,” said Bee.

“It’s something I know,” said the actor.

“You are both the same person, but you know different things?”

“Yes,” said Bee.

“In order to fulfill your wishes,” said the actor, “when I take the form of someone you desire, I take on the characteristics of that person, including their knowledge. Otherwise, our conversation would not ring true.”

“That’s right,” said Dan. “Yesterday, you were talking about your acting, your directors, your craft. You repeated lines from your movies.”

“Whatever works for you.” The actor pulled up another sheet. “Ew! This one isn’t very nice.” She placed it in front of Dan.

“No. Some of them are quite crude.”

“Not all of them?”

“I mean in the artistic sense. Amateur work.”

The actor picked the crude drawing up again to examine it. “Yet, I understand that this was another of your favorites.”

Dan nodded with some reluctance.

“I think I see why. Despite timid lines, inaccurate proportions, and a complete inability to depict perspective, the artist managed to give the woman in chains an expression of haughtiness brought into submission by fear. You like that.”

Dan nodded again. Bee was quiet, passive, immobile.

“Oh, look at this!” The actor pulled a large photograph from the buffet and waved it in front of Dan. “We know her, don’t we?” It was the actor, a scene in a movie in which she had been murdered by a strangler. Her face expressed intense terror.

“Yes, we do,” said Dan. “And there is my point.”

“You’ve loved me in everything I’ve done, yet you didn’t watch me over and over in that movie where I was a scientist. Or the one where I was brave when my sister died of cancer. But you saw me get strangled a hundred times.”

“Your sister didn’t die of cancer.”

“She certainly did.”

“And you didn’t die in this movie.”

“Sure looks like it. I didn’t have any scenes after this one. Weeping mourners gathered at my grave.”

“Your character died. The character who was your sister died. You didn’t die. Nobody in any of these photos genuinely died. The cartoons certainly didn’t die. They never lived.”

“Good thing, too. This one looks underage. That’s illegal exploitation.”

“These cartoon characters have no birth date,” said Dan. “You can’t exploit them.”

“But you enjoyed their deaths.”

“Fictional deaths. Imaginary. Not real.”

“Bee died last night, yet here she is. You can have all the deaths you want.”

Dan waved the latest cartoon away in exasperation. “Bee, look at me.”

Bee looked up instantly.

“I saw your face last night. You were terrified. You were in pain. Right?”

“Yes, master.”

“I saw that, and I hated it. I was furious with the demon. I started to tell him off, but there was a distraction. The next time I see him, I will insist that he not lay a finger on you.”

“Of course, master. That is for you to do.”

Dan took a deep breath to calm himself. “Did you enjoy what happened to you last night?”

“It was for your pleasure, not mine.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I hoped that it would please you.”

“It did not. Now, answer my question. Did you enjoy it?”

Bee shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I was scared. It hurt.”

“Exactly why I didn’t enjoy it. I’m not a monster. I have empathy. I don’t want you to suffer.”

“But what about these?” Bee waved a hand over the images.

“It’s complicated. This stuff turns me on. It always has. I can’t tell you why. I don’t know myself. I have theories.”

“Love to hear them,” said the actor.

“Fine. This started when I was a child. I think it was instinctive. I knew that I wanted to do something to girls that would cause them intense physical sensations, but I came from repressed parents. People uncomfortable with their own sexuality. It would be years before I learned about sex. Pain was the only intense physical sensation of which I was aware.”

“Interesting,” said the actor. She sounded unconvinced.

“Or it might have something to do with the hunting instinct. Our ancestors needed to kill for food and to have sex for reproduction. Men instinctively sought targets of multiple desires.”

“The woman in the oven.” The actor pulled the image out of the stack.

“Yes. Wires crossed in the brain, maybe. I’m not a psychiatrist.”

“Did you ever talk to one?”

“Not about this.”

“You should have.”

“The important point is that, while I enjoyed these fantasies, I never, ever, for a single moment wanted them to come true. When one did last night, I was horrified. That was one of the worst moments of my life.”

“Life?”

“Existence.”

“Life is right,” said Bee. “We have eternal life.”

“Bee,” said Dan. “Look me in the eye.”

She did.

“I will never hurt you. Never.”

The actor’s laugh was long and hearty. “Oh, Dan. Remember where you are. On Earth, never was such a little word. Three days ago, if you had promised you would never do something, you could have fulfilled that promise in three days. But now, you are in Heaven. You are in eternity. We know how often you masturbated over this stuff. I bet you won’t go two weeks. But if you are strong, can you hold out for a year?”

“Yes.”

“How about ten years?”

“Yes.” He sounded like a man trying to sound confident.

“How about an octillion years?”

Unfortunately, Dan had studied large numbers while writing one of his non-fiction works. He knew what an octillion was.

“And that,” said the actor, “will be an eyeblink in eternity.”

Dan leaned back and stared at the ceiling. He sighed. “She’s right.”

Bee shuddered.

“We need a better solution.” Dan grinned. “And I think I have one.”

“This should be good,” said the actor.

“Oh, ye of little faith.”

“I’m damned, remember.”

“Good point.” Dan leaned forward. “Bee, you are my slave, right?”

“Yes, master.”

“Does that mean you have to obey my commands?”

“Yes.”

“This is the most important command I will ever give you. If I give you any other command, this command takes precedence over that one. This is the one you will obey. I command you never to obey me if anything I order you to do will cause you pain or fear. Or humiliation. Distress. Discomfort. Anything unpleasant. Do you understand?”

Bee’s expression began with confusion, moved through amazement, and finally arrived at gratitude. “Do you really mean it?”

“I do. This is for me as much as it is for you.”

“Thank you, master.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Nice try,” said the actor.

“It will work.”

The actor shook her head. “Bee, a million years from now, if Dan orders you to stop obeying this old order, if he says some new order overrides anything he has ever said before, will you obey his new order?”

Bee hung her head and whispered, “Yes.”

“No!” said Dan.

“Of course,” said the actor. “You a million years from now will be the master she has in front of her. This command will have come from a man forgotten a million years ago. She will have to obey the orders that are current no matter what you say today.”

Dan sat back. He took a sip of coffee. It was surprisingly good. “OK. We need a better solution.”

“The solution is you relax and enjoy yourself.” The actor dropped another image on the table. “Have fun.”

“Wait.” Dan shuffled through the stack. He brought up the image of the actor being strangled. “Did you suffer in this scene?”

“Obviously. Just look at me.”

“I don’t have to. You were right. I know the scene by heart. I loved it. You made your character’s terror and agony extremely convincing.”

“Thank you.”

“But you, the actor, did you suffer during the shooting of this scene? Did you feel pain or fear?”

“Of course not. We were pros. That guy strangling me is a sweetheart. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Yet the suffering of your character had a great impact on me.”

“We call that acting, Dan.”

“I call that our solution. If I feel the need to indulge my evil fantasies, we will do exactly what I did on Earth. We will keep them fictional. Your acting will satisfy me here just as it did there.”

The actor gave in to a nod. “I am good. Maybe it could work.”

“I have great confidence in your abilities.”

She pulled a page from earlier in the stack. “It won’t take much ability to act as if I were in pain when you do this to me.” The image was a woman being disemboweled.

Dan tapped a finger on the table as he thought. He took up a sausage and washed it down with surprisingly good coffee. “Bee, you can be anything I want when you come out of your closet, right?”

“I believe so, master.”

“There are people who suffer from a disability; they cannot feel pain. If one of them is cut or burned, they don’t reflexively move away from the source of injury. Do you think you could make yourself into one of those?”

Bee looked uncertain. “I’ve never tried.”

“I like where this is going,” said the actor.

“And it might go even further,” said Dan. “Some people get their wires crossed for pain and pleasure. They enjoy pain. Could you do that?”

“Again,” said Bee, “I’ve never tried.”

“We should run some tests,” said Dan.

“We sure should,” said the actor.

“Dante Byron de Vries, join me for a moment on the terrace.”

They all looked up to see the angel leaning in through the doorway. “Oops,” said Dan. “Sounds like I’m in trouble.”

“Impossible” said Bee. “You are in Heaven.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. If you ladies will excuse me.”

When Dan came outside, the angel was at the far edge, looking over the terrace wall onto the river below.

“Interesting trivia about this house,” said Dan. “You can’t see the waterfall from here. Everybody thought Wright would put the house across the river with a grand view of the falls. Instead, he put it directly over them. The house became a part of that view. Have you been across the river and looked back this way? This house is one of extremely few instances of man successfully improving on the beauty of nature.”

“What in Hell are you doing?”

Dan chuckled. “Don’t you mean in Heaven?”

The angel turned to face him. “In this case, no, I do not think so.”

Dan nodded. “You expected me to do the demon’s job. I was supposed to become Bee’s tormentor.”

“We did. You were.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. That’s not who I am.”

“We have seen your pornography collection.”

“You and everybody else, apparently.”

“I see no reason for you not to indulge your desires.”

“And I see no reason for you not to understand what those desires really are.”

The angel stared. Dan found it difficult to determine what the angel’s expression was. Bemusement? Anger? Disgust? Some emotion only angels feel?

“Let me give you a related example,” said Dan. “It may make more sense to you.” He walked to the edge of the terrace. “The people next door were traveling for a year.”

The angel gazed into the woods.

“On Earth, I mean,” said Dan. “My neighbors on Earth.”

The angel nodded understanding.

“They brought in a young couple, a family, to serve as caretakers. He was a graduate student. They had two small children.

“One sunny day, while he was on campus, she came out into the backyard. They had a plastic wading pool for the kids. Big one, maybe eight feet across. Inflatable. She had come out to wash it. She did this by turning the pool upside down and holding it over her head while she sprayed it with a garden hose.

“She knew she was going to get wet, so she was wearing a bikini. She was moving in and out of sunlight as she shuffled the pool around, water glistening on her body. She had a great body. Perfect curves. Ideal symmetry. Nothing lacking but nothing overdone. I happened to glance out the window of my study just then. I had a good view of their yard. I watched for quite some time, thinking about how nice it would be to get my hands on that body. Nothing violent. Just sex.”

“You coveted your neighbor’s wife,” said the angel. “There is a commandment against that.”

“I don’t think so,” said Dan. “I mean, I don’t think I coveted her. That’s the point I’m trying to make. That commandment has a specific purpose. They all do, if you think about them. Some are to avoid betraying God. Some are for not hurting those around you. It struck me as particularly interesting that there are multiple admonitions against fornication and homosexuality in the old laws, but the sexual restrictions that made it into the big ten are the ones about not cheating on a spouse, not hurting someone to whom you have made a sacred vow.”

“Not sure Jesus would agree with you.”

“Have you spoken with him about it?”

The angel looked startled. “Me? Never met him.”

“Too far up your hierarchy?”

The angel nodded emphatically.

“Too bad. I’d like to hear that conversation. I think the commandment is about not hurting your neighbor. If you really want to have sex with your neighbor’s wife, you run the risk of making the attempt. I very much enjoyed thinking about sex with that woman, but I never for an instant wanted to have sex with her.”

“Why not?” asked the angel. “You make her sound desirable.”

“But think of the families. If I had wanted to approach her, I might have done it. She might have accepted my advance. The results could have been disastrous, the ruin of her marriage and mine. Those sweet little kids, running around their mother while she rinsed their pool, might have had their home broken. And for what? So I could enjoy a momentary pleasure? No, I think that commandment needs a more subtle interpretation. A man may desire the fantasy without desiring the reality.”

“Is that really a distinction?” asked the angel.

“Imagine that you have two neighbors,” said Dan. “One of them is a grump who enjoys picturing the murder of those around him but never actually wants to do such a thing. He doesn’t even talk about it. Only he knows of his thoughts.

“The other neighbor is a thief. He steals from you all the time. You are constantly having to buy replacements for items in your home and yard. One imagines breaking the commandment against killing but would never do it. The other breaks the commandment against stealing as a daily practice. Which one would you rather have living next door?”

“You are trying to justify your horrific lusts,” said the angel.

“No. But I am trying to make you understand them. The desire to enjoy a fantasy is not the same thing as wanting that fantasy to come true. You call my lusts horrific. So would I, if I wanted to act upon them. I would be as horrified as you. More so, since the innocent blood would be on my hands.”

“Innocent!” The angel vibrated its head on a diagonal. Dan guessed that this must be some gesture with meaning to angels. Whatever it was, it seemed emphatic. “If you knew what she did.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

The angel sputtered. “No.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” said Dan. “I am not a torturer. I never will be. Not in an octillion years.”

The angel looked down. Not at anything, just down. “It was part of our proposal.”

“I never saw that proposal. I never signed onto it.”

“No. We just assumed.” The angel looked up. At everything. “What are they going to think?”

“Your hierarchy?”

The angel nodded.

“I don’t think we have a problem.”

“Oh. You don’t think we have a problem? Well, fine then. No problem.”

Dan chuckled. He had not expected irony from an angel. “You said you had made this proposal many times before. With people like me? With the intention that Bee’s master would manage her torment?”

“Yes.”

“But it was never approved. Not until you proposed it with me. Yesterday, that messenger arrived just as the demon was making the point that I could murder Bee. Did the messenger say, ‘Listen to them, Dan. You need to be savage with this woman. She deserves it.’ No. The messenger put an end to Bee’s immediate suffering and told me to go upstairs, to find those two writing workstations. I think your hierarchy has a higher purpose for us.”

The angel was quiet. They listened to the sound of water. Finally, it said, “You may be right. Just like them not to tell me what is going on.”

Dan laughed. “They keep secrets from you. You keep secrets from me. We need to learn to trust each other.”

“That will take time.”

“We have eternity.”

“That reminds me,” said the angel. “Your night sky. It is all there.”

“Late delivery?”

“It was all there yesterday.”

“Ultra-pale moon? Dark stars? Transparent planets? Or does it all glow with that invisible light of Heaven?”

“No. It is a scaled down version of what you had on Earth. No galaxies, but a good cloud of local stars. Moon and planets, too.”

“We didn’t see any.”

“On day zero, the planets were all initiated on a straight line, a grand conjunction, including the local star. The moon was hidden in its light. At day’s end, they all went down together. They are only now drifting off that line. They are right up there.” The angel pointed to the sun. “Tonight, just after sunset, you might catch the tiniest sliver of a new moon. Probably not, though. But in a few days, you’ll see it for sure. The planets will take longer, but eventually, you will have them.”

“And the stars?”

“Too far away,” said the angel. “Their light hasn’t reached us yet.”

“Good God,” said Dan. “Do you mean to say it will be years? Tens, hundreds, thousands of years, before we see them?”

“Not that long. Again, it is a scale model. The first stars will appear in a few months. But yes, you won’t have all of them until many years have passed. Think how pleasant it will be going out in the evening to see if there are new stars in the sky.”

Dan looked up into the blue, imagining in amazement what was out there. Brand new stars, fired up yesterday, their light only beginning to approach his home. “My home. Is this house really mine?”

“Of course.”

“And those stars?”

“Yes.”

“That seems like an awful lot for just two people.”

“One,” said the angel. “This house is not for Bee. Bee and the house are both for you.”

“So, I have control over them?”

“You do.”

“And what I say goes?”

“It does.”

“Then I say nobody lays a finger on Bee. Not you, not the demon, not anybody.”

The angel nodded. “All right. Unless I hear otherwise from the hierarchy. So be it.”

After the angel left, Dan came back inside. “We got things straightened out.”

“Good to hear it,” said Bee.

Dan looked around. “Where is our thespian?”

As Bee looked upstairs, the actor made a running entrance. She rushed around Bee and into the kitchen.

“What’s that about?” asked Dan.

“An experiment, I think.”

“You don’t mean…”

Dan’s comment was cut short by a blood-curdling scream. The actor threw open the kitchen door and stumbled into the room, clutching the handle of a carving knife that was plunged into her belly. “It didn’t work!” She fell to the ground, sobbing. Blood poured from her in a great gush. “I feel the pain!”

“Oh, my God!” said Dan. “We need help.” He looked up and shouted, “Help here! Now!”

The actor moaned. No help arrived.

“I don’t think they will interfere,” said Bee. “I think this is what they wanted.”

Dan rushed to the writhing actor. He knelt and tried to stop the flow of blood with his hands, but the wound she had cut was too large. He looked around and spotted a cushion on a chair. “Give me that.”

Bee passed the cushion to him. He pressed it against the actor’s belly. Even that was not enough to stop the blood.

“We need a doctor,” said Dan.

“We don’t have one,” said Bee.

Dan looked to the stairs and shouted. “We need a doctor!”

“Oh, no, master. Don’t try that. You’re not ready.”

House Call

Dr. Howard Randall knew that he was needed. That was all he knew. Before him, he saw a staircase. He blinked. At least, he felt himself blinking. Oddly, the blink did not interrupt his view even for an instant, but a blink is easy to overlook. He took a step toward the stairs and encountered an invisible barrier. He pushed. The barrier swung away.

Now the doctor saw a room, a glass wall, a terrace, a forest in the distance, but still the stairs. He walked toward them and fell face-first onto a bed. He felt his bag bounce as he landed.

A house call. Why else would he have his bag? He must be making a house call. What house? How had he gotten here? Not important. The important thing was to get to those stairs. It was an emergency. He was needed.

He rolled over and sat up. As he stood, the doctor’s instinct made sure he had the bag. No matter how he turned his head, the stairs were always in front of him. They were a hallucination, yet they were important. How to get to them?

There was a door. There was a corridor. There was a place where the floor dropped out beneath his foot. Not his fault. He was still seeing a stairway going up when he reached one going down. A few steps stumbling and he was on his back on stone, looking up at the ceiling. The fall had hurt, but he thought he was all right. Good thing he was in good shape.

The illusion of a staircase was still there. A woman laughed. “Fooled you! Can I act or what?”

A man’s voice. “Do you mean you’re not in pain?”

Dr. Randall found the voices strangely familiar. Both sounded as if they were in the distance, yet both also sounded close, almost as if they were in his head. Were they a hallucination, too?

Suddenly, the stairs were gone. Between himself and the ceiling, he saw a woman’s face. He recognized her, a famous actress. She spoke. “No pain at all. In fact, I went for the pleasure option. This feels great.”

The hallucinatory view shifted, looking down now along the woman’s body. Her abdomen was torn open. She had clearly lost a lot of blood visible on… On what? Was that the ceiling or a floor? She had a knife in her hands and was stabbing herself in the thighs.

The man’s voice, emphatic, “Stop that!”

“Whatever you say, boss.” She pulled the knife upward and slashed her own throat.

He took the knife from her. Who took the knife? Did I take the knife? I feel it in my hand. No, that is the handle of my bag. That woman needs me.

The wall next to Dr. Randall was an irregular stone surface. He used it to help himself up. He found the stairs leading down. He had seen them before, but from the other end. That had been the hallucination. And now, that hallucination returned. He was going down the stairs while seeing them from both ends. In fact, he saw himself coming down as he came down. The experience was so disorienting that he nearly fell again, but he must keep going. He had a patient waiting.

“I think I overdid it.” The woman’s gurgling voice. She closed her eyes. Her head slumped to the floor. Dr. Randall reached the bottom of the stairs. He saw what he had already been seeing, only now from two different perspectives. As he approached the woman, he dropped onto his knees, partly to get closer to her but partly to keep from falling again. He waved the man away and examined his patient. There was nothing to be done.

“Dr. Randall, can you help her?”

The doctor looked up. Now he knew why the man’s voice was familiar. It was one of his regular patients. Or was it? This man looked too young. Or did he? Dr. Randall was seeing both this man and himself looking back. “Mr. de Vries? Is that you? What is going on here?”

“Can you help her, doctor?”

With the aid of a nearby table edge to provide stability, Dr. Randall rose. Looking down at the body on the floor, seeing her simultaneously from two angles, the pool of blood and gore around her seemed impossibly large. It really was the actress. Why was she dressed as a maid? “No. Nothing can be done. She’s dead.”

“Oh,” said de Vries. “Too bad. But don’t worry about it. It turned out she wasn’t suffering. Just acting. It’s all right.”

“All right? This woman is dead. This famous actress is dead.”

“He’s right.”

Dr. Randall turned to find the source of this new voice. It was another woman. “Thank you. Please help me make Mr. de Vries understand how serious this is.”

“No,” she said. “I mean Mr. de Vries is right. It’s not a problem.”

“Not a problem?” Dr. Randall looked back and forth between the two. Dr. Randall saw himself looking back and forth between the two. “How can you say that?”

“We can always get another.”

“Get another?” Her words made no sense. Or did they? He had been called in to help a dying woman, a victim of horrific violence, at least partially self-inflicted, if his hallucination were to be believed. But now that she was dead, certainly dead, the people with her did not care. He looked down at the table he was leaning on. Mixed in with the remnants of a meal were photographs and cartoons.

He stared in horror as he realized that he was seeing a collection of images of sadistic murder. Here was a picture of a victim disemboweled, practically the model for the woman on the floor. There were hangings, beheadings, electrocutions. Here was a photo of a woman being strangled, the very woman now lying dead.

As he looked, he saw himself looking, as if watching from another location in the room. Over there. He looked up and saw Dante de Vries. Saw himself looking back. Saw the bloody knife in de Vries’s hand. De Vries took an unsteady step toward him. “It’s all right, doctor. Nothing bad has happened here.”

Dr. Randall stepped back. “Drugs! That’s it, isn’t it? You and your Hollywood friends. A drug fueled orgy of murder. And somehow, you’ve drugged me, haven’t you. I’ve been hallucinating. LSD? Something like that?”

“No, doctor. You’re me. I’m you.”

“I am certainly not you, Mr. de Vries. I want nothing more to do with you. I’ve got to get out of here.” Dr. Randall looked around for a way. The room was large, and with the double view, confusing, but he thought he saw the exit.

“It would be better if you went back upstairs,” said the woman.

“Yes,” said de Vries. “Upstairs would be good.” He took another step toward the doctor, still holding the bloody knife.

“To Hell with you all,” shouted Dr. Randall. He made a break for the door. To his great relief, he found himself outside. He ran down the drive, across a bridge, and out to a road. He looked back. They were not following him. Probably too drug-addled to act.

But look at the size of that house. He had only seen the two of them, but there was room in there for plenty more. Who knew what sort of mob might soon come after him.

Which way to go? He saw no nearby neighbors in either direction. The road paralleled a creek. He recalled a documentary about wilderness survival. The advice had been to travel down to water and follow it to civilization. He ran along the road, following the water down.

He stumbled. He was still hallucinating. He saw the door he had passed through on his way out of the house. He heard the woman’s voice. “Close your eyes, or you’ll hurt yourself running around out there.”

Dr. Randall was certainly not about to close his eyes, the keen, sea-green orbs inherited from his mother. He continued down the road at a good pace. The running cleared his head. The hallucinations stopped. All he saw now was the road, the forest, and the creek glinting in sunlight. He heard the water, his footfalls, and his own breathing. Despite still carrying his bag, he ran easily. In good form today, he could count on his powerful legs and buttocks.

From time to time, he looked back. No pursuit yet, but what if they came after him in a vehicle. He wished for a passing car. A bicycle. Anything. He followed road and creek around a bend, and in the middle of that road, he saw a horse.

Dr. Randall was an accomplished horseman, but this white Arabian stallion was not his horse. He approached it warily. The horse was accepting of his presence, sensing the doctor’s natural mastery. No saddle. Dr. Randall had not ridden bareback since his youth. Did he dare to try it? He must.

Getting on the horse was surprisingly easy. It helped that the doctor had the long, muscular frame of the Randall men. He even found it simple to balance his bag on the animal’s back. The stallion appeared to understand his needs and took off down the road at a gallop, rapid yet comfortable.

This was a fine day. The forest was lovely, the air clean and refreshing. The sounds of hooves and creek combined charmingly. Dr. Randall was enjoying this ride so much he almost forgot that he was fleeing murderers.

He rode for some time, his dark hair flying in the breeze. Had he ever worn it this long before? He was certainly far overdue for a haircut. How must he look with the firm Randall chin jutting from between his waving locks?

Detecting no pursuit, he slowed his mount to a canter. He really liked this Arabian. It seemed incapable of tiring. When this was all over, he might see if he could buy it. It only then struck the doctor that he was currently a horse thief. How had he gotten into this insane situation? What forest was this? Where on Earth was he?

The creek plunged away among hemlock and oak as the road went over a ridge. When he reached the top, he spotted the creek again, and in the distance, at last, a house.

This house was in an architectural style similar to the one where he had fled the murderers. In fact, as he drew closer, he realized that, although he had not had a long look at the other place, this one resembled it enough that if he had not been following the creek downhill the whole time, he would have feared he were riding in a circle.

Just before he crossed a bridge, he thought he saw a woman’s face watching him from a high terrace, but she disappeared as soon as he noticed her. He rode up the drive and dismounted easily before walking the horse under a horizontal trellis that anchored the house to nearby rocks. The animal found a shallow pool of water built into the wall by the front door. The magnificent beast drank freely.

Before Dr. Randall could approach the door, the woman came out to meet him. She was black. Extremely black. Probably of unmixed African ancestry from the middle of the continent, he thought. She was also gorgeous beyond belief, with lively natural hair. And she was wearing a swimsuit. No, not a swimsuit. Lingerie! A red lace teddy. She reached up to pat the horse’s neck.

“Beautiful creature.” Her voice was mellow and creamy.

“Yes. Wonderful to ride.”

“You were riding him wonderfully.” Her smile was dazzling. “Do you always ride bareback?”

“No.” The question reminded Dr. Randall of what he was doing. Was this woman so stunning that he could forget a murder? “I had to borrow this horse. An emergency. May I use your phone?”

“Certainly, doctor.”

Dr. Randall stepped toward the door, but she placed a hand on his chest to stop him. He felt her fingers exploring his bare skin, as somehow his shirt had come unbuttoned during his ride.

“We shouldn’t go that way,” she said. “I’m remodeling. The first floor is a mess. We’ll use the phone on the second floor.” She kept her hand on his chest as she spoke. He realized how his firmly muscled bosom was heaving, still breathing heavily after hard riding. Her touch was gentle. With her other hand, she pointed the way to an outside staircase.

She led him there and up. Lingerie did little to hide her charms. On more than one occasion, it had struck Dr. Randall as odd that he could see so much nudity in his profession yet still find even scanty dress exciting in the right situation. This must be that situation, for he was excited.

At the top of the stairs, she opened a glass door. Inside, they found themselves on a landing with a staircase leading down flanked by two short ones leading up. The stair down looked familiar. The doctor felt as if he were hallucinating again. Uncertainty stopped his movements.

“This way, doctor. The phone up here is off the master bedroom.” She tugged his hand, but he did not follow.

“How do you know that I’m a doctor?”

She looked down. “That’s a doctor’s bag, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes. It is.”

“Do you steal bags and horses?”

“No. It’s mine. The bag, not the horse.”

“Are you all right, doctor?”

Was he? “This house seems too familiar. It looks like the one I came from. I fell on this stone floor. And I was lost here in the dark.” He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t dark, was it?”

“What house did you come from?”

He turned and looked through the glass door behind them. “It would be back up the road from here. Upstream.”

“You must mean Mr. de Vries’s home. This house and his were built at the same time, from the same plans, by the same eccentric architect.”

“Do you know Dante de Vries?”

“I do.”

“Are you a friend of his?”

The woman examined the doctor’s face, looking for signs of his intentions. “No, doctor. I think there is something wrong with Mr. de Vries, something terribly wrong in that house.”

“You couldn’t be more right. I need your phone to call the police. I believe there has been a murder.”

“I knew it,” said the woman. “Those people, de Vries and his Hollywood friends, are crazy. I think they use drugs.”

The doctor somberly nodded. “The phone?”

“This way, doctor.” She led him up steps and along a corridor into a bedroom. “The architect, as I said, was eccentric. He put the phone on this floor into its own little booth.”

She opened a door the doctor would have taken for a closet, but sure enough, inside was a built-in seat, an overhead light, and a wall-mounted, corded landline telephone. The doctor reached in and took the phone off its hook. He held it to his ear. “No dial tone.”

“Go inside and close the door. When you do, the light will come on, and the phone will work.”

“That seems odd. Phones usually have their own power.”

“As I said, the architect was eccentric. Your ride must have made you thirsty. After you make your call, I’ll pour us drinks.” She flashed that dazzling smile again.

“That sounds fine. I could use a drink. It’s been a challenging day.” Dr. Randall stepped into the booth and sat. “What address shall I give the police?”

The woman stopped and stared. The doctor thought he heard distant whispers. Were they in this house or in his head? “What was that?”

“The workmen downstairs,” she said. “Tell the police to come to 1491 Mill Run Road.”

“1491 Mill Run Road. Got it.” The doctor held the silent phone. “And then a drink.”

“Yes, doctor. Your heroic ride has earned you a reward. When you close the door, the light will come on, and the phone will work.”

The doctor nodded. She was so beautiful, like a supermodel. A drink sounded like a fine idea. He had earned it. He closed the door. The light did not come on. Instead, the doctor went out.

Cloudy

“You can open your eyes now.”

Dan saw the lingerie model coming down and asked, “You met him dressed like that?”

“He didn’t seem to mind.”

“No, that’s right. He sure didn’t.” Dan’s eyes twitched uncertainly. “I didn’t. Thank you for handling him. Me. Us.”

“He was nice. We should have him out again sometime. He rides beautifully. I felt more could have been done with that doctor. A lot more.”

“Sorry.” Dan looked sheepish. “I lost control.”

“I told you that you weren’t ready,” said Bee.

Dan looked down at the body on the floor. “I panicked. Considering what she did, I think that was understandable.”

“True. She shouldn’t have deceived you.”

“I understand why she did it. She was running the test I proposed. And she is an actor. I don’t blame her. Or you.”

“Thank you, master.”

“To what extent are you her?” Dan looked up to the lingerie model. “And her?”

“More than you were Dr. Randall, apparently. But as you must have felt, our extensions are independent beings.”

“That is going to take some getting used to.”

Bee and the model nodded. At that moment, a line of workmen came down the stairs.

“Who are you?” asked Dan.

“Clean-up crew,” said one of the workmen.

“Where do you come from? Who sent you?”

“My closet,” said Bee. “They’re me.”

“Many hands make light work,” said the model.

The body of the actor was quickly wrapped and removed. With buckets and mops, the blood and gore followed.

“I thought everything resets itself,” said Dan.

“Not until late at night,” said Bee.

“You don’t want to be stepping over a dead body all day,” said the model.

“Are all of these men really you?” There were half a dozen of them.

“At your service, master,” said the workmen in unison.

“I was a wreck trying to be two people, yet you manage to be…” Dan did a quick count. “Eight people at once. How?”

“Practice,” said eight people at once.

“OK,” said Dan. “But not today, if you don’t mind. Once you finish here, I’d like to simplify things for the afternoon. Just the two of us, Bee?”

Bee nodded. Seven other people said, “As you wish, master.”

A crew of six did indeed make light work of the cleanup. Dan had them clear away breakfast and the pornographic pictures, too. The model was the last to leave. “You will give me another shot at the doctor someday, won’t you?”

Dan promised that he would. At last, he was alone with Bee. “Come upstairs. I want you to meet an old friend.”

“I thought you wanted to simplify.”

“This will be simple. For me, anyway.”

“Are you sure, master?” Bee followed Dan upstairs. “Let me give you some pointers on initiating new people while keeping them tightly connected to you. Until you have that down, we should restrict ourselves to your bedroom.” Bee stopped when Dan began another flight. “Aren’t we going to your closet?”

Dan shook his head. “The friend I want you to meet is waiting for us on the third floor.”

“You brought someone else out already?”

“No. I am going to introduce you to one of my oldest and dearest friends, a friend who has helped me every single day throughout my career, one with whom I have shared joys and sorrows, high adventures and mundane tasks. Today, Bee, you are going to meet the rest of the alphabet.”

That night, when the house reset, a tiny quantity of blood disappeared from cracks between stones in the living room floor. Outside, an Arabian stallion vanished. On Dan’s third morning in Heaven, when he came down to breakfast, two women waited for him: Bee and the actor.

“We thought you’d want to see that I was all right,” said the actor.

“Well, sure,” said Dan. “I knew you would be, but good to have confirmation. Is it true that you really felt no pain?”

The actor smiled like the cat that ate the canary, or so Dan told himself while observing her grin. “I was feeling only pleasure. Every stab was a shock of ecstasy.”

“You made your agony convincing.”

The actor continued smiling. “I understand you brought in medical attention.” Then she and Bee laughed together.

Dan blushed. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Clearly, this will work for us,” said Bee. “We will be able to fulfill your wicked desires without any actual suffering.”

“Yes,” said Dan, continuing to blush. “Good.”

“I can hardly wait,” said the actor.

“That’s great,” said Dan. “But I don’t know that I’d call what’s been going on these past couple of days heavenly. I’d like to try something more peaceful. Maybe not forever, but I was hoping we could get through at least one day with no murders or suicides.”

“Whatever you desire, master,” said Bee.

Although the actor looked disappointed, she nodded in agreement. “Of course, as I understand it, the only murder so far was done by that demon.”

“Right. I’ll have a word with him after breakfast.”

“On Earth,” said Dan, “whenever someone invokes a demon, they do so with a spell that includes the demon’s name.”

“When you say on Earth,” said the demon, “you mean in fiction. Nobody on Earth has ever successfully invoked a demon, with or without the use of a name.” The two of them were standing on the terrace near the Bodhisattva where the demon had materialized. For the first time since Dan’s arrival in Heaven, the sky held clouds near the horizon.

Dan frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. I always enjoy those scenes in books or movies where someone chalks a pentagram on the floor, lights some candles, and intones a demonic appellation. In a cloud of flame and sulfurous smoke, the demon appears. It is satisfyingly dramatic.”

“Would you like me to produce smoke when I arrive?”

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Good, because I wasn’t going to.”

“There is something I would like you to do, though.”

“Don’t pull Bee’s head off. The angel told me. You want the exclusive right to torture and murder her, which you then don’t intend to do.”

“That’s right. Is that a problem?”

“The angel told you it would be no problem so long as we didn’t hear otherwise from our hierarchies. So far, I have not heard otherwise. I will certainly let you know if I do. I must say, though, that I am confused. We have given you the perfect evil playboy’s playground, yet you refuse to play.”

“As I explained to the angel, you misunderstand me.”

The demon leaned down to place his face inches away from Dan’s. “I understand why you would say that to an angel, but look at who I am. I work with people like you every day.” The demon tapped Dan’s chest with a single extended claw. “Every single day.”

“What sort of people?”

“Murderers, Dan. Mass murderers are my specialty.”

“I never murdered anybody.”

“But you also never stopped thinking about murder. In your imagination, you murder on a grand scale. I have seen…”

“My pornography collection,” said Dan. “Yes, I know. Around here, it seems everybody has. In life, I went to great lengths to hide that stuff.”

The demon laughed. “The afterlife is no place to keep secrets.”

“So I gather. Look, I know about serial killers. And I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many of them have enjoyed the same pictures that I have, but so have far more men who didn’t murder anybody. I didn’t make those images myself, you know. I found them on the Internet. They are there in huge numbers and receive views, likes, and appreciative comments. If all those men were mass murderers, there would be nobody left.”

The demon produced its rumbling chuckle. “All right, Dan. You have made your point, and I accept it. Is that all you wanted?”

“There was something else,” said Dan. “A couple of questions if you don’t mind.”

“As long as I’m here,” said the demon.

“When you took Bee out of Hell, before you brought her to this place, had she lost her memory already, or did you do some kind of magic to take her memory away?”

“I don’t have that kind of magic. She lost her memory inside the rock.”

“I thought so,” said Dan. “I don’t think her memories are all gone.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Her children died before her.”

The demon spread his claws and spun them in a circle, slashing close enough that Dan felt the breeze as blades passed his cheek.

“What was that?”

“You startled me,” said the demon.

“Do you always shred the air when you are startled?”

“In Hell, it is a good instinct.”

Dan nodded. “I suppose it would be.”

“Are you saying Bee told you about her children’s deaths?”

“Not with words.”

“With what, then?”

“My first day here, when Bee took me up to her house, we passed a sculpture of children playing with a dog. She told me how much she liked it. I asked if she had children. She told me that she didn’t know. But before she said that, for an instant, an expression of grief passed over her face.”

“You think she remembers without knowing that she does?”

“Human minds are complex.” Dan paused to consider his audience. “Not to say that yours isn’t.”

The demon shrugged.

“But people often have knowledge in their brains of which they are unaware. I believe this to be the case with Bee.”

“Is there something you wanted me to do about that?”

“Yes. I am trying to teach Bee to read. She seems extraordinarily resistant to this knowledge. She refuses to accept certain characteristics of the English alphabet. For example, she insists we shouldn’t have a letter C.”

“Why not.”

“I told her C has two sounds. It either sounds like an S or like a K. She said we shouldn’t use C then. When it sounds like an S, we should use S, and when it sounds like a K, we should use K.”

“This strikes you as extraordinarily resistant?” The demon shook his head. “To me, it sounds reasonable. She is right, and you are wrong.”

“Ah, but an English speaker wouldn’t think that. Studies have shown that language molds our ways of thinking. Bee exhibits bias based on however she thought before. I believe it would greatly help me in teaching her if I knew what biases to expect.”

“You think it would help you teach her if you knew the language she spoke before she died.”

“I do. Using knowledge of the language she spoke, I can modify my teaching accordingly.”

“What do you know about Sicilian?”

Dan smiled. “Nothing. But you forget that I have access to the Internet. With that, I can look up almost anything. And even if there is no good resource on Sicilian posted online, there will be references to resources in books. In this house, I can reach for any book I want, and it will be waiting on the shelf.”

“Oh, yeah,” said the demon. “Like the closets. That’s another thing the hierarchy added.”

“When you see them, thank them for me.”

“Sure,” said the demon. “I’ll do that.” From the demon, irony seemed natural.

“Sicilian, then. Good to know. I am sure that will help me in teaching her.”

“Great. Is there anything else you need, master?”

Something in the way the demon said master let Dan know that the correct response was no and that an apology was due. “Sorry if it feels like I’m being pushy. I was told that the way to communicate with you and the angel was to call for your presence, but when I do, I feel very much like someone overstepping his authority.”

“That’s all right,” said the demon. “I imagine this new life is confusing to you.”

“Yes,” said Dan. “It sure is.”

Dan had originally seen the third-floor study at night, illuminated by the glow of monitors. In days, it was lit, as were so many rooms in this house, by a wall of glass. He had seen photos of the original and was pretty sure some of the bookshelves had been eliminated to make room for the second workstation. Not a problem in a house where the book you want is always in the first place you reach for it.

The Internet had provided online alphabet games and ABC books. Bee had moved beyond them to simple stories. For some common words, she wasn’t even sounding them out anymore, already recognizing words at a glance, genuinely reading. Dan was proud of his pupil. He tapped keys. “Read that.”

Bee sounded out, “Writing is magic.”

“That C sounds like a K. And the W is silent.”

“Is that because writing is magic?”

“No. That is because people used to pronounce the W, but now they don’t. Writing is magic because it lets you talk to people who are far away, in both space and time.”

“You mean like videos.” Dan and Bee had watched a video together in which a teacher had explained phonics.

“Yes,” said Dan. “But writing came first by centuries. By millennia, in fact. I can open a book and hear Plato’s words in my head despite his having died thousands of years before I was born.”

“Who is Plato?”

“An ancient Greek philosopher.”

“And he wrote in English?”

“No. I read him in translation.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means a translator who speaks both English and Greek—ancient Greek, modern English—reads Plato and writes in English the meaning of the Greek words.”

“So, what you hear in your head is the English written by the translator.”

Dan nodded with a bit of a tilt. “True, but if the translator does the job well, Plato’s ideas reach me almost as if Plato were here saying them.”

“Did Plato write stories about animals?”

Dan considered this question. “You are thinking of Aesop. He was the Greek who wrote the fables with the animals in them.”

“No, I wasn’t thinking of that guy. Never heard of him. I wasn’t thinking of anybody.”

“Why did you bring up animals, then?”

“All these stories I’ve been reading have animals.”

Dan looked at the books he had given Bee to practice on. “Yes. The stories for early readers are targeted to young children, and children tend to love animals. You remember that sculpture with the kids and the dog on the path to your place.”

Bee nodded.

Dan watched her face closely but saw nothing revealing in her expression. “I’m pretty sure there are books for adult early readers. I’ll see if I can find a good one for you.”

Bee put down a children’s book. “Why not just make videos?”

Dan smiled. “That is an insightful question. It deserves an insightful answer. Fortunately, I have one. And the reason I have one is because I once wrote an essay on that very topic.”

“What’s an essay?”

“An essay is a short written work, generally addressing a single topic.”

“How short?”

“Longer than an observation but shorter than a book.”

“How long is that?”

Dan laughed. “You sound like a beginning writer, which I sincerely hope you are. They always want to know how many words to write. The answer is, you write as many words as it takes to say what you want to say. Then you rewrite that and make it shorter as a mercy on your readers.”

“But if you wrote the number of words you needed, how can you make it shorter?”

“Because first passes are gassy. There is more than one way to say a thing. During rewrites, you find a better way. Squeeze the gas out of your writing.”

Bee laughed. “So, writing is like farting?”

Dan sighed. “Make that your motto and you won’t go wrong. How did we get on the topic of farting?”

“I asked why write when you could make videos.”

“You can make a video by pointing a camera at pretty much anything, but the best videos begin as writing. In that video we watched, the person speaking had written out a script from which she read.”

“Why?”

“Because writing gives you time to organize and reorganize your thoughts. By the time I am done writing on a topic, I understand it better and can explain it better than when I began. If you sit down in front of a video camera and just start talking, your videos will be long and extremely gassy. Take the time to perfect your script, and every second will be worth the viewer’s time.”

Bee looked at the book in her hand and then at the largely empty shelves around them. “You want me to learn to read so that I can learn to write.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I believe you have something to say.”

“About what? I don’t know anything.”

“You know things.”

“I don’t.”

“What happened here yesterday?”

“You mean that thing with the doctor?”

“What did you think about that thing?”

Bee looked thoughtful. Then, she looked like she was still trying to look thoughtful. And then she laughed out loud. “I thought it was pretty funny.”

Dan joined in her laughter. “Good. I didn’t. Not at the time. But now, I think you may be right. You could write about what happened yesterday. I would read it and enjoy seeing it from your point of view.”

“This is a lot of trouble just to have me write a story you already know.”

“I believe you will write other stories. Many of them.”

Bee doubtfully shook her head. “Have you written a lot of stories?”

“I thought you knew all about me.”

“I know you are a writer. Not being a reader myself, that didn’t tell me much.”

Dan turned to a computer. “I did my writing in the Cloud. That way, I had access to it anywhere.”

Bee looked out the window to clouds on the horizon. “Did what you just said make any sense?”

“It did to me. The important point is, I can pull up one of my stories for you.”

“Unless it’s about a cat and a dog, I doubt I’ll be able to read it.”

Dan ignored this observation. He used the device that he had explained to Bee was called a mouse because of its long tail. Lists of words appeared on the screen faster than Bee could possibly sound any of them out. “Ah, here is a good one. Very appropriate.” A lot of words appeared on the screen.

“Nope,” said Bee. “Not going to be able to read that.”

“I will read it to you. And I’ll make the font bigger so you can follow along if you like. Reading aloud to children is a tried-and-true method of teaching.”

“I’m not a child.”

“I’m well aware of that. And this isn’t a child’s story. Sit back, listen, and I shall tell it to you.”

Bee did as she was told.

Dan's Engineers' Picnic Story

A beery mist, regulated by a thumb, sprayed from a can onto the steaks and into flames below. “Adds flavor,” explained Wendel. “Is this the best damned barbecue grill in Heaven, or is it?” As the chef asked this question, he delivered a powerful back slap to one of his guests.

Irving, the slapped guest, replied, “Wendel, I can honestly say I haven’t seen a better one.”

Wendel laughed. “I’m damned sure you haven’t.”

Irving sipped the martini in his hand, noticing that he had lost about a third of it during the slap. Not a problem. The spill landed on grass, and the robot bartender would refill it. “Of course, I haven’t seen a worse one, either.”

Both men laughed because they knew that this was true. So did Dave, who had overheard the exchange and said, “I’ve got one just exactly that good.” Wendel and Irving knowingly nodded.

Wendel, a heavyset man of later years with ruddy cheeks and wavy gray hair, was now flipping the steaks with a long fork. When all were inverted, he lowered the lid over the grill. “Look at the hinge on this thing. That pin is solid titanium. Thick as my thumb!”

“And you have thick thumbs,” said Irving, who was somewhat younger than Wendel. Also paler and slimmer. The faint pinstripes on his cotton twill suit might have been selected to compliment his perfectly ordered thinning gray hair.

In contrast, Wendel wore blue jeans and an orange T-shirt with a funny saying on the front. A denim apron obscured the funny saying, but since the apron had another funny saying on it, no one would be denied humor. Wendel gave Irving a thick thumbs up. “I sure do.”

Dave, the youngest of the three men, had dropped to his bare knees to get a look at the lower portion of the barbecue grill. Dave’s fair hair was the color of his tan shorts and may also have matched one of the many colors on his tropical shirt. “The thing that gets me,” Dave said, “is the valves and joints on the propane system. NASA never used better on a rocket motor or a Mars rover.”

“The materials,” said Irving, “the craftsmanship. I swear, every object in Heaven is built to last a thousand years. You take your robot bartender refilling my martini. I could pound him with a sledgehammer. He’d pop up smiling and pour another drink.”

Dave rose, helping himself up by pulling on the bartender’s belt. The bartender, still pouring, did not spill a drop. “I examined the one that mows my lawn,” said Dave. “The bearings, the relays, the hydraulics, the circuit boards and their housings, the fuel cell, all of them put the phrase military grade to shame. I have a gardener I wouldn’t hesitate to put up against a tank.”

“A thousand years, I tell you.” Irving sipped his replenished martini and gave the bartender an approving wink. “This thing will be pouring drinks in Heaven a thousand years from now.”

A short distance away, in the shade of a hedge, two other men were listening. “Matt,” said Clarence, “you told me that in life, you used to spec things out with longevity in mind. Is Irving right about that thousand years?”

“Spot on,” said Matt.

“Did you ever write specs for anything like that?”

Matt shook his head. “Only as an exercise. I worked the other end of the timeline.”

“What do you mean?” asked Clarence.

“My projects involved plastics with limited lifespans. One of my favorites, one we used in multiple projects, was flexible at the time of molding but would become brittle in about three years. I bet you’re asking yourself, why would anybody want plastic that was initially flexible but became brittle in three years.”

“No, Matt, I’m not asking myself that at all. I know exactly why you wanted plastic that became brittle in three years.” Clarence winked. “Two-year warranties.”

“Spot on,” said Matt.

“I used to use that stuff myself,” said Clarence. “I once designed the handle on a lint trap for a clothes dryer. Instead of making it a solid piece, the way they would here in Heaven, I designed mine with a solid hand grip attached to a solid frame by four incredibly thin wisps of just such a plastic. Can you guess why I used four wisps?”

“No, Clarence, I cannot. Why four wisps?”

“If I had used an odd number of wisps, there would have been one in the center that might have allowed the handle to pull the frame straight out of the slot even after other wisps had broken, but by using an even number, there was no wisp in the exact center. Thus, as soon as any one of the wisps broke, a tug on the handle applied an uneven force to the two sides of the frame, twisting it in the slot, making it difficult to pull out and eventually breaking more wisps until the handle came completely off. After that, the lint trap had to be clawed out of its slot.”

“I see,” said Matt.

“Then every time the homeowner used that dryer, they were irritated by how hard it was to remove the lint trap. It was nothing important enough to call in a repairman, nothing that would cause them to apply their warranty, but it was enough to make them grow to dislike that fully functional dryer so much that when it finally did break, they would forgo repairs and instead buy a new one.”

“Excellent!” said Matt. “Well engineered. But I didn’t know that you were in obsolescence. I mean, when you were alive.”

“I certainly was,” said Clarence. “I also designed an equipment case that had hinged panels on the front and back. I used steel hinges on the front but brittle plastic hinges on the back. That case looked solid in catalog photos, but nobody who owned one for more than three years would still have all the panels.”

“Marvelous,” said Matt. “Reminds me of an appliance we built. I provided the engineer with that plastic I told you about. His application of it was genius. He designed our best electric can opener. The motor, gears, and blade were all heavy metal. The case was made of that plastic, but it was thick enough that it would not break.”

“What would be the point of that?” asked Clarence.

“The point,” said Matt, “was that the whole thing felt rock-solid. A consumer would heft it in the store and just know that it was going to last a lifetime. What that consumer didn’t know was that those heavy metal gears were held in place by a plastic sheet, and that sheet was held in place by a single tiny arch of plastic molded inside the case.”

“I love it,” said Clarence.

“The best part was how it failed. Under heavy duty or light, that can opener would run reliably for about two years and eleven months. Then one day, the consumer would be opening a can, and the arch would snap. The gears would be turning at the time. Without the plastic sheet holding them in place, they would suddenly tumble at odd angles and grind to a stop. The whole appliance would jerk and bounce, making a noise like the end of the world. It was positively terrifying.”

“I love it more,” said Clarence.

“The best part,” said Matt, “was that if a consumer happened to be one of those do-it-yourself repair types…”

“Hate those guys,” said Clarence.

“If he was, when he opened the case, he would find that the only way to fix that can opener was to buy a whole new case for it since the thin arch on which everything relied had been a molded part of the case and could not be glued.”

“Who would sell the case for a single specific oddly designed can opener?” asked Clarence.

“Only us,” said Matt. “We listed it as a replacement part. Including shipping and handling, it cost a little more than a brand new can opener. We never sold one. In fact, we never made one. Why bother?”

Both men laughed so hard that they drew the attention of Wendel, Dave, and Irving.

“What amuses you boys?” asked Wendel.

Clarence threw an arm across Matt’s shoulders. “Matt and I just found out that, when we were alive, we were in the same branch of engineering.”

“Not surprising,” said Dave. “It seems that everyone in this section of Heaven was an engineer.”

“Except for Wendel, of course.” Irving patted Wendel on the shoulder. “Our big shot business executive.”

Wendel shook his head. “I ended my life in the executive suite.” He chuckled. “Literally. Heart attack at work.”

“Died with his boots on,” said Irving.

“Ferragamo Oxfords,” said Wendel. “But back in the day, I was as much of an engineer as any of you lads.”

“Good man,” said Clarence. “What area?”

“Electronics. Light bulbs.”

“Let there be light!” declared Dave. All five men looked up for a moment before returning to the conversation.

“What was it that had you laughing so hard?” asked Irving. Matt replied by repeating his electric can opener story, which was well received.

“So, that was your shared branch of engineering: planned obsolescence?” asked Irving.

“It was,” said Clarence. “I hope you can forgive us.”

“Hardly my place to do so. I made my own humble contribution to the field.”

“How so?”

Irving stood just a little taller as he answered. “I’m the boy who invented the expiration date.”

“You mean that label that gets people to throw out perfectly good food? That was you?”

Irving puffed his chest as he nodded. Then, his face turned sour. “Of course, my boss took credit for it, but the idea was mine.”

“Ain’t that the way,” said Dave, “and don’t I know it.”

“You’ve had that experience?” asked Irving.

“In spades,” said Dave. “I was working for a company that made cellular telephones. Not in my division, but I used to have lunch with a couple of boys from that section. By then, they were making smartphones, pocket computers. They were telling me the feature list on the upcoming model.”

“I thought that sort of thing was top secret,” said Clarence.

“Of course,” said Dave, “but not during lunch.”

Everybody laughed and nodded their heads.

Dave went on. “They mentioned that the phone would be waterproof. I demanded to know why. They said the previous models had been waterproof. I told them that was foolish since every phone that got wet was a potential sale.”

“Nonsense,” said Clarence. “Smartphones are a fashion item. People buy new while the old ones are still working.”

“That’s exactly what they said,” said Dave. “But I said that by thinking only of one market, they had overlooked another. Sure, those who could afford it were upgrading phones all the time, but some phone owners owned phones just because they needed phones. Some, particularly the poor and the elderly, might go to their graves never buying a second phone. But if that phone died the moment it was dropped in a sink or tub or toilet, or left in a pocket on laundry day, or taken out in too much rain, even the poorest, stingiest old man would need to buy another.”

“I suppose so,” said Clarence.

“Of course so,” said Wendel. “And they took your advice?”

“And took credit for it. Oh, they grumbled a bit. It turns out making a smartphone waterproof costs almost nothing. In fact, because they had to redesign and retool, taking away that feature actually cost them money at the outset. But increased sales more than made up for it. That company never made a waterproof phone again.”

“Good for them,” said Wendel. “That’s the kind of thinking with which I made my mark.”

“What mark did you make,” asked Irving.

Wendel waited a moment for everyone to grow quiet anticipating his response. He opened the grill. As he poked a steak to see if it were done, he softly said, “I was the man behind the Phoebus cartel.”

Irving whistled. “I knew you were big, old man, but I had no idea you were that big.”

Matt bowed deeply. “Master, I salute you.”

“I don’t get it,” said Clarence. “What’s the Phoenix cartel?”

“Phoebus,” said Matt.

“I think I know,” said Dave. “Wasn’t that the light bulb thing? An international conspiracy, back in the ‘20s.”

“We didn’t call it a conspiracy,” said Wendel.

“Cartel,” said Irving. “A legitimate device of business.”

Wendel shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, there was some question about the legitimacy. Eventually.”

“And you were its master,” said Clarence.

“No. Far bigger fish than me. I was just a kid, but I was the one who suggested the big idea to his boss.”

“Which was?”

Wendel’s attention was fixed on his fork. “For those of you who want medium rare, these steaks are done, gentlemen. Grab a plate.”

Plates were grabbed. Steaks were distributed.

“Medium well will be up in a moment.”

“That’s me,” said Clarence. “Now, tell us, what was your big idea?”

“He broke the light bulb,” said Dave.

“I fixed it,” declared Wendel. “If not for me, the whole industry might have gone under. This was before planned obsolescence. All across the world, engineers were making light bulbs last longer and longer. They were up to two-thousand hours, and ideas were floating around about permanent light bulbs that would never burn out.”

“Good lord,” said Matt. “Parents would pass light bulbs along to their children and then their grandchildren. You’d sell a family enough to light their home, and they’d never do business with you again.”

“Just so,” said Wendel. “Our engineers were cutting our throats. That’s when we put them on the task of making light bulbs reliably less reliable. We soon had lamp lifespan shortened by half.”

“What about the competition?” asked Clarence.

“That’s what a cartel is all about. We imposed fines on anyone caught making a better bulb.”

“And you say this was never done before?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then you invented planned obsolescence.”

“I think we may have. Now, get a plate. Your steak is ready.”

“Thanks, Wendell.” Clarence received his steak, which looked to be done perfectly for him. “You really are our master.”

“You know what the irony of it is, don’t you?” asked Dave. “Here we are, a bunch of engineers who made products intentionally designed to break in only a few years, and we find ourselves in Heaven surrounded by things built to last a thousand.”

“We did our work,” said Irving. “And we have our reward.”

“Spot on,” said Matt.

***

Beyond the hedge, a lesser demon asked the Devil, “When are you going to tell them, sir?”

The Devil chuckled. “Let them figure it out for themselves. It should dawn on them in about a thousand years.”

Pineapple and Sicily

“That was great!” said Bee.

Dan grinned broadly. “Did you really think so?”

“Yes. A lot of the time, I was able to tell exactly which word you were on. Sometimes from the first letter in the word or how long it was, but I often recognized a whole word, or when you paused, I had time to sound one out.”

“Oh, right.” Dan’s smile faded. “The reading.”

“That and the quotation marks when someone was talking. Those are extremely helpful.”

“Yeah,” said Dan. “That’s good. But what about the story? What did you think of it?”

Bee considered for a long moment. “Were they in Hell?”

“Yes,” said Dan. “They were. That was the point.”

“But at the beginning, you said they were in Heaven.”

“No.” Dan scrolled back to the top of the page and indicated a spot on the screen. “The engineers said they were in Heaven because that was what they believed. I never said they were right.”

“You never said they were wrong.”

“No, I let the reader believe they were in Heaven up until the end when I revealed that they were in Hell. It’s called a twist ending. Although, it wouldn’t be too much of a twist if you were paying attention.”

“Why not?”

“Because those guys deserve to be in Hell.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re all planned obsolescence engineers.”

“What’s that?”

“I explained that in the story. They were people who designed things to fall apart.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I explained that, too. They wanted to make sure they could sell more of the things they made.”

“They didn’t want to lose their jobs.”

“Right.”

Bee frowned. “That hardly seems like a reason to send them to Hell.”

Dan nodded, but not with great conviction. “No. Not really. But it’s just a story. I took the idea from my namesake: Dante Alighieri.”

“A poet, right?”

“He wrote a famous poem about Hell and Heaven. One of the things he did was put real people into it as the damned.”

“That seems kind of nasty.”

“Some people thought it was. Especially people he put there, I imagine.”

“And you wanted to write something nasty, too.”

“No. The poem wasn’t nasty. It was beautiful. It was called the Divine Comedy. It was one of the great masterpieces of world literature. Putting people into Hell was only a small part of it.”

“It was a big part of your story.”

Dan scowled. “My mother owned that electric can opener. I thought I was going to fix it for her. When I opened it up and realized that the damned thing had been designed to break, designed to be unrepairable…”

“You damned the designer to Hell.”

“No!” Dan waved the charge away. “You’re right. He was just trying to stay in business. I was just writing a story. I was trying to be funny.”

“Oh,” said Bee. “I’m sorry I didn’t laugh.”

“I see why this one didn’t sell. Not funny enough.”

“It’s probably very funny, master. I didn’t understand it because so much of it is strange to me. I don’t even know what an electric can opener is.”

“What? Do you have an old hand can opener in the kitchen? Appropriate for the house, I suppose.”

“What’s a can opener?”

“A tool to open cans.”

“What’s a can?”

“It’s a metal container used to preserve food. You must have used some in the kitchen. When you made that wonderful spaghetti, what was the tomato paste in?”

“In the tomatoes, I suppose.”

“You mean you made it entirely from scratch?”

Bee nodded.

“The pasta?”

Another nod.

“You didn’t spend enough time in there for that.”

“I bring in help.”

“Help that is also you?”

Bee nodded.

“Where do you get everything?”

“The ingredients are always there when I need them.”

“And always fresh? Nothing canned? No jars?”

Bee shook her head.

“Frozen?”

“Only things that are served frozen. Like ice cream.”

“No wonder it all tastes so good.”

Bee smiled broadly.

“Anyway, food can be preserved in cans, and when it is, you need a gadget, a cutting tool, to open the can. I suppose that part of the story made no sense to you.”

Bee shook her head. “And what was the thing pouring the drinks?”

“A robot. A machine that does things humans do. You’ve never heard of that, of course.”

Another head shake.

Dan looked back to the screen and began scrolling. “You’ve never heard of a martini, have you?”

“I have. The demon taught me to mix cocktails. It said I make the best Sazerac in the universe.”

Dan was still looking at the screen. “How about titanium?”

“What are the ingredients?”

“Propane. NASA. Rocket motor. Mars rover. Bearings. Hydraulics. Circuit boards. Fuel cells. Military grade. Does any of that mean anything to you?”

“No.”

Dan turned back to Bee. “OK. I’m feeling better about my story now. Even though you speak English, a lot of this must have been Greek to you. You have no cultural referents.” It occurred to Dan from the expression on Bee’s face that she lacked a referent for the phrase cultural referents. “You don’t know anything that happened after you died, of course.”

“I don’t know anything that happened before I died, either. All I know is what the angel and the demon taught me here.”

“Right. Reading is a must. Once you have it down, these magic shelves and I are going to provide you with a library to bring you up to speed. As you learn, we’ll have wonderful conversations.”

“I like that idea. And now I understand about the onion.”

“The onion?”

“You thought I was an onion because you thought you were in a story with a twist ending.”

Dan chuckled. “As a matter of fact, that did cross my mind.”

“You don’t still think that, do you?”

“No. That wouldn’t work now.”

“What do you mean?”

“The secret to a twist ending is not to let the reader know it’s coming. Here we are talking about a twist ending. If we were in such a story, we would have already given the game away.”

That evening, Dan requested pizza for dinner. He joined Bee in the kitchen and watched as she made the dough and sauce. There was only one of her, but one was enough. “Hang on. Where did this pepperoni come from?”

Bee opened a cupboard. “Here. Same as the cheese.”

“What if you had wanted to make your own?”

“I’d have found the ingredients. That’s how I made the sausage in the spaghetti.”

“You are quite the little homemaker.”

“Thank you, master.”

“You know, I think I’d like some pineapple on that pizza.”

Bee reached into a shelf that had been empty a moment before and pulled out a pineapple. “Got it. Funny looking thing.”

Dan took up a large knife. “Let me cut that for you.”

Bee jumped back, dropping the fruit onto the floor, a look of shock on her face.

Dan laid the knife down on the counter. “On second thought, I’ll let you do that. I’m going to go upstairs and research a project I have in mind. Call me when dinner is ready.”

“Yes, master.”

The kitchen door was already swinging shut behind Dan. He got to the base of the stairs before he stopped to lean against the stone wall. He looked down at the trembling hand that had held the knife. He remembered standing right about there, the doctor standing here, seeing a bloody knife in Dan’s hand. He remembered the doctor’s fear.

He had only been thinking about pineapple. Really. Right up until he saw that wide-eyed look, that beautiful terror on Bee’s face. What look had been on his face? After a long breath, he whispered, “We both have work to do.”

That evening, after dinner, Dan read to Bee again. This time, he searched for stories and poems that would not involve too much explaining. She was a good student, though. He never had to explain the same thing twice.

Late in the evening, he thought of a poem he had loved as a boy, one relevant to the story he had read earlier that day, and located it, “The Deacon’s Masterpiece, or the Wonderful ‘One-Hoss Shay’: A Logical Story,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Dan had not read it in years and discovered, to his surprise, that it contained a multitude of words that needed explaining, including some he had to look up. What was a thill? Or a thoroughbrace?

When he realized his mistake, he was too far into the poem to abandon the effort. By the time he reached the final collapse of the marvelous conveyance into a heap of dust, Bee had completely lost the thread of the story and was nodding off in her chair.

“I’m sorry. You are always up before me working in the kitchen. You must be tired.”

Bee nodded quiet agreement.

“Why don’t you get along to your quarters? I’m a night owl. I’ll stay up for hours. You get some sleep.”

She stood. “Thank you, master.”

Dan chuckled. “For your release?”

“No, for the lessons. The stories and the poems.”

“Good thing for you there will be no quiz on that last one.”

Bee smiled. “Thank you.” She bent as if to kiss him, but he turned to his computer.

“And I’m sorry about earlier,” he said.

“Earlier?”

“In the kitchen. When I surprised you with that knife.”

“I overreacted. That was my fault.”

“No, it wasn’t. Perhaps the fault lay with both of us. We need to get to know each other better. It will take time. But enough for today. Get to bed before you collapse.”

Bee left, making her way down the stairs and out to the guest house, while Dan continued working on the computer he already thought of as his rather than the one that was hers. “Get to know Bee better. To begin with, who speaks Sicilian?”

Dan spent a happy hour learning about the Sicilian language. As always in his research, he wandered down many an unnecessary path just for the pleasure of it. Sicilian had an amazing history, arising as it did on an island that was popular to conquer. In earliest recorded times, Sicily was held by Elymians, Sicani, and Sicels, reflecting waves of conquest too ancient to recall.

The island was invaded by Phoenicians from Carthage, by Greeks, by Romans, by Franks, Vandals, and Ostrogoths. The Byzantine Emperor Constans II was going to move his capital there, but his plan was cut short when he was assassinated with a bucket. Ancient sources disagreed on exactly how the bucket was applied but agreed on the unusual murder weapon. Dan was amused to find that if one could not remember the name of Constans, one could easily find it by typing “emperor murdered with a bucket” into a search engine. What a legacy.

Back to Sicily, Dan learned that it had gone on to be conquered by Muslims and then Normans, the descendants of the Vikings. At this point, the culture flourished, becoming one of the bright spots of Europe. A church might have inscriptions in Greek, Latin, and Arabic. More rulers arrived, via arms or royal marriage, from Germany, France, and Spain. When Italy at last became a nation, Sicily was a part of it, but the Sicilian language, bearing its many historical influences, continued in parallel to Italian.

Dan remembered an old film interviewing soldiers who had participated in the Allied invasion of Sicily on their way to taking Italy in World War II. Were they aware of how long a tradition they followed? He doubted it.

When Dan had told the demon that he needed to know Bee’s language in order to help her learn the alphabet, he was not being entirely straightforward. What Dan was really looking for now was places where Sicilian was spoken. In his lifetime, Sicilian speakers appeared in many places on the globe, but in Bee’s time, 1347 and before, almost every speaker of Sicilian would have lived in Sicily or southern Italy. Rare exceptions would almost certainly have been in the Mediterranean region.

“So,” Dan asked himself and then the Internet, “what was going on in Sicily in the mid-fourteenth century?”

An hour later, Dan was standing on the highest terrace on the house, under an absolutely black sky, looking down in darkness to the lower terrace where the bust of the Bodhisattva marked the arrival point favored by the angel and the demon. He saw nothing there, but he cursed it anyway. “Sicily! 1347! You miserable wretches! How dare you hold Bee responsible for anything she did after what she must have suffered?”

French Press

There was quite a bit of sunlight somewhere off to his left and, in the distance, the sound of falling water. The smell of the woods seemed stronger this morning. Dan liked that.

His morning routine—it was odd to realize that he already had a morning routine in Heaven—included emerging from his closet in a beautiful suit. Beige today. He had always wanted to wear a beige suit, but on Earth, he had never had the nerve to try it. He admired his own form in the mirror as he breathed in deeply. He felt he looked wonderful.

The smell of the woods was still strong. He opened the door onto the terrace and flared his nostrils as he took it in. The falls, invisible below the house, reminded Dan of the sound of a distant conversation, as if nature were greeting the dawn. Well, the mid-morning, perhaps. He had stayed up late doing his research which had shown him how Bee must have suffered even before she got to Hell.

Back inside, he made his way to the top of the stairs. That was where he realized why the smell of the woods had been so strong. For the first time since his arrival in Heaven, the morning aromas included no coffee, no cooking of any kind.

Downstairs, the table was bare. Dan gently opened the kitchen door. There was no sign of Bee. He had no idea what was going on this morning, but he did know one thing; he knew he wanted coffee.

In the first cupboard Dan opened, he found a bowl full of coffee beans, a pitcher of milk, a wooden coffee mill, a coffee cup, and a French press coffee maker. Heaven’s kitchen was an easy place to work. Although room temperature, the milk smelled fine. Could milk go bad in Heaven?

There was a kettle on the stove, filled with water and already hot. Dan was glad of this because the stove was of a design he did not recognize. He had no idea how one turned it on or off. Was it a wood burner? He smelled no smoke. A small door on the front said, “Luckan skall vara stängd.” Was that a brand name or an instruction in some angelic tongue?

Dan poured hot water into the carafe to preheat it. He poured beans into the grinder and turned the crank. The last time Dan had ground coffee by hand had been in the home of his grandmother. Where was she now? Almost certainly in Heaven. And thinking of Heaven, that combined feel, sound, and above all smell of grinding coffee was a heavenly experience.

Dan emptied the carafe and refilled it with freshly ground coffee and hot water. He set the press on top. It would need to sit for four minutes before pressing, if he remembered correctly. He reached into a pocket for his smartphone but recalled that he did not have one. He looked around for a kitchen timer. That was when he saw what was going on outside.

Fallingwater’s kitchen, like so many rooms in this marvelous house, had a floor-to-ceiling window. The view was the woods, confined vertically on the left by the wall behind the living room fireplace, and divided horizontally by the distant cantilevered terrace holding the bust of the Bodhisattva and, this morning, two figures: the angel and the actor.

They seemed to be carrying on an animated conversation. At this distance, behind the wall of glass, muffled by accompanying sounds of water, Dan had no hope of making out a word of it. He had noticed Bee’s reluctance to look directly at the angel. The actor, although also Bee, had no such limitation. Despite the angel’s imposing stature, she was entirely unintimidated. As Dan waited for his coffee, he amused himself by trying to imagine what they would have to talk about.

The angel made a long statement, including gestures toward the living room doorway. The actor responded with gestures of her own. Initially, Dan found them baffling, but then he recognized them, recognized where he had seen them before. The actor had once played a ninja warrior, one who was killed in a battle about halfway through the picture. Dan remembered hearing that she had genuinely studied martial arts to make her performance more accurate. He recognized the sweeping motions of her arms. Suddenly, she pulled them in tightly to her body, raised her fists, and bowed to the angel with a snap. Dan laughed out loud.

Had the angel heard him? Who knew how keen the auditory senses of such a being might be. At any rate, the angel looked toward the kitchen, locking eyes with Dan.

Dan waved. The angel hesitated and then awkwardly waved back. The actor, seeing this, turned and also waved to Dan, rather brightly.

A white sphere appeared. The angel stepped into it and was gone. The actor turned with a bounce and exited the terrace through the doorway to the living room. A moment later, she arrived in the kitchen just in time to watch Dan pouring milk into his cup of coffee.

“This is good,” said Dan. “Maybe not as good as when you make it, but still very good. I love the coffee in Heaven.”

The actor smiled. “Sorry about the late breakfast, master. As you saw, I was wanted elsewhere. Let me put something together for you.”

“Not a problem,” said Dan. “I rather enjoyed whipping up my own coffee. That old coffee mill brought back pleasant memories.”

As Dan spoke, the actor puttered about the kitchen, opening cupboards, taking out ingredients, although from what she found, Dan was not able to guess just what she intended to make. She pulled a large ham off a shelf and handed it to Dan. “Hold this, please, master?”

“Sure.” The ham was heavy. “What were you and the angel talking about?”

The actor was too distracted by her work to answer. She was looking for something in a deep drawer.

“Grinding coffee, I’ve been reminded of my grandmother. I wonder,” asked Dan, “if there is any way for us to talk to the folks in the rest of Heaven. Have you been told anything about that?”

As Dan asked his question, the actor spun around rapidly, swinging a long knife in her hand. The shining blade passed below Dan’s chin. He tried to ask her to be careful but found that he could not. He looked down and saw that the breast of his beautiful beige jacket was covered in blood. He dropped the ham.

Dan reached for his throat. The wound was not difficult to locate. The bleeding could not be stopped.

The actor mimed returning the bloody knife to a scabbard she did not have. She held it at her side while Dan tried to think what to do next. This decision was easy since the only option left to him was losing consciousness. He did.

Book Club

There was quite a bit of sunlight somewhere off to his left and, in the distance, the sound of falling water. When Dan awoke, his screaming drowned out the water’s sound. When he stopped, he thought he heard female laughter. Or was that water falling?

Dan rose and went straight to a mirror. His throat showed no scar, no mark, no discoloration. Had it been a nightmare? He looked down to the spot on the floor that had no dent from the sculpture he had dropped his first day in Heaven. No, he was sure it had been real. The dented floor, the slit throat, both had been restored. Dan stroked his neck and muttered, “fragile but invincible.” He was quoting the final words from one of his novels.

At the top of the stairs, he was greeted by the smell of coffee and much cooking. Despite the aromatic appeal, he had to pause a moment to gather courage before going down.

The dining table was set for four. Bee and the lingerie model were putting finishing touches on a buffet that included ham, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, hash browns, buttered grits, a platter of sliced fruits and another of roasted vegetables. Dan whistled.

“Good morning,” said the model.

“Since you got nothing yesterday, we thought you might be hungry,” said Bee.

“This ought to take care of it,” said Dan. “Yesterday. Then this is my fifth day in Heaven?”

“That’s right,” said the model. She was pouring coffee with warmed milk at Dan’s place. “What can we get you?”

“At buffets, I always start with a little of everything.”

“Wise choice.”

Dan’s appetite was good, although not necessarily two days’ worth. “I see we have another place set.”

Bee and the model looked to each other, as though each hoped the other would respond. At last, Bee said, “We were not sure you would want her here.”

“Yet you set a place.”

The model said, “We were not sure that you wouldn’t.”

“Where is she now?”

Bee got up and opened the kitchen door. Dan could see the actor kneeling on the floor. She faced away from him, her arms bound behind her back, her ankles tied together. She was gagged.

“Is she dangerous?”

Bee shook her head. “Not at all, but we thought you might feel better with her restrained.”

“If we turn her loose, she won’t murder me, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Is anyone else going to murder me?”

“No!”

“Absolutely not.”

“Would anyone care to explain why I was murdered yesterday?”

“She’d probably be the best one to answer that.”

Dan ate a forkful of scrambled eggs and then said, “All right. Untie her.”

When all four were seated at the table, the actor said, “It was the angel’s idea.”

“Yes,” said Dan. “I’d already guessed that. What I’m wondering about was the reason. I believe I had expressed a preference for getting through a day without any murders or suicides.”

“That was the day before,” said Bee.

“So it was,” said Dan. “My fault, then. I should have made myself clear. In future, on any and every day, let us have no murders or suicides without my express advance approval. In fact, no attacks of any kind, fatal or otherwise. Can we do that?”

“Yes, master.”

“Yes, sir,” said the actor. Dan noticed she was eating only fruit and vegetables.

“OK by me,” said the model. “I’m not really into that stuff.”

“Good.”

The three women continued their breakfast. Dan waited for a moment, sipping coffee, and then asked, “What was the reason for slitting my throat?”

“Oh, right,” said the actor. “The angel felt you were ignoring your opportunities because you didn’t viscerally understand the situation. The angel thought that once you had been murdered and then got up alive and well the next day, it would be easier for you to…”

There was an awkward pause. Dan broke the silence. “To murder you, say.”

“Yeah.”

“I understand.”

“So, all is forgiven?”

“I don’t know,” said Dan. “No one ever murdered me before. How soon after being murdered is one supposed to let it go? What’s the etiquette of this situation?”

There was another awkward pause, broken this time by the actor failing to stifle a laugh. After a moment, the other three joined in. The actor pulled a book off the buffet. “I’ll check Emily Post.” She thumbed through the pages for a moment. “This is unexpected. Mrs. Post is silent on the subject.”

Dan laughed. “You don’t fool me. You can’t read that.”

The actor read aloud a passage dealing with afternoon teas at which there would be no dancing.

“What the Hell?” Dan reached across the table for the book. The actor gave it to him, still open to the passage. Dan read a sample. “You can read.”

“Of course I can read. How do you think I learn my parts? Or pick my scripts? I don’t draw up my own contracts, but I never sign one without reading it. And I happen to be a fan of poetry.”

“You?” Dan pointed at the actress. “But you’re her.” He pointed at Bee. “She can’t read.”

“Can too,” said Bee.

“Not like that.”

“Not yet, but I bet I will eventually.”

“If you are both the same person, how can she read fluently when you can’t?”

“We are the same person, but we aren’t.”

“Do you know her scripts?” asked Dan. “Do you know the poems she likes?”

“No. But now I know that thing she just read about afternoon tea.”

Dan handed the book back to the actor. “I’m confused.”

“Master,” asked Bee, “how good a doctor are you?”

“What are you getting at?”

“That day you brought the doctor in, did the doctor know how to be a doctor? Did he know medicine?”

Dan nodded.

“Do you know medicine?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Were you the doctor?”

“I’m not sure. Was I?”

“Do you remember what happened to the doctor when he left the house?”

Dan looked across the room to broad windows. “I remember running away. Worrying about being followed. Finding the horse. I remember riding the horse. And…” Dan looked back again at the model. “I remember meeting you.”

The model smiled coquettishly. “And I remember meeting you.”

“So do I,” said Bee.

“I don’t,” said the actor.

“You were dead.”

“Oh, right.”

Dan was waving hands in the air, pointing from person to person, working things out. “So, when we are other people, we don’t know what that person knows, but we do know what that person learns, what they experience here.”

“Right,” said Bee.

Dan smiled. “This raises possibilities. Even if you aren’t much of a reader yet,”—Dan moved a pointing finger from Bee to the actor—“if you read a book,”—he moved the finger on to the model—“if both of you read books, Bee will remember them.”

“Honestly,” said the model, “I’m not much of a reader.”

“That’s OK,” said Dan. “We can bring a team of readers out of that closet. Bee can learn to read, and at the same time, read a dozen books at once.”

“Will that work?” asked the model.

“I don’t know,” said Bee. “I’ve never tried it.”

“Wait a minute,” said the actor. “I cut your throat, and what we get out of it is a new kind of book club?”

“Maybe,” said Dan. “Maybe not just that.”

A thoughtful quiet descended on the breakfast table.

After the dishes had been cleared away—and cleared away was exactly what happened to them. Once Dan had made his slave understand that he did not want her being forced to do anything she did not wish to do, she had gotten in the habit of simply putting the dirty dishes back into the cupboards. Since what was found in those cupboards was only what one was looking for, and since one never opened a cupboard hoping to find dirty dishes, they were never seen again. Instead, whatever clean dishes were wanted at the next meal would be available as required. When Dan learned of this, he suggested Bee might simply wish each meal to appear in the cupboard already prepared, but she greatly enjoyed cooking, especially as a team. Dan understood that.

At any rate, with breakfast cleared away, Dan put his new idea to the test. He reached up to a shelf and pulled down a single-volume world history. He handed it to the actor. “Read this.”

“What part?”

“Start at the beginning. Read until the end.”

“All of it?” The actor hefted the tome. “This will take days. Weeks.”

“How much time do we have?”

The actor sighed, walked across the room to a built-in desk, opened the book onto it, sat on a chair and began to read. The desk, situated by windows for excellent light, was designed on the same principles as the house: beautiful materials in asymmetric cantilevers. It struck Dan how lovely the actor looked there. Had she arranged her long legs that way intentionally to please him? He wanted to reward her obedience with a kiss, but recalling yesterday, decided just to let her settle in.

He turned to the model. “What can I interest you in?”

She smiled. “Dancing?”

Dan reached for a shelf and pulled down a history of dance.

“No,” she said. “I really don’t read.”

“You might enjoy it.”

They heard a dismissive “pfft” from the actor.

The model was shaking her head. “I don’t read at all.”

Dan considered her expression. “Do you mean you can’t?”

“I did a little in school, but I never got good at it. Since my career got going—I was twelve then—I’ve avoided it.”

Dan gave the model a long, serious look. “You know, there was a time when your people were denied the right to read.”

“I know. I’ve heard that speech before.”

“What are you talking about,” asked Bee.

“Long story,” said Dan. He pointed to the actor. “She’ll get to that eventually. Then you’ll know.”

The actor looked up, smiled insincerely, and returned to her reading.

Dan turned back to the model. “Those speeches made no impression?”

The model shook her head. “I don’t need to read. I pull down a good six-figure income without it. My agency reads my contracts. I trust them.”

“But you miss out on the world.”

“I’ve worked on six continents. I’ve been in cathedrals, opera houses, stadiums, national parks, on islands, beaches, forests, jungles, savannah, half-way up Kilimanjaro, and two active volcanoes.”

“OK,” said Dan. “Do whatever you want. But if at any time you feel like taking up reading, the library is open.”

“I’ll remember that.”

The actor sighed again.

News From Home

At a moment in the afternoon, a bright sphere appeared. “I’ll deal with this,” said Dan.

The actor nodded without looking up from her reading. The other women were elsewhere. Dan walked onto the terrace.

“I suppose I owe you an apology,” said the angel.

“Not at all,” said Dan. “I understand what you were trying to achieve.”

“Still, it must have been traumatic.”

“Well,” said Dan, “I was unable to scream until the next day.”

The angel chuckled. “And how do you feel now?”

“With Heaven’s agent going to extreme lengths to encourage me to openly express the wicked desires I spent a lifetime hiding? Confused, I suppose.”

“Do you mean you still don’t understand?”

“I understand. You asked about my feelings.”

“Ah, yes. Feelings. This morning, when the kitchen door opened to reveal the woman who had attacked you yesterday—kneeling, bound, helpless—how did you feel?”

Dan sneered. “You may not be the Devil, but there’s some snake in you.”

The angel feigned a look of shock.

“I felt…” Dan pondered his choice of words. “Turmoil.”

The angel waited.

“A surge of excitement. Physical. Violent lust. I did not want to feel that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s inappropriate.”

“She murdered you yesterday. What could be more appropriate?”

“My lusts have nothing to do with revenge. Perhaps human emotions involve a complexity you fail to appreciate.”

“I am prepared to acknowledge that.” The angel sat on the wall at the edge of the terrace. “Enlighten me.”

Dan began to pace. The angel waited patiently, enjoying partly cloudy sunshine, warm breeze, and the sound of water. At last, Dan said, “I have three problems.”

“Enumerate.”

“Firstly, it is always wrong to engage in sexual activity with a slave.”

The angel shook its head. “Your opinions on the etiquette of slavery are founded in inexperience. You lived your entire life in the extremely brief period in which slavery was no longer generally accepted on the Earth. You never owned a slave. You never were a slave. You never met anyone who had owned, been, or known a slave.”

“Yet slavery was a topic much discussed in my time,” said Dan. “We were not still doing it, at least not openly, but my society suffered much from the repercussions of the peculiar institution. I was born into a world that recognized Thomas Jefferson as a hero, yet during my lifetime, we came to think of him as a rapist because he had a sexual relationship with a woman who was his slave.”

“Yes,” said the angel. “That thing where you judge people of one age by the moralities of another. Do you want to know what your vegan descendants will think of you?”

“Probably not.”

“Good. I don’t actually have the power to see the future. But I can guess.”

Dan turned to look back into the house. He saw the actor reading. “Does the meat in my kitchen come from animals?”

“I don’t know,” said the angel. “I don’t think so. I’d have to ask.”

“Please do.” Dan turned back to face the angel. “Maybe my descendants will be better people than me. If they are, I don’t want them reenacting my crimes. I don’t want to reenact the crimes of my ancestors.”

“I can see the past,” said the angel. “None of your ancestors ever had sex with a slave.”

“Oh, great. I’m the first to so befoul my line.”

“Is that how you felt when you had sex with Bee?”

“In my defense, I was confused at that moment, the day I got the news that I was dead. And being two people for the first time, also confusing. I was vulnerable. She seduced me.”

“Blaming your slave. How shameful.”

“Exactly,” said Dan. “What I did was shameful, and I am ashamed of it. Now, you want me to do worse things.”

“I remind you,” said the angel, “that Bee was in solitary confinement for centuries. The moment when you had sex with her was her happiest experience since before your twentieth-great grandparents were born. You have not touched her since, a fact which is distressing to her.”

“Is it?”

“Also, you have freed your slave in all but name. You have ordered her to disobey you any time she feels like it and arranged so that any pain you give her can be perceived as pleasure. You deny her the intimacy she desires because your refined sensibilities make you quail at the thought of being another Thomas Jefferson, a man whom, despite his faults, you still admire. What’s your second problem?”

“Ah,” said Dan. “Second problem. Yes.” It took him a moment to remember. He turned back to the doorway, to the sight of the actor reading at the beautiful desk. “This house!”

“You love this house. Bee loves this house. Even I love this house. I had not expected to, but it has grown on me.” The angel patted the wall on which it sat. “This house is wonderful, an exquisite work of art.”

“A magnificent aesthetic statement by another man I greatly admire,” said Dan. “How can I bring myself to besmirch a masterpiece with such acts? It would be like masturbating onto the Mona Lisa. It would be an insult to those who created this place.”

“You do understand that this is not Fallingwater,” said the angel. “This is a copy. Mr. Wright and his workmen have never been within a thousand miles of this place. In fact, there is no such thing as a distance between here and where they worked. This is a different realm.”

“But the idea of Fallingwater is here,” said Dan. “This may be a copy, but it is a copy of a real home, built by real people for a real family, sprung from the mind of a real genius.”

“And,” said the angel, “I could tell you stories about things that happened in that real house.”

“Don’t bother,” said Dan. “I heard one about a visit from a woman artist. There was supposed to be some sneaking around on the staircase at night involving the artist, her host, and another guest. I didn’t think the story sounded plausible until I saw that staircase. It could have happened exactly as described, but that’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“The point is, I’m not comfortable doing the kind of things you and the demon expected me to do inside a building, or a copy of a building, for which I have such respect. Sex, maybe, that’s OK, but not the appalling behaviors of my fantasies.”

“You are particular about where you appall yourself. I’ll try to understand that,” said the angel. “And your third problem?”

“My third problem is my wife.”

“The woman whom you married until death do us part? That wife?”

Dan quoted the Bible. “Whatever you bind on Earth shall have been bound in heaven.”

The angel replied in kind. “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage.”

“That was always a problem with the Bible,” said Dan. “Too many words. No matter what your view, you can usually find a passage supporting it.”

“Yes,” said the angel. “During those debates you humans had on slavery, both sides heavily quoted scripture.”

“Scripture aside, I am bound by my vows to my wife.”

The angel replied by making gestures that were impossible to follow. To Dan, its hands appeared at times to vanish and return at unexpected angles. The result was the arrival of the dark sphere and the demon.

“We need to tell him about his wife.”

“You do not need me for that,” said the demon.

“It is a decision we should make together.”

“What’s happened to my wife?” asked Dan.

The demon smirked, an expression that worked particularly well on its face. “It sounds as if the issue were already forced. Go ahead, with my—we cannot call it a blessing—my approval. It never was an official secret, anyway.”

The angel looked Dan in the eye. Then the angel looked away. The angel sighed. The angel sighed again.

“So, Dan,” said the demon. “I understand you were murdered yesterday.”

“I sure was.”

“Well, not for the first time.”

“What?”

“Dan,” asked the angel, “what do you recall about your arrival in heaven?”

“It was not as I anticipated. Wasn’t there supposed to be a Day of Judgement?”

“Yet people always think their loved ones go to Heaven on the day they die. With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Perhaps every day is the Day of Judgement. But what do you remember? Start at the beginning?”

Dan thought for a moment. “I knocked a sculpture off the shelf by the bed. It dented the floor. The next day, the dent was gone.”

“How did you happen to be reaching for this sculpture?”

“I was trying to find my smartphone.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to figure out where I was.”

“You were lost. On your arrival, what was your very first thought?”

Dan closed his eyes. “Sunlight. The sound of water falling. I knew I was not home.”

“Had you expected to be home?”

“I’m not sure. I travel a great deal these days.” Dan opened his eyes again. “Those days.”

“Could you not recall the day before, remember where you should have been?”

“No. That happens sometimes when I’m not quite awake.”

“But after you were fully awake?”

“After that, there were distractions. My younger body. This house. A gorgeous naked slave. Incredible coffee. The realization that I was dead. You two. Things like that.”

“Understandable. You are awake now and settled in. Try to recall the day you died on Earth. What day was it?”

“Oh, my gosh!” said Dan. “I remember, now. It was our anniversary. Our twentieth. We had a big party.”

“Lots to eat and drink?” asked the demon.

“Indeed,” said Dan. “Especially to drink. Ordinarily, my wife disapproves of my drinking, but she made an exception for the anniversary. I remember her saying it was OK every twenty years. I took her up on the offer.” Dan laughed. “Probably too much. After that, I don’t remember anything.”

“Not even how you got to bed?” asked the angel.

Dan rubbed his temples. “Not at all.”

“Any dreams that you recall?”

Dan frowned. “When I woke, I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I think I’d been having a nightmare.”

“Another morning when you woke up screaming?”

“No, not that bad. Not really a nightmare. But disturbing.”

“What was disturbing?”

“I remember now. I’d been dreaming that I was suffocating. But it wasn’t a nightmare. Just not the sort of dream to which I wished to return.”

“It was not a dream at all, Dan.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you did not arrive in Heaven asleep. What you recall as a dream was the last moment of your life.”

“And I was suffocating? Is that how I died?”

The angel and the demon nodded.

“Why was I suffocating? Was it smoke? Was the house on fire? Is my family all right?”

“They are fine,” said the angel. “It was not smoke.”

“What then?”

The demon said, “A pillow. Your wife and her boyfriend were holding it on your face.”

“Very funny.”

“Why is that funny?” asked the angel.

“Our friend is making a joke. My wife doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

“Oh,” said the angel. “Oh.”

“How many boyfriends did she go through before the last one?” asked the demon. “I mean, during the marriage.”

Dan sneered at the demon but saw that the demon was waiting for the angel to answer.

“Dan,” asked he angel, “did your wife ever know about your pornography collection?”

“Never!”

“How is that possible?”

“I was careful. I kept it on my laptop. I made sure she had a computer of her own, so she didn’t need to touch mine.”

“Assuming,” said the demon, “she had no curiosity.”

“That wouldn’t matter,” said Dan. “I set up a separate administrative account on that laptop. It had a strong password, one I never shared with her. Inside that account was an invisible folder. That folder was encrypted with another strong password. I never opened it except when I was traveling.”

The demon chuckled. “Dan de Vries: secret agent.”

“I didn’t want her to be hurt by what she might see there. You…” Dan turned to the angel. “Or at least you can understand that.”

“We both understand it, Dan.”

“Are you saying my wife found out about it somehow?”

“No,” said the angel. “I am saying you succeeded, throughout a twenty-year marriage, in hiding it from her, in part because you were away so often.”

“Oh,” said Dan. He began to pace the terrace again on a line between his visitors. They waited quietly while he thought. “You’re saying that she succeeded in hiding things from me, as well.”

“And how,” said the demon.

“You’re saying she had a boyfriend, boyfriends I didn’t know about. She and one of them murdered me.”

“They did,” said the angel.

“But it was my fault,” said Dan. “Even if she didn’t know what was on my computer, she must have sensed that something was wrong. She murdered me, but I am responsible. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“It is not my role to assign blame,” said the angel.

“Good thing, too,” said the demon.

“What’s the point of having so damned many Egyptians before you get to Cleopatra?” Just as she asked herself this question, the actor heard Dan come back in from the terrace. She looked up and saw, through the broad windows, that the angel was gone. Once having entered the room, Dan did not appear to be going anywhere. “Are you OK, boss?”

Dan hung his head.

“What’s the problem?”

“My wife murdered me.”

“You mean…”

“I mean, that’s how I got here.” He looked up. “How I died.”

“That’s terrible.” The actor stood, taking the opportunity to close the one-volume world history. “Did you just find out?”

“Did you know about it?”

“Me?” The actor crossed the room to Dan. “I had no idea.”

“Got me drunk. Then she and her boyfriend smothered me with a pillow.”

The actor winced dramatically. “Boyfriend?”

“Her personal trainer at her gym. The angel told me his name, but it meant nothing to me. I never met the guy.”

“That is so unfair.”

“I told the angel that I felt it was my fault.”

“Your fault that they murdered you? What did the angel say to that?”

“It said assigning blame was above its pay grade.”

The actor nodded. “Believable. I don’t care what you did, Dan. She had no excuse to murder you.”

Dan smiled weakly.

“Oh, and again, I’m sorry about cutting your throat yesterday.”

“It’s forgotten,” said Dan. “I suppose all this being murdered by women is only justice.”

“Nonsense, boss. I bet she murdered you because her boyfriend wanted her to inherit your money. And I murdered you because the angel wanted to loosen you up. None of that has anything to do with justice.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t. Not as the immediate cause, anyway.”

“It is kind of ironic, though. You fantasize all your life about murdering women, and they end up murdering you. Twice.”

“Not ironic.”

“Why not?”

“That’s not what ironic means.”

The actor huffed. “People are always telling me that, but they never tell me what word I should have used.”

“Irony is when you say the opposite of what you mean for humorous effect. Usually sarcastically.”

“Yeah, yeah. But what is the word that means what people mean when they misuse the word ironic.”

“Perhaps, coincidental?”

“No,” said the actor. “If you and I each roll a die and we both get a six, it's a coincidence, but nobody would call that ironic.”

“You’re right. Amusingly coincidental?”

“Were you amused?”

Dan looked down at the floor. “No.” He realized after some time that she was watching him look down, probably wondering what he was thinking. What was he thinking? “So, we need a word that means what people mean when they misuse ironic. I’ll have to think about it.”

“You do that.” The actor gave Dan a hug. He let her.

History

At dinner a few days later, Dan asked Bee if she had been learning history as the actor read it. She said she had.

“What have you gotten through so far?”

“A bunch of boring Egyptians and then some boring Greeks.”

“How could they be boring? They were the founders of Western civilization.”

Bee shrugged. “I don’t know. It was just names and dates and places and things that happened.”

“That is one way to describe history,” said Dan. “Didn’t anything stand out for you? Any person? Any event?”

“There were poems and plays, but they were all just excerpts. Way too short.”

“Uh huh.” Dan looked at the actor. “Is that how you saw it?”

The actor responded with a challenging emphaticism. “That is exactly how I see it.”

“I think I see the problem.”

“So do I. Have me read something worth reading.”

“Like what?”

“Plays. Poetry. You want Bee to get an education. How about Shakespeare? Every educated person should know Shakespeare.”

“No. She needs context first. Those plays are set in a historical world. She doesn’t know that history.”

The actor rolled her eyes. “Well, of course. You’ve seen Hamlet, haven’t you?”

“I have. More than once. Film and live.”

“On days when you were going to see Hamlet, did you brush up on your Medieval Danish history?”

“I don’t know any Medieval Danish history.”

“None?” The actor feigned shock. “How terribly confused you must have been each time you saw Hamlet.”

Dan smiled. “Point taken. Go ahead. Read Shakespeare tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.”

It went well. The actor began the next day with Much Ado About Nothing. “It’s easy to follow, and how much context can you need for a play about nothing?” She started at the desk where she had been reading history but was soon up and wandering the room, reciting aloud, performing the characters. “The language is clearer when you speak it.”

Bee confirmed this, saying she was understanding what she heard in the actor’s mind better when it was performed, even after she and Dan went upstairs to work on her reading skills. The days with history may not have taught Bee much history, but having another version of herself reading had resulted in progress in reading itself.

“You’ve jumped from third grade to sixth. At this rate, you’ll be in high school by the end of the week.” Dan glanced out the window. “Assuming we have weeks. Do we have weeks here?”

Bee did not know.

“I’ll have to ask the angel. It said we would have seasons. And we have seen the Moon now. We may need to invent a local calendar.”

From the window of the third-floor study—which Dan thought of sometimes as the computer room, sometimes as the classroom, and which he hoped would become their writing room—a portion of the Bodhisattva terrace was visible far below. From time to time, the actor could be glimpsed there, playbook in hand, broadly gesturing through a speech.

Dan marveled at Bee’s ability to learn via two channels, two brains, at once. She would inexplicably smile. Dan would ask her why, and she would explain that a character in the play being performed downstairs had just said something clever. At one point, she burst out laughing. In explanation, she pointed to the window. Dan looked down and saw two performers visible at the edge of the terrace.

“Has she brought in help from your closet?”

Bee nodded. “The dialogs go better that way.”

“Do we need to stop so you can concentrate on the play?”

“No, this is fine.”

Dan shrugged acceptance and continued the lesson. It went on for another hour until Bee burst into tears.

“What is it?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that they’re all in love again. It’s so beautiful. I wasn’t sure if Beatrice and Benedick were going to make it.”

Shakespeare wrote so many troubled couples that Dan could not recall specifically who Beatrice and Benedick were. Still, he nodded and said, “I’m glad you liked it.”

“It was wonderful. Thank you for letting us read a play instead of all that boring history.”

“You’re welcome. Although I am not giving up on history. I’ll work that out somehow.”

Later, Dan and Bee stood before Bee’s closet. He had a book in hand, one from a large multi-volume set covering world history in rich detail. Bee’s expression was doubtful. “You don’t want her to read that, do you?”

“No. These books were written by a husband-and-wife team who dedicated their lives to the task. Please bring the woman from that couple here. I want to see how you feel about history read by someone who appreciates it.”

Bee shrugged her shoulders. The closet door swung open. The historian stepped out. Dan asked her name. She confirmed that it was the same as the author.

“Did you write this book?”

She took it from him. “My husband and I wrote it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Master,” asked Bee, “do you think I made a mistake?”

“No. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve seen her in interviews. She was in her seventies. I wasn’t expecting…”

The historian reached for the closet door. “Do you want me to try again?”

“No. That won’t be necessary. I should have guessed that you’d be young. I am.”

The historian looked Dan up and down. “So you are.”

Dan found her appreciation of his form disconcerting. He felt as if he were expected to turn around to give her the complete view.

“Was there some reason you wanted me here?”

“Yes,” said Dan. “There was. I want you to read your book.”

“Aloud?”

“No. Just read it.”

“I’ve read it. I wrote it. Well, my husband did much of the actual writing, but I was his first editor on all his parts. There isn’t a sentence in this book I haven’t read a dozen times.”

“I want you to read it so that Bee will absorb its contents. Do you understand how that works here?”

Bee and the historian locked eyes for some time. Dan had the sense that they were thinking together. At last, the historian said, “Now I do.”

“Great. Although, come to think of it…” Dan reached onto an empty shelf and pulled down another book. “You should probably do this one. It isn’t one of yours, but it does all of world history in a single volume. You’ll get through it quicker.”

“How did you do that?” asked the historian.

“Do what?”

“You pulled a book off an empty shelf. Are you some sort of magician?”

“No. That’s how bookshelves work in this house. Whatever book you reach for will be there.”

The historian stepped to the shelf. She reached up and pulled down a book. She opened it and smiled. “Amazing! We’ll start with this one.”

“What is that?” asked Dan.

“A treatise on the foundations of civilization. It covers the initial development of culture, art, and law.”

“That may be going deeper than we require.”

The historian placed the book Dan had suggested back on the shelf. It vanished. She seemed pleased by this. “The history of the world is not something to be quickly skimmed. My husband and I barely did it justice in a dozen volumes.”

“Perhaps,” said Dan. “But going into such depth could take a great deal of time.”

“How much time do we have?”

Dan opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Eternity,” said Bee.

“Wonderful,” said the historian. “That should be enough.”

Days later, Dan came down the stairs. “There you are. I wanted to thank you.”

The historian looked up from a colorful volume spread open on the desk.

“Bee has been telling me all about cultures coming into existence. She was fascinated by how early legal codes deal with revenge, an eye for an eye, accepting that as justice while at the same time placing limits to restrict the resulting violence from getting out of hand. She had an enthusiasm for the topic she could never have gotten from an actor reading the same material. I know that enthusiasm came from you.”

“I am glad to be of service,” said the historian.

Dan looked down at the book open on the desk. “Oh, this is wonderful! What is it?”

The historian turned a page in the book and then another, revealing brilliantly colored text and illustrations. “The Book of Kells.”

“I’ve heard of that,” said Dan. “A medieval illuminated manuscript. From Ireland, isn’t it?”

“Kells is in Ireland,” said the historian. “The book may be originally Irish or Scottish or even English. There is some doubt. Wherever it originated, this is the original.”

Dan came around the desk so that he and the historian might both view the pages upright. “It is beautiful.”

“I mean,” said the historian, “that I asked for the original and got it. I was aware of modern reproductions, some containing only selected pages, so I walked up to one of your magic shelves thinking, ‘I want the complete original Book of Kells,’ and I got this. This is not a copy. This is the original, and it is complete.”

“It isn’t really the original,” said Dan. “The original is still wherever it belongs.”

“Dublin. Trinity College.”

“Well, it’s still there, I’m sure. This is a copy. The shelf you pulled it from is a copy. Everything in this house is a copy. The house itself—I have the word of an angel on this—is a copy.”

“I am a copy,” said the historian.

“Yes,” said Dan. “You do understand.”

“What you don’t understand,” said the historian, “is that when I say this is the original Book of Kells, I mean it is more original than the original at Trinity. There is no wear, no fading. This illumination could have finished drying yesterday.” She closed the book. “Look at this cover.”

“The gold and jewels are breathtaking.”

“The gold and jewels are the reason the Vikings stole it. They dumped the rest. When it was found, that cover with many sheets from the front and back had been ripped away. Nobody has seen this cover or those pages in a thousand years, but here they are because I asked for the original.”

“Wow!”

The historian looked closely into Dan’s face as if hoping to find something that was not there. “Yes. Wow.” She opened the book again, turning pages gently. “We have before us one of the greatest treasures of medieval art and a better look at it than anyone has had in a millennium.” She sighed.

“You seem somehow disappointed,” said Dan.

“Not in this.”

“In what, then?”

The historian looked to the windows with a wistful expression. “I wish my husband could see this. I would love to discuss it with him.”

“That might be arranged,” said Dan. “I’ll go get Bee.”

“I think I can do that.” The historian closed her eyes for a moment. “She’s coming.”

Bee bounded down the stairs. “Yes, master?”

Dan caught a disapproving glance from the historian. “Just call me Dan.”

“Yes, Dan.”

“We were hoping you might be two historians today. We would like this woman’s husband, her co-author, to join us.”

“I see.” Bee and the historian looked into each other’s eyes. Then Bee looked up at Dan. “You know, this might be an opportunity for you to get some practice at being two different people. You haven’t tried that since the doctor.”

Dan shook his head. “And look how well that worked.”

“It should be easier bringing someone out just to sit and read.”

“I don’t know.”

“And with his wife here to explain the situation to him, I’m sure we can keep things well under control.”

The confidence in Bee’s voice was reassuring, but it was the pleading look on the face of the historian that decided it for Dan. They took the book up to his bedroom and placed it on the desk there. Unlike the doctor, the historian’s husband would not have to wander an unfamiliar house. They would bring him across the bedroom and sit him down. Dan felt he could manage this.

When Dan’s closet opened, the man who came out was young, which came as no surprise this time. What was surprising to Dan was the wonder that filled the newly arrived historian at the sight of his young wife. “Have fifty years fallen so easily away? Am I, my love, in Heaven?”

“Yes and no,” answered his wife. “But come look at this.”

“First let me look at you.”

She blushed. “We are not alone.”

He looked around, noticing Dan and Bee as though he truly had not before. To reduce confusion, Dan had his eyes closed. The lady historian explained the situation. Her husband seemed doubtful until Bee told Dan to open his eyes. Upon seeing himself from across the room, the gentleman historian said, “I may need some time to get used to this.”

“That is the idea,” said Bee.

“Come over here and sit,” said his wife. “You really must see what I have for you.”

The historian walked easily across the room. His wife showed him the book. He gasped when he realized what lay before them. Then the two of them began a detailed examination of the work with the enthusiasm of children getting to know a litter of puppies.

“Dan,” said Bee, “let’s leave these two here and go for a walk.”

“I don’t want to miss anything,” said Dan.

“We won’t. We’ll be both here and somewhere else. That’s the point.”

“Oh, right.”

Dan got to practice going down the stairs, outside, across the bridge, down the road with Bee at his side, all the while examining pages of the Book of Kells. He discussed flowers with Bee and illustrations with his wife. It did take getting used to, but that was exactly what happened.

“This is amazing.”

“I told you that you’d get the hang of it.”

“Yes,” said Dan. “But what I meant was how he sees the book. I thought I had looked at it, but when he looks, he sees so much more.”

“They both read Latin,” said Bee.

“Yes, but beyond that, where I saw the cleverness and symmetry of a knot pattern filling in the counter of a letter, he sees the world that produced that knot. He knows where it originated, who brought it to the islands, how it changed when it got there, how the monk worked hours in a chilly cell to produce it, how it was seen in later years, the influences it had down the centuries, going in and out of fashion, never forgotten even when it was forgotten. It echoes in later work. I saw a knot. He sees the history of the world, of art and civilization.”

“I know,” said Bee. “She does the same thing. This scheme of yours may be good for both of us.”

“I trust it will be,” said one of the historians.

Some time later, Dan and Bee were sitting on a warm rock by the stream. Dan’s thoughts condensed on the sunlit surface of the water, swirls and bubbles, and then a kiss. For just a moment, Dan thought he was kissing Bee, but then he understood what had happened. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“And feeling.”

“Well, I suppose they have those young bodies.”

“They are husband and wife in a bedroom.”

“They have a century of love between them.”

“And catching up to do.”

Dan and Bee leaned against each other, listening to the water, watching the sparkle of the sunlight, swaying slightly with the breeze, the joys of scholarship set temporarily aside, feeling the flow of that century of love.

The Play's the Thing

Strange as it all was, and it was all very strange, perhaps the strangest moment for Dan came on the morning when he awoke and realized there was already a version of himself out of the closet. He was in his bed, but he was also in a chair on the bedroom terrace, reading Ulysses.

The reader was Frank Delaney, a scholar who had been through the book many times before, but whose love for James Joyce made each reread a joy. Yet the reader was also Dan, who had started Ulysses half a dozen times, finally forcing himself all the way through it twice, and who even then felt he had not really read it since so much seemed beyond his intellectual grasp. Now he read with deep comprehension and genuine delight. This pleased Dan tremendously, but had he called forth the Delaney version of himself in a dream?

Frank looked up, saw Dan through the wall of glass between bedroom and terrace, and nodded. Then he returned his eyes to Stephen Dedalus walking Sandymount strand into eternity. More than one of Dan’s early attempts at Ulysses had bogged down in that sand, but today he strode the complex text with ease. However he had gotten here, he was happy.

The conversation at lunch was dominated by Sophocles and Confucius. Each had been brought forth to read the other’s sayings, Confucius to read The Dialogues of Plato, Sophocles to read The Analects. The pair had found each other and begun comparing notes. One of them would quote a particularly pithy remark. This would frequently elicit the reply, “Yes, that is good, but I didn’t say it,” or even, “I’d never say a thing like that!”

Mark Twain, more properly Samuel Clemens, observed that putting words into the mouths of the dead was always a popular game. Into his own mouth, he put a deviled egg. Clemens had been brought out of Dan’s closet to read Homer’s Margites, a work the two historians had pulled off the shelf one day with tremendous excitement. Margites had been almost entirely lost, known only through brief references by ancient authors who claimed it as the hilarious origin of comedy.

On Earth, Clemens had been a student of those ancients but could not read Greek. However, he read Margites in the original tongue. It had been discovered that it was not possible to pull translations off the shelf if those books had never been translated, but it was possible to pull versions of people out of closets modified so that they could speak, read, and understand any desired language.

The reviews of Margites had been correct. Sometimes Clemens, Dan, and half the house would simultaneously break out in howls of laughter over a choice bit of Homeric wit, often aided by the fact that Dan’s historian picked up on most of the amusing ancient allusions.

This modification of human copies was what allowed Sophocles to read Chinese with ease while Confucius just as easily grasped Greek. Dan was aware that this power of modification had been discovered the day Bee made a version of the actor who felt pain as pleasure. He avoided thinking about that—most of the time.

Another odd moment for Dan came when he found himself uncertain which of the two ancient philosophers was him and which was Bee. It turned out that Bee was Confucius and Dan was Sophocles, but he had had to think about it to be sure. Once, while strolling about the house, he had come across Lucretius reading On the Origin of Species and thought it was Bee, until the Roman looked up and greeted Dan as himself. It was only then that Dan became aware of how a marvelous appreciation of Darwin’s theory had been building in the back of his mind all morning.

Not that Bee was missing out. Up on the third floor, she was Lord Kelvin reading The Meaning of Relativity and also Albert Einstein seated nearby, reading A New Kind of Science. (Einstein recognized Fallingwater, having visited it once in life.) Beside the guesthouse pool, Bee was Adam Smith grumbling his way through the Communist Manifesto, while down by the stream, as Mary Wollstonecraft, she devoured A Room of One’s Own, occasionally shouting “Yes!” loudly enough to be heard above the falls.

Of course, there were always the historians with their heads together over some newly non-dusty text. Their constant sharing of the joys of scholarly discovery brought Dan and Bee closer together, particularly when the historians withdrew to the guest bedroom in the main house which they had appropriated. There they read and reread everything ever known or lost from the works of Sappho. At times, through them, Dan almost felt as if he loved Bee. At times, Dan almost felt as if he were Bee.

Afternoons were often set aside for plays. This would be such an afternoon. A program for the production was typed up on a computer and then pulled off shelves in as many copies as were needed. Dan knew for sure he was in Heaven when he realized he would never again have a printer run out of toner or suffer a paper jam.

The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke

Written and Directed by William Shakespeare

Assistant Director, Grigori Kozintsev

Dramatis Personæ

Francisco, a soldier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen Joyce

Barnardo, an officer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Campbell Scott

Horatio, friend to Hamlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kenneth Branagh

Marcellus, an officer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher Plummer

Claudius, King of Denmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Edwin Booth

Voltemand, a courtier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Innokenty Smoktunovsky

Cornelius, a courtier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aleksandër Moisiu

Laertes, son to Polonius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adrian Lester

Polonius, lord chamberlain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Papaa Essiedu

Hamlet, nephew to the king, son to the late king . . . Richard Burbage

Gertrude, queen of Denmark, mother to Hamlet . . . . Angela Winkler

Ophelia, daughter to Polonius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ruth Negga

Ghost of Hamlet’s father . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Gielgud

Reynaldo, servant to Polonius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mel Gibson

Rosencrantz, a courtier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benedict Cumberbatch

Guildenstern, a courtier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Scott

Players

Gonzago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Garrick

Baptista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sarah Bernhardt

Lucianus, nephew to Gonzago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Iain Glen

Mutes . . Amleto Novelli, Asta Nielsen, Johnston Forbes-Robertson

Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simon Russell Beale

A Gentleman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Philip Kemble

Fortinbras, prince of Norway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Russell Crowe

A Captain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry Irving

A Servant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Austin Pendleton

A Sailor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Colin Firth

First Clown, grave-digger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Tennant

Second Clown, grave-digger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kevin Kline

A Messenger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laurence Olivier

A Priest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Keanu Reeves

Osric, a courtier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alec Guinness

An Ambassador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard Burton

Various Ambassadors, Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and Attendants

Jamie Ballard, Memo Benassi, Tom Clear, Charlotte Cushman, Jodie de Que, Stephen Dillane, Lars Eidinger, Edwin Forrest, Ethan Hawke, Robert Helpmann, Kohchi Hirokazu, Derek Jacobi, Edmund Kean, Rory Kinnear, Jude Law, Ian McKellen, Francesco Menichelli, Walter Montgomery, Alemanno Morelli, Antonio Morrocchesi, Peter O'Toole, Isabella Pateman, Maxine Peake, Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Ramsay, Michael Redgrave, Renzo Ricci, Ernesto Rossi, Ruggero Ruggeri, Mark Rylance, Tommaso Salvini, Maximilian Schell, Paul Scofield, Sarah Siddons, David Warner, Ben Whishaw, Nicol Williamson, and Ermete Zacconi

It was the actor who came up with the idea of doing a production of Hamlet in which the entire cast were actors who had played Hamlet. She had also called forth Shakespeare to direct, “because, who better?”

At first, there was a problem with some performers who found it difficult to accept taking lesser roles, in many cases much lesser, after having played the lead. However, once it was decided that Richard Burbage would play Hamlet, everyone was on board. Burbage was Shakespeare’s own Hamlet, the first to play not only the melancholy Dane but also Romeo, Lear, Othello, MacBeth, Antony, Richard III, Henry V, and Prospero. No true Shakespearean would pass up the opportunity to see Burbage in the role.

Shakespeare was surprised and pleased to learn that there had been enough Hamlets to fill out the cast. In fact, there had been too many. Actors already brought forth kept thinking of others who should join the party until Dan insisted the house had run out of space for more.

When the actor explained that it would be totally acceptable and even expected to have women play the women’s roles, the Bard pointed out that this could only be done, following the plan of an all Hamlet Hamlet, if, in some time and place, women had played the lead. He was surprised again to learn that more than enough females had done so.

When it was suggested that the family of Polonius could all be black performers, including, as Ophelia, a black woman who had played Hamlet, the author of Othello was astounded. When someone proposed that the three Mutes be played by Hamlets from silent films, he was confounded. He went along without really understanding.

All the speaking roles were played by performers from Bee’s closet. This gave the author a direct link to their minds. Dan pulled actors out of his closet for the silent parts, and the assistant director who would guide them. With Bee throwing in a prompter, script in hand, the need to learn lines was eliminated, a practice already perfected during earlier productions here in Heaven’s border country.

Scenes were played out in various rooms, terraces, and gardens. The audience were Dan and Bee, but also the historians and every member of the cast not currently on stage, with many observing from above, below, or through large windows. The two occupants of the house thus appreciated the production from a multitude of angles and insightful perspectives. Sitting through this performance was the equivalent of becoming an expert Hamlet scholar.

Dan was fascinated by Bee’s reactions to the play. On a terrace above them, after revealing the story of his murder, when Hamlet’s father’s ghost intoned, “Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me,” Bee gripped Dan’s hand and fiercely whispered, “He must! He must not forget!”

“Don’t worry,” said Dan. “I’m pretty sure he won’t.”

In the master bedroom, when Hamlet passed up the opportunity to kill Claudius at prayer, saying, “A villain kills my father; and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to Heaven. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge,” Bee nodded emphatically and whispered, “Good! Don’t kill him now. Wait till you can send him to Hell. I like how Hamlet thinks.”

Yet when each person in the story died, it struck Bee hard. She cried for Polonius and Ophelia, laughed through tears during the graveyard scene performed before the guest house, gasped and wept in the living room through the bloody final fight, bursting into sobs at the line, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.”

Once the play was over, Bee apologized for her overreaction, but Dan said, “No, you are right to feel that way. Hamlet’s obsession with avenging his father’s murder destroys almost everyone it touches. We have a saying that revenge is a dish best served cold, but I hold it is best not served at all.”

Bee took this approval of her feelings seriously enough to burst into tears again. A crowd gathered to comfort her. The comforting crowd succeeded and became a cast party. Conversations between actors from five centuries were fascinating and, as always here, the drinks and hors d'oeuvres were delicious. The whole convivial affair went on well into the early evening, with guests spread throughout the house and grounds.

Dan went onto the east terrace at sunset. There he joined a gathering consisting of Shakespeare and Burbage, Gielgud and Burton, Jacobi and McKellen. By now, Dan had grown used to spending time with the famous, but he still approached this scene humbly.

MCKELLEN: It’s there! Rosencrantz to Hamlet: “My lord, you once did love me.”

SHAKESPEARE: That’s just how we spoke. I have often said that I love Richard.

BURBAGE: And I that I love you.

SHAKESPEARE: But I have no interest in bedding him.

BURBAGE: Nor I you.

GIELGUD: Ours is an age of homophobia. Two heterosexual men dare not hold hands in public. Not in our countries, anyway.

BURTON: We can still say that we love each other. I am heterosexual.

GIELGUD: Famously so.

BURTON: I have told men that I love them. But we must be cautious that it not be taken wrongly.

SHAKESPEARE: Your loss, and I am sorry for it, but that still does not make Hamlet, as you say, bisexual.

MCKELLEN: I disagree. You are missing out on elements of Hamlet’s character.

SHAKESPEARE: I? Missing out? I wrote Hamlet.

MCKELLEN: But have you ever really workshopped him?

JACOBI: Good point.

SHAKESPEARE: Richard, when you’ve played Hamlet, did you for a single moment think of him that way?

BURTON: Never.

SHAKESPEARE: I meant Burbage.

BURBAGE: This Richard and I are in agreement.

MCKELLEN: (aside) A pair of Dicks stand together.

JACOBI: Stop that.

MCKELLEN: Where did Peter O’Toole go?

JACOBI: Stop it!

MCKELLEN: (to all) I’m merely saying that the character must be examined. When you wrote Hamlet, you created more than you knew. In the centuries since, we have found much that you and the King’s Men did not have time to explore.

SHAKESPEARE: (looking around for support) Here’s Dante de Vries, our host. Do you agree, Dan, that Hamlet was a buggerer?

DE VRIES: I never thought of him that way, but I don’t doubt Sir Ian could play him as such.

MCKELLEN: I didn’t always. Now that I can, he’s a broader and deeper person. More multifaceted.

SHAKESPEARE: Yours is an age of facets. Hamlet can marry Rosencrantz. Hamlet can be a woman. A Moor. A Moorish woman. I suppose Hamlet could be a horse.

JACOBI: Possibly. It would require a good trainer.

DE VRIES: Speaking of which, I thought your direction was wonderful today.

SHAKESPEARE: When it was followed. I felt one or two of us (with a glance at Burton) could have taken more to heart Hamlet’s admonition that players “not saw the air.”

BURTON: When one has a single line, one must do what one can with it.

MCKELLEN: Oh, that’s right. You had a line.

BURTON: Which I delivered well.

MCKELLEN: I had a spear.

JACOBI: Which you carried well.

BURTON: I brought our audience to tears.

MCKELLEN: Yes, that was suspicious. Who weeps at “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead”?

DE VRIES: We started with the comedies. Bee is not used to drama. It hits her hard. Being her, you must know that. All of you must.

MCKELLEN: I am not her.

JACOBI: Nor I. We spear carriers are you, remember.

DE VRIES: Oh, that’s right. We’ve such a mob visiting today that I can’t keep myself straight.

SHAKESPEARE: Speaking of the mob, what are those?

DE VRIES: (turning to look) Where?

SHAKESPEARE: Through the house. The terrace on the other side. With our producer, our Ophelia, and our Queen.

DE VRIES: Oh, the angel and the demon. The founders of this establishment. I did not notice they were here today.

SHAKESPEARE: Not notice such fearsome creatures? Yet they seem to amuse the ladies.

DE VRIES: None of today’s non-speaking extras are out there. None of them are me. I can’t hear a word they’re saying. But they do appear to be laughing, don’t they?

SHAKESPEARE: Most heartily.

GIELGUD: Are you cold, my boy?

DE VRIES: Cold? No. What makes you ask that?

GIELGUD: The way you clutch your throat. I thought perhaps you might require a scarf.

College

With the party over and the mob of Hamlets gone back into closets, Dan felt the need for time to himself. The evening was clear, the air pleasant, and the full Moon bright, with even a few lately arrived stars decorating the sky. By now, Dan knew the grounds well enough for a moonlit stroll along the stream. Having placed almost all the versions of himself on hold, he had the chance to clear his head. He returned after an hour, ready for humanity again, which was just as well. As he approached the house, he saw a human silhouette at the end of the bridge. Had Bee left a Hamlet out? Had he? He felt he might have, but not this being here.

Lights from the house caught something against the silhouette, a flickering jewel where one might expect a tie clip. “Excuse me, sir. Are you Dr. de Vries?”

“Nobody here calls me that. Even on Earth, my doctorate in literature was only acknowledged when I was on a campus.”

The silhouette chuckled. “I am from the College across the road. I suppose I carry that campus attitude with me.”

Dan turned behind him and peered into the woods. “Is there a college across the road?”

“You cannot see it from here. Hidden in the trees, down over a ridge. There is a trail that takes you there.”

“I had no idea. How long has it been there?”

“We cannot lay claim to a storied history. Not yet, anyway.”

“And you are?”

“I am the Dean of the College.”

“Are you?”

“I am Dean Dolcett.”

There was a long pause while Dan contemplated this name. It was familiar to him. At last, he asked, “Are you, by any chance, a cartoonist?”

“Before I became the Dean, I was Head of the Art Department.”

“Uh huh.” Dan took a deep breath of cool night air. He needed it. “I believe I am familiar with your work.”

“Are you? I am honored.”

“What can I do for you, Dean Dolcett?”

“As a matter of fact, I was hoping to get your assistance with a little problem over at the College.”

“Uh huh.”

“We are hosting a basketball tournament. The final matchup is tonight.”

“I think I have some idea of where this is going, Dean, and before it goes any further, we need to establish ground rules.”

“As I understand it, those have already been established.”

“And will they be followed?”

“Scrupulously.”

“Just one more, then. We need a safeword. Do you know what that is?”

“I do.”

“Everyone has to agree to it. If anybody says it, everything stops. The speaker is given immediate liberty.”

“That will be no problem.”

“All right. What word shall we use?”

“Something unmistakable,” said the Dean, “but not likely to come up otherwise.”

“Exactly.”

“How about safeword?”

“Safeword as a safeword?”

“Why not? Easy to remember. Difficult to mistake.”

“We’ll need to let everybody know.”

The Dean looked across the road into the woods. “They know.”

“Good.” Dan also looked toward the woods. He felt a familiar anticipatory excitement coupled with an unfamiliar nervousness. “Now, what exactly is going on?”

“As I am sure you know, it is traditional, following the final game of the annual basketball tournament, to execute by hanging the cheerleaders of the losing team.”

“I thought it might be something like that.”

“The duty of carrying out this task falls to the institution hosting the tournament.”

“Your college, in this case.”

“Yes. But it takes a man of a certain mindset to hang innocent young women by the neck until dead. Ordinarily, Dr. Dofline of our zoology department would be in charge, but he called in ill this morning. This leaves us without an executioner.”

“Uh huh.”

“I have been informed that you might be the man to take his place.”

“Who informed you?”

“A mutual acquaintance.”

“Uh huh.”

“If you would be willing, our gymnasium is a short walk away. We’ll have time to catch the last quarter of the game. We can watch the cheerleaders at work. They will be especially motivated.”

“I can imagine,” said Dan. “It occurs to me that a safeword might not be enough. In a situation like this, a person might find herself in distress but unable to speak.”

The Dean nodded. “That does seem possible.”

“We will need a safe gesture.”

“Have you anything in mind? Perhaps…” The Dean flashed the OK sign, just visible in lights from the house.

Dan shook his head. “No. Too likely to come up for other reasons. How about this?” Dan used his thumb to hold down his middle and ring fingers while extending his index and little finger. “It’s called throwing the horns. It means different things in different cultures, but for us tonight, it means stop and liberate.”

“Fine. That should work. Appropriate, in some way.”

“Is it?”

“Now, Dr. de Vries, if you would follow me.”

Dr. de Vries and Dean Dolcett walked together into the dark woods. Soon, in the distance, they heard enthusiastic chants and cheers coming from the gymnasium.

There was quite a bit of sunlight somewhere off to his left and, in the distance, the sound of falling water. Dan opened his eyes and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. He was vaguely aware of other versions of himself already puttering about the house. He was getting used to that. He ignored them, thinking instead of what had gone on yesterday. It was all sort of unbelievable. He had had William Shakespeare in the house directing Hamlet. And then, in the evening, the Dean, the College, the basketball game, the…

When Dan came down to breakfast, young women surrounded the table. “Where did all this come from?”

The actor said, “We figured you’d want to see everybody alive and well this morning.”

“Of course I would,” said Dan. “But I meant the table. It’s so long.”

“Mr. Wright built space under the buffet for extensions,” said Bee. “Although, here in Heaven, there seems no end to the number we can pull out.”

“Naturally.”

“Good morning, Dr. de Vries,” said a woman. The rest repeated this in unison, like a classroom greeting a teacher.

“Good morning.”

“Are you really glad to see us?”

“Absolutely. The last time I saw you, half of you were dead. Good to see you all looking so well.”

The women smiled. Some giggled. “How did we do last night?”

“You were excellent,” said Dan. “Convincing. You all seemed genuinely terrified.” The women grinned and congratulated each other on the quality of their performances. “I was honestly worried about you. I was afraid you might have forgotten the safeword.”

“Yeah, we got that,” said one of the women. “When you kept saying we could be safe if we only said the word.”

“And you all struggled so frantically, I was afraid you’d forgotten the sign.” The moment Dan said this, women began tossing the horns to each other across the table, which produced another round of giggles.

“OK, then. I guess you really were all right.”

“We were better than all right,” said a woman at the end of the table. “We were fabulous!”

Dan looked oddly at this latest speaker. “Wait a minute. Weren’t you in Hamlet, too?”

“Yeah, I hung around after the party and got an invite to join the crew heading over to the College.”

“You were an extra in Hamlet. You had a non-speaking role.”

“I did.”

“You’re me! I see myself, through your eyes, looking at you right now.”

“Uh huh.” Many of the women giggled again.

Dan shook his head. “How did that work?”

“When you have those fantasies,” said the extra, “don’t you always take both roles in your mind, the tormentor and the tormented?”

Dan sat. He stared blankly. He saw himself staring blankly. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Do you need a cup of coffee?” asked Bee.

Dan nodded.

The breakfast conversation was lively, centering on theatrics, effects, technique, makeup, and costumes. Other scenarios that might be played out in the future were proposed. Dan found the whole thing weird, charming, and a bit embarrassing. He was starting his second cup of coffee when he noticed, through the windows beyond the fireplace, that the angel was out on the Bodhisattva terrace. Dan anticipated a summons, but the angel was just sitting in the sunlight. “Excuse me, ladies. I need to speak with someone.”

“If you must, Dr. de Vries.” They said they would miss him and that he should come back soon, but the conversation did not require his presence.

Dan found the angel sitting on the wall at the edge of the terrace. “I saw you here yesterday at the party, but I didn’t get a chance to come over. Did you catch the performance?”

The angel asked, “Which one?”

“I was thinking of Hamlet,” said Dan. “But I guess there were two performances yesterday, here and across the road. I appreciate what you did, listening to my concerns, the setting outside the house.”

The angel said, “Uh huh.”

“It’s a funny thing. I really didn’t expect to enjoy it. I thought I’d try it, get it out of my system, prove to myself that it wouldn’t work. But it worked. Oh, boy, did it work. I had a fantastic time.” Dan looked through the window back to the table where the women were finishing breakfast, talking and laughing. “I guess everybody did.”

“Uh huh.”

“I even took the part of one of the girls. Tormentor and tormented. I’d have thought that would be a nightmare, but it was a dream come true. You probably wonder how that could have happened. I’ve been having these moments when I’m not entirely clear which of my houseguests are me. If I focus on them, I can always tell, but it does get confusing sometimes.”

“Uh huh.”

“With that crowd we had for Hamlet, I lost track more than once. As for the scene at the College, I can’t imagine how Bee pulled that off. There was a mob there. Of course, hundreds of people watching a basketball game behave almost as a unit. Everybody is following the same activity. Once they know which side they support, they know whether to cheer or groan. But the players on both teams, that was amazing. A basketball game has much faster action than Hamlet.”

“Uh huh.”

“Of course, Bee pulled real basketball players out of her closet. I recognized some of them. That college tournament had more than its fair share of future pros. That game was thrilling right down to the final second. It was fun watching the cheerleaders react. Again, they were all professional actors. That would help. The same with Hamlet. We use the skills of those we pull from our closets.”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s interesting, come to think of it, that the scene at the College and Hamlet here had similarities. They both benefited from good acting. That’s why I don’t enjoy most pornographic movies. I have a low tolerance for poor acting. I can’t concentrate on the story—not that those have much of a story—if the acting is so bad it is distracting.” Dan shook his head in disapproval. “Distracting acting.”

The angel shrugged.

“And both performances had a lot of deaths. I executed eight cheerleaders last night. Hamlet had, let’s see, Polonius, Ophelia, Laertes, the King and Queen, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Eight! The same number. Although, if you count the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father, murdered before the play begins, it’s nine. And if you count the play within a play, Duke Gonzago makes ten. Hamlet is bloodier than my murderous sexual fantasy.”

“Uh huh.”

“Although Gonzago probably doesn’t count, since he’s one of the players and doesn’t really die.” Just then, a wave of laughter came from inside the house. “But then, none of them did, did they. All just actors acting.”

“Uh huh.”

“Which is worse, eight people pretending to be killed to satisfy someone’s lust for vengeance, or eight people pretending to be killed to satisfy someone’s lust? I know this sounds self-serving, but I think vengeance is worse. Vengeance never ends. Human history is a river of blood shed by people who sincerely believe they are the hands of justice.”

“Uh huh.”

“Not that sadistic lust is innocent of bloodshed. There are those people who act on those lusts. Horribly self-centered, a moment of pleasure paid for with a human life. Monsters! It may seem strange to you that I feel that way. When I found those images online, they were often accompanied by comments. Some of those men sounded like they really hated women. I never did.” Dan looked back into the house. “I’m more comfortable in the company of women than I am with men.”

“Uh huh.”

“I am a feminist. Equal opportunities. Equal pay for equal work. That sort of thing. I was once looking through a set of sadistic cartoons when I came across one that mocked women’s rights. Here I was enjoying a man’s drawings of women being murdered, and suddenly I was disappointed in the artist because he disrespected feminism. Would you believe that?”

“Uh huh.”

“You’re not very talkative today.”

The angel drew a long breath, blew it out, and drew another. “You gave her a safeword.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You had already ordered her to do nothing that might frighten her. Nothing that would cause her distress, humiliation, or muss her hair. You had arranged that she would feel pain only as pleasure, yet you still felt the need to give her a safeword.”

“That’s standard practice in such role play. Not that I ever did any of that on Earth, but I read about it. It is essential to assure that all participants consent and have the power to withdraw.”

“Even when they cannot speak, so you gave her a safe gesture as well.”

“I did. It was the right thing to do.”

The angel shook its head slowly, as if in disgust. “If you only knew what that woman did to get into Hell.”

“I don’t.”

“But if you did.”

“Look, I may not know what Bee did to get herself damned, but I have a pretty good idea of why she did it.”

“Oh, do you, now? Why do you think she did it?”

“The Black Death.”

The angel’s eyes grew wide, but it stared at Dan in silence.

“The plague. Yersinia pestis.”

“I know what the Black Death is. The question is, how do you know about Bee and…” The angel was making gestures that were impossible to follow, its hands vanishing and popping up at unexpected angles. Dan recognized the process. He turned and saw the dark sphere appear. The demon emerged. The angel demanded of the demon, “What did you tell Dan about Bee and the Black Death?”

The demon pulled itself up to its full imposing height. “Me? Nothing.”

“Then how does he know about it?”

“Not from anyone on my side. I’m the only one who can come here. Maybe one of your crowd.”

“Ridiculous! All of them are absolutely trustworthy.”

“Did Bee remember? Did she tell him?”

“Actually,” said Dan, “it was all of you who told me.”

“Explain that,” said the angel.

“You told me Bee died in 1347.”

“When did I say that?”

“The day I first arrived. I asked you why Bee couldn’t read. You said many people were illiterate in 1347.”

“Oh,” said the angel.

Dan turned to face the demon. “And you told me she lived in Sicily.”

“I never did.”

“Denied,” said the angel.

“You told me she spoke Sicilian,” said Dan.

“You said you needed to know what language…” The demon made the rumbling noise Dan had learned to recognize as its chuckle. “You tricked me.”

“With Google, I put Sicily and 1347 together and came up with the Black Death. Then, I remembered an instant of grief on Bee’s face when we spoke of children. No, she has not remembered, but I figured it out. She committed her damning offense in a state of despair after watching her children die of plague.”

The demon’s amused rumbling grew louder. Dan and the angel both stared. “Oh, come on,” said the demon. “He thinks she was driven to her crime because her kids died of plague. You’ve got to admit, that’s funny.”

Dan heard a sound like bells. It took him a moment to realize that this was the sound of the angel laughing. “I take it,” said Dan, “that my conjecture is off the mark.”

“Yes and no,” said the angel.

“Now, we have to tell him,” said the demon.

“I suppose we do. Dan, sit down. This will take time.”

Bee

“Bee was asked to serve,” said the angel, “as an assistant to a midwife.”

“You can’t start there,” said the demon.

“There is where it starts.”

“No, you need the context. Otherwise, what comes later will make no sense.”

“Dan,” asked the angel, “do you know what a midwife does?”

“Assists in childbirth. Traditionally, a woman.”

“He has the context.”

The demon scowled. “Not for what comes later.”

“We will get to that when we get to it.”

The demon kept scowling, a fearsome sight, while the angel continued. “The midwife brought Bee along because Bee was good at keeping women distracted from their pain. She was an anesthetic. Beyond that, she would hand the midwife things as they were needed.

“On this specific evening, the work went badly. Bee was at least partially successful in distracting the mother from her pain right up until the moment when she died. When the mother died, that is. Not Bee. The baby also died. The father, a young farmer, blamed his lust for what happened to his beloved. While Bee and the midwife were cleaning up, he went out to his shed, found a sharp implement, and incompetently castrated himself. Eventually, Bee and the midwife found him, tried to save his life, but had their third failure of the evening.”

“That’s horrible,” said Dan.

“Yes. Bee and the midwife, each feeling horrible, went separately to their homes. Bee looked forward to the comfort of her family. However, when she got there, they were all dead.”

“What?” asked Dan. “How?”

“Some of the neighbors had killed them.”

“Why? What kind of insane story is this?”

“Told you,” said the demon.

“You tell it, then,” said the angel.

The demon made itself comfortable beside the angel on the wall at the edge of the terrace. “Dan, what do you know of the history of Sicily?”

“It is a popular place to invade.”

“Excellent,” said the demon. “Your knowing that will save time. You see, Bee’s husband and his father who lived with them, and so her three children, were descended from Normans who had invaded about three hundred years earlier. There was another family in their village who were descended from Arabs who had invaded a couple of centuries before that.”

“Are you going to leave out the Romans? The Greeks? The Phoenicians?” asked the angel.

“We don’t need to go back that far,” said the demon.

“Good.”

“Although these Arabs had intermarried with some Greeks. And we should mention the Vandals. Bee’s own people were descended from Vandals. They came in about four centuries before the Arabs but well after the Greeks.”

“Is that relevant?” asked the angel.

“It will be.” The demon waved away the angel’s interruptions. “The Greco-Arabic family held a grudge against the Norman family, feeling the Normans had stolen land from them during their invasion. These Arabs also blamed those Normans for the killing of members of their family over the intervening centuries, while the Normans felt it was more the Arabs who had been responsible for killings.”

“I know that story,” said Dan.

“Do you?” asked the angel.

“Not the specifics, but the sense of it. In every human feud, both sides know the most important fact is that the other side started it.”

“Just so,” said the demon. “This feud had been going on for centuries but happened to blow up into a fatal attack against Bee’s family the night she needed them the most.”

“Yes,” said the angel. “Coming after the midwife’s struggle, losing Bee’s own family really hit her hard.”

“And it was raining,” said the demon. “I think that contributed to her mood.”

“Well sure,” said Dan. “A rainy night is bound to be depressing after your family is murdered.”

The demon did not acknowledge Dan’s ironic tone. “Bee knew who was responsible for the murders. She marched straight to the home of the murderers. There, she stood outside a barred gate and demanded that they come outside and murder her as well, since she no longer wished to live.”

“I can picture that.” Dan was serious now.

“The murderers, however, were done for the evening. They were aware that Bee’s own people, the Vandals, were a bad crowd to pick a fight with. Also, Bee was generally well liked in the village and the surrounding countryside. The murderers refused to come out and murder her. They told her to go home and bury her family.”

“How could she possibly do that?”

“Exactly. She wasn’t up to it emotionally or physically. Bee didn't know what to do, so she began to walk in the direction away from her home. She walked farther than she ever had in her life, following the road through country she had never seen and now could barely see. She tripped often. By morning, as the clouds dispersed, she arrived in the port of Messina, bruised and miserable. There she attempted to interest people in the injustice committed against her family, but nobody cared. They had another worry.”

“The ships!” said Dan.

“You do know the story,” said the angel.

“I know about the plague ships arriving in Messina in 1347.”

“And about Bee’s involvement with them?”

“No.” Dan felt a shudder of foreboding.

The demon continued. “Ships had arrived from the Black Sea port of Caffa where a Mongol Khan named Jani Beg had catapulted corpses of plague victims over the wall into the city in a futile attempt to drive out the Genoese merchants who ran the place. Sailors fleeing the plague left that city, sailing into the Mediterranean. The farther they went, the fewer they were. The survivors on board the plague ships were barely enough to sail them, but they were enough to terrify the citizens of Messina who recognized that welcoming these travelers ashore would be a disastrous mistake.

“The topic that so interested the Messenians was what to do with these wretched, disease infested ships and their crews. A hard-hearted contingent proposed burning and sinking the ships, sending the sailors down with them. While germ theory did not exist at the time, these people understood that plagues were spread somehow from those who had them to those who did not. Wherever these sailors went, they would bring death.”

“So they would,” said Dan. “Hard hearted but practical. Their proposal was cruel but correct.”

“Glad you think so,” said the angel.

“It was at this moment,” continued the demon, “that Bee had her great insight. She realized that she did not simply want to kill herself; she wanted to kill the entire human race. She decided the world would be better off without people, and she realized she had a unique opportunity to act upon this revelation.

“Bee rose up and told the assembled crowd the story of those sailors as she imagined it. She chose her words with care. She made her listeners feel the sailors’ suffering, their fear of death, their despair as their shipmates succumbed, their courage and ingenuity as they reassigned themselves tasks to keep the ships afloat and on course, their hope that a port could be found where Christians would reach out to fellow Christians to offer aid and comfort, as Christ would comfort each of her listeners in their final hour despite his not having been comforted by them on the cross.

“She used that image, the core of their faith, not to guide others into virtue but to bring them to a decision that she trusted would be fatal to the world. She failed to convince them to welcome the sailors ashore, but she did manage to get the crowd to spare their lives and send them on their way to other ports. That should be good enough.

“But it was not enough for Bee. She found a second opportunity to spread plague throughout her world, a plan B, if you will. Before the ships were sent away, she managed to recover a souvenir from one, a half-drowned rat that made its way ashore. Again, Bee knew nothing of rats and their fleas as a disease vector, but she had hope. She took that rat back to her village, to the gate where she had stood demanding her own death. She slipped the vermin in through a crack.

“The results were catastrophic. Both the rat and the sailors fulfilled Bee’s mission for them. She died believing she had killed the entire population of the planet, and while she failed in that goal, she did manage the demise of about thirty million men, women, and children.”

“Now, Dan,” said the angel, “I see that smile on your face. I know what you are thinking, but let me set you straight. Firstly, you may have heard historians suggest that the plague came to Europe through other entry points. It did, of course, but we have an advantage over those historians. We have omniscience.”

“Are you omniscient?” asked Dan.

“Not me personally. But I have seen the records. Not paper records or computer files, of course, but what takes the place of such records in Heaven. Every individual bacterium can be traced. Those ships split up. Those sailors were particularly hardy, peripatetic, and flea-bitten. And that rat happened to encounter a young man who joined a group of other young men going to Rome. There, they stayed in a dormitory inhabited by other young men who traveled throughout Europe far more than was the norm in those days. That rat alone accounted for a third of Bee’s eventual thirty million kills.”

The demon saluted. “The greatest vermin who ever lived.”

“Yet Dan still smiles,” said the angel. “He may be thinking that those people would have died anyway, that the plague would have reached them by other routes. Very true, Dan. But I’ll let you in on a secret. Everyone killed by Mr. Hitler would have died eventually without him. You don’t defend yourself in court against a murder charge by pointing out that your victim was not immortal.”

“He is still smiling,” said the demon.

“He is undoubtedly about to defend Bee by telling us she was insane, driven temporarily mad by circumstances, the deaths of the midwife’s patients, and then her family.”

“And the rain,” said the demon.

“The darkness,” said the angel. “The stumbles. The unwillingness of others to help. It all adds up, does it, Dan? Some element is one-too-many straws on the camel’s back of Bee’s sanity. She snaps. The legal definition so popular in your world is the inability to distinguish right from wrong.

“But Bee could distinguish. She did distinguish. She was fully aware that what she did was wrong and monstrously so. Do you know how I know that, Dan? Because Bee renounced her faith, her Savior, her God, specifically because she knew that what she had done was so horrible that she must never be forgiven. Before Bee was condemned in death, she had condemned herself while dying. She was entirely aware.”

The demon nudged the angel. “I think his smile has actually broadened.”

“He is thinking of repentance. He imagines that Bee’s self-denunciation shows contrition, but with her dying breath, she prayed that the rest of the race would follow her. She knew that her revenge was wrong, but she prayed for it anyway. And who does one pray to once one has renounced one’s God?”

“I can think of someone,” said the demon. “But Dan is still smiling.”

“Now he remembers how we brought Bee out of Hell. He imagines we thought she had suffered enough. Let me do the math, Dan. Let us simplify the numbers, each time to Bee’s advantage. Say she suffered for seven hundred years. Say each year was four-hundred days. That is two hundred eighty thousand days of suffering, round it up to three hundred. Now, imagine each of her victims suffered only a single day. They had families, of course, children, parents, siblings, not to mention the wider community, but we shall ignore that extended suffering entirely. We will only charge to Bee’s account a single day of suffering for each of thirty million deaths. She owes thirty million and has paid three hundred thousand. That leaves her with a debt of twenty-nine million seven hundred thousand days.”

“Are you sure you simplified the math?” asked the demon.

“Dan, you could torture Bee every minute of more than seventy thousand years and it would still not add up to the suffering she caused.”

“Look at that grin,” said the demon.

“He is thinking now that Bee is not at fault. He believes the innovation of germ warfare must be attributed to Khan Jani Beg. But Beg’s goal was to spread disease into a single city. It was Bee who wanted to destroy a world. Intentions matter. Or perhaps Dan thinks it not Bees fault that she got lucky, that it should not count against her that her rat and her sailors were good at their evil jobs.

“Dan, no human being is aware of the total consequences of their actions. When it comes to disease, many an employee has gone to work ill, congratulating themselves on their dedication, never knowing the number who eventually died due to their decision to help a disease along by not staying home that day. Those people are not blamed for those deaths. Generally, they never know of them.

“It is not only crime but also intention that leads to judgment. Although the crime itself certainly matters. The failed attempt at murder brings lesser punishment than the success. Bee had motive, means, and consequence.”

“If your intention is to talk the smile off Dan’s face,” said the demon, “I may come back tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”

The angel shot the demon a sneer. The sneer of an angel turns out to be almost as fearsome as the scowl of a demon, but neither proved to be as resolute as Dan’s smile.

“Dan,” asked the angel, “why are you still smiling?”

“Because you missed the point of your own story.”

“The point is that Bee, your slave who you handle with kid gloves, is the greatest mass murderer in human history and is totally deserving of the most monstrous crimes you might wish, in your natural depravity, to commit against her.”

Dan laughed. “I know the answer to your question.”

“What question? Did I ask a question?”

The demon shook its head. “None that I heard.”

“The question you asked the day that I arrived. Why me? Why were so many proposals to spring Bee from Hell and into the hands of a master rejected before the one involving me was accepted?”

“Oh,” said the demon. “That question. And the answer?”

“Was in the story you just told.”

“Was it?” asked the angel.

“Why did the midwife take Bee with her that night?”

Angel and demon both pondered. At last, the demon asked, “Are you thinking that the midwife knew something about the impending murders?”

“Or that Bee did?” asked the angel.

“No,” said Dan. “I am thinking about why the midwife thought Bee would be of use to her.”

“I told you,” said the angel. “She served as an anesthetic in a time before such things existed.”

“How?”

“She distracted the patient from her pain.”

“How?”

“She said distracting things.”

“What sort of things?”

“She told stories.”

“What stories? Old stories? Or stories she made up?”

“Some old stories she embellished. Some stories she made up.”

“How did she convince the terrified citizens of Messina to spare the lives of the sailors?”

“She told them… What are you getting at?”

“The men you proposed to be Bee’s master before me, had any of them ever taught courses in the writing of stories?”

“You think that’s it?” asked the demon.

“Were two well designed and powerful writer’s workstations added to your original plan for this house by beings high up in your hierarchy?”

The angel reluctantly nodded.

“Are you here today because a message came down from that hierarchy telling you to tell me that I need to be crueler to Bee?”

The angel shook its head. “No.”

“Rather, on my first day in Heaven, did we receive a messenger from that hierarchy who eased Bee’s beheaded suffering and directed me to those two writing stations.”

“Yes.”

“How are her lessons coming?” asked the demon.

Dan smiled. In truth, he had not stopped smiling. “She is a quick study.”

Bee's Hotel Hell Story

The gravelly voice blended naturally with a trickle of water over nearby rocks. “Welcome to Hell, Mr. Johnson. That suit looks grand on you. I trust it fits properly?” The demon who issued this greeting was hideous and hot, but Hell was not. Hell was green and mild, with pleasing views of mountains towering over a placid azure lake.

“Yes, very comfortable.” Mr. Johnson tested his own assertion by expanding his lungs to confirm the jacket was not too tight across the chest. The fit was perfect, but that lungful of air inspired him to look nearby for blossoms emitting the heady fragrance. Those blossoms hung in multicolored bunches at the ends of twigs on a nearby tree.

“What kind of tree is that?”

The demon breathed in deeply. “Beautiful scent, is it not?” He broke a blossom off and handed it to Mr. Johnson. “We call them Satan’s Joys. They are unique to Hell.”

Up close, the blossom was more beautiful, the scent more enticing. Mr. Johnson’s bloom was being visited by a plump and fuzzy golden bee. He feared the bee might sting him, but it buzzed about gently on the petals and then flew to another blossom on the tree.

Mr. Johnson’s eyes followed the busy bee up and beyond to purple mountains capped with shining snow overhanging meadows filled with yet other unfamiliar flowers. The sparkle of water in a brook bisected a nearby mead. “You know, this isn’t at all what I expected Hell to be like.”

The demon nodded his mighty head, sunlight glinting on obsidian horns. “We hear that a lot.”

Mr. Johnson tucked the blossom into his lapel. A petal fell to the path of thick green grass cut short, edged by aromatic herbs. Mr. Johnson looked up to the demon. “Where are all the damned?”

“Ah,” said the demon. “Your fellow inmates. Follow me.”

The demon led Mr. Johnson up the garden path. They had gone but a short way when they were joined by another demon who appeared from within a shady grove of weeping willows. “Sir, may I tag along?”

“Mr. Johnson,” said the demon, “this is my apprentice, Strappalacodadeiconiglietti. Call him Strappy. You don’t mind if he joins us, do you?”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Johnson. Strappy was as hideous as his master and well named. Both the demons were, in fact, quite strapping, with muscles rippling across their bare red bodies. In this Hell of beauty, these huge demons seemed oddly out of place.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Johnson,” said Strappy. His voice was even deeper and more gravelly than his master’s, but he was a cheerful fellow. “Are you on your way to the resort?”

“We are,” said the master demon, whose name was Mangiatoredianimedibambini, but who Mr. Johnson had earlier been informed could be called Manny. As they walked together, with Mr. Johnson in the middle, he appreciated every cool breeze that passed. Both the demons radiated quite a bit of heat.

As they came around a crystal outcrop, Mr. Johnson caught sight of what looked to be a first-class hotel, nine stories high, built in the style of a Swiss chalet. On approach, it was clear to Mr. Johnson that many of the guests wore swimwear. Quite a number of them were gathered beside a large pool of an irregular shape curved around mossy grottoes from which water trickled and plashed.

Guests were lounging beside the water, or sitting at tables enjoying drinks and snacks, or strolling poolside. Everything seemed just as Mr. Johnson might expect at some earthly resort except for one disturbing feature. In the center of the pool, a small child was splashing frantically, calling for help in a gurgling voice, clearly about to drown.

Mr. Johnson took a hurried first step toward the pool. A strong red hand was hot on Mr. Johnson’s shoulder as the demon held him back. “No,” said Manny. “You cannot help the child. None of them can. Guests beside this pool are those guilty of sins of omission. In life, they passed up opportunities to aid those in need. Here, they are unable to assist. The boy will drown while they look on helplessly.”

The boy did drown. Guests around the pool seemed not to have been paying attention to him. Now that he was gone though, there was a moment of silence, people staring down at their feet, not meeting each other’s eyes. But then a jolly looking man loudly ordered a fresh mai tai. Conversation started up again.

“In an hour, another child will drown. And another an hour after that. And another. And another. And every time, these people will feel bad about it,” said Manny.

“I see,” said Mr. Johnson. “And the children? What was their crime?”

“Those are not real children. Those are demons playing a part. But these people do not know that. Even if one figures it out, we wipe that from his memory. They truly believe they are unable to help real drowning children all day long. You can imagine their anguish.”

The man with the fresh mai tai sipped his drink and sighed. The sigh did seem anguished.

“I certainly overlooked opportunities to be helpful in my life. Is this my fate?” asked Mr. Johnson.

“Oh, no. Your active crimes supersede this lesser sin.”

Mr. Johnson, sweeping his eyes across the bottles behind the poolside bar, frowned. “Too bad.” He looked back to a young woman lounging beside the pool. She was smiling bravely, even laughing, despite her anguish. “The fate of these sinners, I mean. Too bad.”

“Well deserved,” said Strappy. “But yes, too bad.”

Mr. Johnson, accompanied by his escort, walked around the pool and into the lobby of the resort where he found the architecture and decor inventive without being overbearing. The three of them crossed the lobby to the elevator bank. Once in an elevator, Mr. Johnson noticed the music was particularly loud. He commented on it.

Manny smiled. “Yes, the music is loud in all of Hell’s elevators. We understand that people despise elevator music. One of our wicked little touches.”

“The thing is, I love this song,” said Mr. Johnson. “It’s a favorite of mine.”

“Is that right?”

As the elevator rose, Strappy and Mr. Johnson bobbed their heads to the beat. At first, Manny did not join them, but the catchy verse caught him at last, and all three bobbed.

At the fourth floor, the doors opened onto a corridor decorated in gold, silk, and jewels, tasteful despite the opulence. A round floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the elevator bank opened onto a magnificent view of the pool below and mountains beyond. Mr. Johnson whistled.

“Yes, it is quite a sight, but I brought you up here to see one of our cruel tortures,” said Manny. This pronouncement made Mr. Johnson uncomfortable. He followed Manny down the corridor, past room numbers on widely spaced sets of double doors. At last, they came to number 466. “We keep this one free as a demo unit.”

As the double doors opened, Mr. Johnson felt a wave of apprehension sweep over him. This sensation dissipated as he, Manny, and Strappy examined a richly decorated suite of many large rooms with handsome furnishings and all the modern conveniences. “Who lives in a place like this?”

“Those who have committed sins of avarice,” said Manny.

“Rich people.”

“People who valued wealth too highly. They may or may not have succeeded in becoming rich while they lived.”

“But now they live like kings?”

“Better.” Manny touched a button causing a gigantic entertainment system to emerge from a hidden pocket in a wall. “Throughout human history, kings were often bored. We get all the channels here, television and radio, free or pay. Many a king would have traded half his kingdom for this setup.”

“So, in Hell, greedy people get to be rich. I like it. But how does that square with the whole punishment thing?”

“They are rich, but that is all they have. In Hell, the avaricious enjoy only wealth. They have no friends. They have no lovers. They eat in restaurants.” Manny lifted a menu from beside a phone. “Or order room service. They may eat whatever they wish, delicious dishes perfectly prepared, but never by the hands of someone who loves them. They may bring a dozen beautiful prostitutes to their room, but none of those women in their beds will truly care for them.”

Mr. Johnson nodded. “Sounds awful. You know, I was extremely greedy in my day. Is this my fate? If you don’t have a space available, for now, I could make do with this demo unit.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Johnson. Your avarice was only average.”

“Was it?” Mr. Johnson seemed let down by this news. “So, if the greedy suffer from a lack of love, does that mean other sinners experience love in Hell?”

Manny put the menu down. His demeanor became deadly serious. “Let me show you.”

The party left room 466. They made their way back to the window by the elevators. Far below, beside the pool, Manny pointed out a man and woman sitting together. “Let us look at them more closely.” Manny, Strappy, and Mr. Johnson enjoyed another tune in the elevator before passing through the lobby back out to the pool.

The couple Manny indicated were scantily dressed, but near nudity sat comfortably on these two. They relaxed together, delighting in each other’s presence. Manny said, “There you see a man condemned to love.”

Mr. Johnson observed the condemned man. “To be entirely honest, his fate does not strike me as so terrible. What was his sin?”

“Murder,” said Manny.

Mr. Johnson watched as the beautiful woman snuggled herself closer to the murderer. “I don’t think I understand,” said Mr. Johnson. “How is this a punishment for murder?”

“Once every year or two, at some randomly selected date and time, that man’s lover will be murdered. His anguish will be deep. It is the anguish he caused to others during his life. Eventually, he will recover, largely through the ministrations of a new lover. But again, that new love will be murdered. And another and another, for all eternity.”

At this point, the murderer’s lover was passionately kissing him. “How terrible,” said Mr. Johnson. “How fortunate I am that I never murdered anybody. I didn’t, did I?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t think I did, but I could be wrong. There were men I badly beat and walked away from without waiting to see if they survived. You should probably check the records.”

“Strappy,” commanded Manny, “see to it.”

“Yes, boss,” growled the apprentice demon. Then they both laughed heartily.

“You’re right,” said Mr. Johnson. “I never murdered anybody.” He looked again at the damned murderer and sighed. “I did commit crimes of violence. I stabbed a guy in the leg. And I beat women black and blue on more than one occasion. Does that count?”

Manny smiled broadly. “It certainly does, but not for this particular punishment.”

Mr. Johnson both wanted and did not want to ask a question. He supposed he had to ask eventually. “What is my punishment to be?”

Manny shook his head. He began to walk along a path leading away from the resort. Mr. Johnson watched him go, not following until he received a warm nudge in the middle of his back from Strappy. The three of them walked for quite some time, eventually entering a forest.

“Yours, Mr. Johnson, has been a challenging case. As you may have noticed, the torments of Hell depend on human feelings. Initially, when we first set up this place, we did things differently.”

“When you first set up Hell? How long have you been here?”

“I was among the founders, those originally cast down from Heaven.” Manny paused, perhaps pondering his past. Strappy looked on with awe-filled admiration. “A long time, Mr. Johnson. Yet, in the grand plan of things, the blink of an eye.”

“I suppose so,” said Mr. Johnson.

“But about your punishment.” Manny led them farther into the woods. “As I was saying, when we first set up Hell, we relied on physical pain for torment. That proved ineffective. We learned that people adapt to pain. What seems agony when first experienced becomes, with familiarity, mere discomfort. The damned went from shrieking to moaning to whining to grumbling to bored sighs. The realization that this boredom was the torment which could not be extinguished gave us our great insight. Emotion was the key.”

“I see.”

“The problem with you, Mr. Johnson, is that you exhibit a tremendous lack of human feeling. When I held you back from rescuing that drowning child, it required little force. When the child drowned, you expressed no remorse.”

“It wasn’t really a child.”

“But you did not know that yet. And the thought of a loveless eternity of wealth appealed to you. Don’t deny it. We saw it in your eyes.”

Strappy nodded. Mr. Johnson shrugged.

“The fate of losing murdered lover after murdered lover would only have left you looking forward to the next one.”

“I am a glass-half-full kind of guy,” admitted Mr. Johnson.

“The fact is, with you, we must throw up our hands and admit defeat. We fail. We have nothing to offer that will torture you properly.”

Mr. Johnson adopted a contrite attitude. “Gee, I’m sorry, boys. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

“Not your fault, sir,” said Strappy. “Can’t help being who you are.”

At this moment, the three walked out of the forest into a small clearing, in the center of which stood a monolith, about seven feet tall, two feet square, glowing with brilliant white light. “What is that,” asked Mr. Johnson, “a gateway to Heaven?”

“No, Mr. Johnson. That is an upright white-hot iron casket with a fusing zipper lid,” said Manny.

“A what?” asked Mr. Johnson.

“Strappy,” said Manny, “please strip, flip, and zip Mr. Johnson.”

Strappy tore the suit off Mr. Johnson as easily as pulling the paper wrapper off a popsicle. While the apprentice demon hoisted the naked sinner into the air, the master swung open the lid of the white-hot iron casket.

“Wait a minute,” said Mr. Johnson. “This isn’t fair. I’m pretty sure I did murder somebody. And I feel just awful about it. I certainly feel bad about those women I beat. And that guy I stabbed in the leg, too. Even if I didn’t kill him, I felt bad every time I saw him limping by. I’m full of human feeling. I don’t deserve this.”

“Terribly thoughtful of you, Mr. Johnson, but we know when we are beaten. Emotion will not work with you. We must fall back on feeble pain, fully aware of its futility.”

Strappy positioned Mr. Johnson on his head inside the tight cavity of the white-hot iron casket. Manny slammed the lid. As Strappy pulled the zipper, steel teeth fused together for eternity.

“Mr. Johnson.” Manny had to shout to be heard above the burning sinner’s screams. “If we ever think of a way to really hurt you, we will come back for you, but in truth, I have little hope.”

As Manny and Strappy walked away, the woods began to fade. So did streams and lakes and mountains. The grand resort was nowhere to be seen. Hell revealed itself an endless plain, its only feature a wide scattering of white-hot iron caskets. Inside them, unjust people railed bitterly against the injustice of their fate.

“Was any of what you said true?” asked Strappy.

“All of it,” said Manny. “In one sense or another.”

“What do you think?” asked Bee.

“I like it,” said Dan. “The layered contradictory foreshadowing: the non-stinging bee and up the garden path, was good. Plus the weeping willows. For whom they weep.”

“Thank you.”

“Your studies have been effective. You included a hotel elevator nicely despite never having been in one.”

“They’re in a lot of movies,” said Bee.

“I really liked the popsicle simile, but where would you ever have eaten a popsicle?”

“One of the women I was cooking with introduced me to them. When the kitchen gets too hot, sometimes we pull them out of the freezer. I wrote about them in that journal you have me keeping.”

Dan nodded.

“Did the ending surprise you?”

“No,” said Dan, “but I’ve read too many twist endings to be surprised. And consider the setting. If you recall, I wrote a story myself about people in Hell who think they are in great shape but really aren’t.”

Bee was instantly downcast. “You think I copied you.”

“Not at all. This is an entirely different story. And it’s not like I invented the idea. The trope is an old one. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice might be taken as an example, and that was old in ancient Greece.”

“What is that story?”

“I will find you a good account later. The point is that nobody ever writes a truly original story. One would have to start by inventing one’s own language. The setting would be a world of which no one ever dreamed. The culture would be wholly novel. Perhaps even having a culture or a world could be seen as unoriginal. I have read stories so original that they were unreadable muck. If you hit a passage where you understand what’s going on, the author thinks that bit was a failure. Better a story should be enjoyable.”

“Did you enjoy my story?”

“I did, although I found the ending rather harsh. Naked upside down for eternity in a white-hot iron casket?”

“You put a man in Hell for making a bad can opener.”

Dan chuckled. “Only in fiction.”

“Mr. Johnson is fiction.”

“True. Perhaps the fact that I cared about the fate of Mr. Johnson is an indicator that you wrote the story well.”

Bee smiled at this. “Did you like the names of the demons?”

“I got that they were Italian. A nod to the Divine Comedy?”

Bee nodded.

“What do they mean?”

“I’ll let you look them up,” said Bee.

“Left as an exercise for the reader. Got it.”

“What was that word you used about the kind of story?”

“Word?”

“You said it was ancient.”

Dan thought for a moment. “Oh, the trope. A theme or a plot device. You can find lists of them. The advantage of knowing tropes is that you have some idea of what others have written, perhaps too often, in the past. A story that repeats a common trope may be seen as unoriginal, although a huge percentage of everything ever written does exactly that. Then there are archetypes, which are sort of bigger, deeper, more important tropes.”

“Like what?”

Dan recalled an example from classes he had taught. “Mother is an archetype. As soon as you say someone is someone else's mother, every reader everywhere has certain understandings about that relationship. While the jealous mother who tries to appear as young as her daughter is more of a trope.”

Dan saw the expression on Bee’s face and anticipated her thought. “Yes, there will be some overlap. A writer might treat a trope so deeply as to give it the status of an archetype, or the other way around. The interesting question is where archetypes and tropes come from in the first place.”

“Where?”

“Perhaps from what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, a sort of composite of all human minds working together. Trying to trace a trope back to its origin is often futile. It’s even harder with an archetype. It’s not so much that one person thought up an archetype as that we all did. They can be used and overused, both a gift and a curse to writers.”

“Overused. So, no more Hell stories?”

“I did not say that. Another rule in writing is to write what you know. You have a better excuse to write Hell stories than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Do you think so?”

“Probably. This story, does it come out of some memory you have of Hell?”

“I don’t remember Hell.” Bee looked at the pages Dan held in his hands. “Maybe.”

“Or maybe not.” Dan shuffled the pages. “Now, this story is your story. Naturally, I would have written it somewhat differently because I am not you. But if you would like suggestions…”

On her computer, Bee opened her writing journal, made a quick note about tropes and archetypes, then waited with hands on keys.

“The bee flew to another blossom on the tree. You don’t need to mention the tree again. You already told your reader where the blossoms are. Assume your reader pays attention.”

Bee made a note.

“The brook bisects the mead. Bisect has a mathematical feel. It suggests a straight brook with exactly equal amounts of mead on either side.”

“Meanders through the mead,” suggested Bee.

“Yes,” said Dan. “Better.”

As she typed her note, a question popped into Bee’s head. “Have you written other Hell stories?”

“Probably. Let me think,” said Dan. “Well, yeah. Sort of. I wrote one about an exorcist.”

“May I see it?”

Dan was unable to resist the temptation to turn to his computer.

Dan's Exorcist Story

Against a midwestern sky darkened by thick clouds, raindrops running down the windshield carried flickers and twists of color from a nearby neon sign. “Is that a German restaurant?”

“It is.”

“Turn in there, please.”

“Father Thuringen, is that appropriate?”

“What’s inappropriate about German food?”

“I mean, should you be eating? Isn’t it recommended to fast before an exorcism?”

“Please, Father Antonini, you’re going to miss the place. I need lunch! Turn now!”

Father Antonini guided the dark blue Buick Enclave into the parking lot of the Gutes Essen Haus.

“You must understand,” said Father Thuringen, “that I am a nervous traveler.”

“And you a man of God?” asked Father Antonini, only half jokingly.

“I count on Him to keep the airplane in the sky,” said Father Thuringen, “but I know from experience that He has no qualms about letting me miss connections.”

“I understand.”

“The point being, I don’t eat breakfast on travel days. Nervous tummy.” Father Thuringen patted his belly. “And on the plane, all they gave me to eat was a tiny bag of peanuts, washed down with half a ginger ale. Half! They didn’t let me keep the can.”

“I’ve been there,” said Father Antonini.

“I am famished, so follow me.”

“But Father…” It was too late. Father Antonini did not have a chance to continue the conversation until they were sitting at a wooden bench inside the faux Bavarian restaurant.

“As I was saying, is it wise to order food before the exorcism?”

“Father Antonini—You know, Father Antonini and Father Thuringen are a couple of mouthfuls. In the course of this mission, we are going to get to know each other. What say you call me Horst? And…”

Father Antonini took a moment before replying, “Anthony. Uh, Tony.”

Horst nodded. “Anthony Antonini. I like it. Tony, you are correct about fasting before an exorcism. What you need to understand is that there will be no exorcism today.”

“But Father Thuringen...”

An exaggerated frown.

“Horst. Sorry. Horst, Bishop Malloy has already granted his approval.”

“Of course he has. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

“May I take your order, Fathers?”

The waiter was wearing lederhosen, which Horst acknowledged with a nod and smile. “Are the brats big?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good! Two bratwurst. Twice as much sauerkraut as you usually bring. Put it on the bill.” Horst examined the beer menu while Tony ordered a fish sandwich.

“And to drink?”

Tony ordered a Seven-Up. Horst muttered at the menu, “Notes of blueberry. Citrus peel. Coffee stout. Pecan. Have you got a beer that tastes like beer?”

“The Alsatian lager boasts overtones of hops with a nice malty finish.”

“I’ll have it.”

As the waiter walked away, Horst said, “Tony, you know that ninety percent of people who think they need an exorcist have no demons.”

“We’ve had this girl to doctors, child psychologists, and a psychiatrist in Des Moines. Medication and therapy didn’t work. We’ve tried every alternative. The Bishop read the whole report.”

“I’m sure he did. But now I’m going to let you in on a secret. Of those ten percent of cases where an exorcist is called in, ninety percent of them still involve no demons. It’s really ten percent of the ten percent. One percent. I’ve been brought in more than a hundred times. I’ve faced actual demonic possession in fewer than a dozen instances. I know you’re sure you need me, and you do, but that doesn’t mean an exorcism. And certainly not on day one.”

“It is not day one for that poor family. They’ve been through so much.”

“I’m sure they have, but if I perform an exorcism where no demon is present, who benefits? Nobody knows better than I that demons are real, but that means the absence of demons is also real.”

Tony nodded reluctantly.

“After we eat, we are going out to see that girl. You have brought in an expert. I will use that expertise to make the evaluation that must be made. Now tell me, what do we already know? Anything that wasn’t in the brief?”

Tony remained reluctant. “Why would anything not be in the brief?”

Horst laughed. “Sometimes things seem too terrible to write down.”

“Are you saying my descriptions lacked adequate vulgarity?”

“No. Wonderfully obscene. I was impressed on that count.”

“I was not trying to impress. Accuracy was my motivation.”

“Of course it was. No, I am asking about information that could be useful. Things you thought not worth mentioning or you may have just lately learned.”

“Well, I know there is only one demon.”

Horst knit his brows. “How do you know that?”

“The demon told me. Recently.”

“And you believed it?”

“I commanded in the Holy Name that it should speak the truth.”

Horst furrowed his brow more deeply. “Did you? And did you also command that it tell you its foul name?”

Tony nodded. “I did.”

Horst now fiercely frowned. “Father Anthony Antonini, it sounds to me like you may have been attempting an exorcism of your own.”

Tony half rose from his seat. “No! Absolutely not.”

Horst stared intently at Tony.

“No, Horst, truly, I didn’t. But I have read over the ritual. It is possible I had some of those points in my mind and they came out during my deliverance prayers.”

“Uh huh.”

“Horst, I am not a rule breaker.”

“All right, Tony. Sit down. I believe you. It has been done before, though. Some priest finds a situation too dire to wait for a bishop’s approval. Or, God forbid, some layman who has seen a movie. The results are never pretty.”

“I understand that, Horst. I won’t say I wasn’t tempted. You’ve seen in the brief the horrors this child has suffered. But I don’t overstep my authority.”

“All right, Tony. All right.”

“Gentlemen!” The waiter had appeared with a loaded tray.

After a quick and quiet, “Bless us, oh Lord, and these, thy gifts,” conversation turned to food and drink, to families and national origins, to the local community, to current affairs, to everything two men who did not know each other well might usually discuss, until they were finishing their meal.

“Tony, back to the reason for my visit. It is probably time we were getting out there.”

“Yes, Horst. I gave them no exact hour, but this afternoon would be good, I think.”

“You said one demon. It told you that at your command.”

“It did.”

“Probably so, then. Demons are famously dishonest creatures, but under Holy command, there are questions they must always answer truthfully. This one is a disturbing number. Demons usually travel in a bunch.”

“Is that so?”

“You said you asked this demon’s name. What was the answer?”

“It may have lied to me, Horst.”

“Or it may have been compelled to answer honestly.”

“In fact, I believe it lied. The answer was a vulgar joke.”

“Tony, recall your desire to be accurate and tell me what it told you.”

Tony leaned close to Horst and almost whispered, “It claimed its name was Pope Francis’s Hairy Balls.”

Horst laughed.

“You see, an obvious lie.”

“Tony, I suspect your demon was telling you the truth. A habit has grown up among them. Demons know we call them by their names to amplify the force of our commands. Of late, they give themselves monikers we will hesitate to repeat. On the drive out to this farm where the child and her family live, you and I must repeat this name back and forth to each other as loudly as we can until we are as comfortable with it as we are with our own names.”

Tony was not pleased by this prospect.

***

The parents, who had always referred to their local priest as Father Anthony, quickly settled into their interview with Father Horst. They told a long story of confusion and then suffering, watching their sweet girl become a filthy monster. It was all familiar. Father Anthony’s brief had been more complete and more descriptive. Not that it mattered. The moment Father Horst had entered their home, he knew.

It was the smell. Cleansers and air fresheners struggling to mask vomit, urine, and feces were nothing unexpected. In these cases, that was often there. But here was something else. Sometimes Father Horst thought of it as the odor of the most extreme anxiety. Or perhaps the scent of evil. With a hint of brimstone? Whatever it was, he knew a demon was in this house.

“May we see the child?”

“Of course, Father Horst.”

The parents were unsure if they should accompany the priests, but Father Horst waved them and Father Anthony into the child’s bedroom ahead of him. He directed the child’s father and Father Anthony to stand on either side of the child’s bed. The child lay still, uncovered, wearing only underwear, staring at the ceiling.

They waited. Nothing happened. At last, Father Horst loudly declared, “Pope Francis’s Hairy Balls.” The parents both looked shocked. Horst guessed they had not been in the room when Father Anthony learned the demon’s name, and he had not shared it with them. Before Horst could explain, the demon spoke.

“Who’s that clip-clopping across my bridge?” The voice coming from the child was appropriately trollish.

The child’s father answered. “Father Anthony is back. He has brought Father Horst with him. They are here to help you, Jess.”

Jess’s smile was disturbingly broad and toothy. “Father Anthony got his exorcist, then. They are not here to help me. They are here to destroy me.”

“Neither,” said Father Horst. “We are here today to learn more about you.”

“Learn this, then, Father. You cannot save this child. I will never surrender her soul. My devotion to my task is total. I am one motivated demon.”

Father Horst pursed his lips and shot Father Anthony a look of mocking seriousness, which Father Anthony did not understand. No matter. “Tell me, Pope Francis’s Hairy Balls, what is it that so motivates you? Why does a creature, as powerful as you clearly are, care about the soul of a little Iowa farm girl?”

“Her soul is my ticket to greater power. When I take her back to Hell, I get promoted to master of demons. I need that promotion badly. I’ll never give her up, and for that reason, you have no hope of success.”

Now Father Horst smiled. “I see. Sounds very serious.”

“As serious as damnation,” said the demon in the child. “As certain. As final.”

“As unlikely.”

“Try me.”

“Let’s start with a quiz?”

“Good move,” said the demon. “You know how we forces of evil tremble before academics.” The laugh that followed was enough to shrivel hearts inside of chests.

But Father Horst was not bothered by the sound. “Question one: Who condemns souls to Hell?”

The demon in the child glared but did not answer.

“Is it you?” asked Father Horst. “Have you that authority? Is it one of your master demons? Is it Satan himself? Does the Devil stand at the Pearly Gates and make these decisions?”

“You know better,” said the demon.

“As do you, once you think about it. It is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who stands in judgment. In the form of the Holy Trinity, it is God who decides. The Master of the Universe is the final arbiter, and no other.”

“What of it?”

“Question two: Who is the All Knowing?”

“Do your questions all have the same answer?”

“Question three: What makes you think you can fool God into condemning the soul of an innocent child to Hell?”

“Innocent? Do you know what this child has done?”

“I’ve read the brief. Father Anthony was accurate and exhaustive in his description of your antics. But they were your antics. The child has been your puppet and is blameless in all your foul behaviors. I know that, and I am only a humble priest. You can’t fool me, yet you think to fool the All Knowing?”

The demon glared with palpable hatred.

“You tell me you must take this child’s soul to Hell, yet you have no means of accomplishing that task. So, I ask again, Pope Francis’s Hairy Balls, what are you doing here?”

“They told me…” The demon heard weakness in its own voice and cut itself off.

Father Horst nodded knowingly. “Tell me, Francis, were you ever invited to a party where there was a hot tub?”

The parents and Father Anthony were visibly puzzled by this question. The demon’s mouth hung open, but no sound came out.

“You thought it was full of bubbling water, but when you jumped in—the first to jump in, last one in is a rotten egg—you discovered it was full of boiling acid.”

The demon gasped.

“As it ate away your hide, you tried frantically to get out, but the other demons surrounded the pool. They kicked you back. They laughed and mocked your suffering.”

“How in Hell do you know that?”

“Not my first rodeo. I know how young demons are hazed. The methods rarely vary. The laughter hurt more than the acid, didn’t it?”

The demon nodded. “But the acid hurt.”

“Then one of them took you aside and told you how you could get back at the others. Told you how to earn a promotion. How you’d become their boss. And who’d be laughing then?”

“I would.”

Father Horst nodded understandingly. “Only it turns out they will be laughing again because this is just another acid bath. You are all alone here, facing an exorcism the way that other demons never do. When demons come here for a possession, they come in a bunch. They get protection from their numbers. They sent you here alone so that you’d face the agony all by yourself.”

“Agony?”

Father Horst cast his eyes toward Heaven, then back down again. “Nothing hurts a demon worse than an exorcism. You’ll wish you were back in a nice boiling acid bath. They knew that when they sent you here.”

The demon cursed using a word unknown to men, but the tone expressed its meaning.

“And once again,” said Horst, “what hurts most will be the laughter. They are waiting for you now, at the Gates of Hell, waiting for your return so they can laugh themselves sick at the sight of your charred and broken body limping home empty-handed.”

Again the demon cursed, but this time in a despairing wail. “Is there no hope for me?”

Father Horst motioned Father Anthony to the foot of the bed. There he engaged in a whispered consultation consisting of himself making suggestions and Father Anthony being confused but eventually taking his cues from Horst, nodding and saying, “Yes, I suppose it could be done.”

“You know, Francis,” said Father Horst, “you and Father Anthony have something in common. This is the first possession for both of you. I see a bit of him in you.”

Father Anthony looked uncomfortable at this suggested similarity, but he kept quiet.

“Perhaps for that reason, I feel sympathy toward you.”

Now the parents joined Father Anthony in doubtful glances, but Father Horst spoke with such confidence that all, the demon included, listened.

“I am going to let you in on a secret known to only a few of us old hands. There is more than one path to Hell.”

“The way is broad,” said the demon. “Everybody knows that.”

Father Horst shook his head. “I don’t mean spiritually. I mean physically. On your way here, you walked a path shrouded in mist, yes?”

“Yes,” said the demon. “What of it?”

“On your way back, if you look carefully into that mist, you will find flat spots that are less clouded. They are the trailheads of other paths into Hell. You don’t have to go in through the main gate.”

“Really?” The demon sounded hopeful.

“I am a priest in the presence of a demon. I am compelled to speak the truth.”

“Is that so?” asked the demon.

To be helpful, Father Anthony agreed, although he was not certain.

“Here’s the deal,” said Father Horst. “You go back to Hell and take one of those side routes. Go in quietly. Find another master demon, not the one waiting to mock you at the gates. Join that new master’s crew. Work hard.”

“Why?” asked the demon.

“Eventually, your old boss and crew will get nervous. They’ll be in trouble for taking so many days off waiting for your return. When they finally go back to work and are asked where in Hell they’ve been, they’ll tell a supervisor how you were tricked and how you probably got exorcized out of existence.”

The demon nodded the child’s head.

“But then they’ll be told, ‘Nonsense. Francis still exists. In fact, that’s him over there, turning a couple of adulterers on that roasting spit. He’s a hard-working demon making a good name for himself. Not like you worthless bunch. Your sinners have all wandered off and are relaxing somewhere.’ And then the demons who planned to laugh at you will be targets of other laughter.”

“Oh, that would be sweet,” said the demon.

“I think so too,” said Father Horst. “The sooner you get back, taking care to avoid the main gate, the worse it will be for them. If you are willing to leave on your own, I am willing to forego the painful exorcism.”

“Thank you, Father,” said the demon.

“Do us a favor, will you? On your way back down, once you are under this floor, give it a kick to say goodbye.”

“Will do!” In an instant, the face of the child became childlike again, eyes closing, limbs relaxing from unnatural tension into innocent slumber. Then, the bed jumped as a mighty thump was heard beneath the floor. This startled Father Anthony and the parents, but Jess’s sleep was undisturbed.

“Is she all right?” asked her mother.

“She’ll be fine,” said Father Horst. “She’ll awake tomorrow morning remembering little or nothing of what happened. You folks do all you can to keep it that way. No talk of demons. Get back to your lives.”

“Is that really it?” asked Jess’s father. “I never dreamed an exorcism would be so simple.”

“They aren’t,” said Father Horst. “As I told Father Anthony coming out here, we don’t always need an exorcism. Sometimes, it just takes an experienced hand and a cool head.”

***

“That was amazing,” said Tony. The priests were in the Buick heading back to town.

“To tell you the truth,” said Horst, “I was kind of surprised myself that it worked so easily.”

“One thing confuses me. That demon was here because he’d been tricked into thinking he could steal a soul, but that’s impossible.”

“Of course it is. God would never allow such an atrocity.”

“So, when other demons come here, when a bunch of them possess someone, what are they really up to?”

“Excellent question. I’ve heard it said they take possession of a human body in mockery of the incarnation of Our Savior.”

“Is that so?”

Horst shook his head. “It’s a charming idea, but it sounds to me like something thought up by a theologian, not a demon. Personally, I think they do it for kicks and giggles.”

“Nothing more?”

“Tony, have you ever been among refugees from a country defeated in a war?”

“No.”

“I have. More than once. Losers tend to be angry. Subdued but bitter people. One of the things they lose is a sense of purpose. They often do pointless things that seem meaninglessly cruel.”

“I can imagine that,” said Tony.

“Hell is where the losers withdrew after the greatest defeat in the history of the universe. They think they’ll rise again someday. They won’t say it, but they know they’ll never win. They lash out now and then because that’s all they’ve got.”

This thought left Tony driving for some time in silence. It was not until town lights came into view that Horst spoke up. “Exorcism is hungry work, even if you don’t do it. Those brats were great. Is it too early for dinner?”

“You’ve earned it, Horst. I’ll buy.”

The sun was low by this time, the room lit by a fading golden sky and blue-white computer monitors. Bee was gazing out the window, down at no one on the terrace. After some time, Dan asked, “Well?”

“Do you suppose they’re really like that?”

“Who?”

“Demons. Like the ones in your story.”

“No idea. I made that part up. Just a guess.”

“It has sense to it. Should we ask our demon?”

Dan recalled encounters with their demon. “No, I don’t think I would. It might take offense.”

“I suppose that’s possible.” Bee turned her attention back into their workroom. “What about the exorcists? Was all that true? The rules and things?”

“I made it as accurate as I could.”

“Is exorcism a trope?”

“Absolutely! One of the oldest. Predates the Bible. There is an exorcism story in the New Testament written with the assumption that the reader already knows about possession. Damn good story, too.”

“How so?”

“Swings back and forth.”

“What do you mean?”

“The hero arrives. We’ve seen him before. We know him to be powerful. But we are told the demon has given a possessed man superhuman strength. Bound in chains, the demon easily snaps them. But then we are told the demon wails and cuts himself. When the possessed man sees the hero, he falls to his knees and begs for mercy. But when the hero asks the demon’s name, the demon replies, ‘My name is Legion, for we are many.’ ”

“Creepy!”

“Very! But then the demon, or demons, beg to be cast into a nearby herd of pigs, and when they are, the pigs, thousands of them, rush into a lake and drown themselves. People living nearby hear of this astonishing act. When they come to see for themselves, they are so terrified by what the hero has done, how he drove thousands of demons into suicide, that they beg him to go away.”

“Ingrates.”

“Grateful, but still scared. You see, the story keeps surprising you. The strength is with the hero, then with the demon, then the hero, then the demon, finally the hero, but in the end, because of that strength, the people fear him. The whole thing is told in fewer than five hundred words. Two thousand years later, that ‘my name is Legion’ line still gives people shudders. There is writing you can envy. Almost every exorcism story written since has echoes of that tale.”

“How do you know so much about exorcism?”

“The same way you know so much about elevators.”

“You’ve never seen an exorcism?”

“Before I arrived here, I didn’t know demons really existed.”

Bee’s eyes widened. “Seriously? What were your religious beliefs?”

“I don’t think I had any. I only went for Pascal’s wager near the end of my life.”

“Because you feared your approaching death?”

Dan shook his head. “I didn’t know death was approaching. I was murdered, remember. I read an article saying Pascal never intended his proposal to convince non-believers. Something in that fact made me more open to thinking about it. Not sure I’d have kept with it if I’d lived longer.”

“Lucky you died when you did, then.”

“Like Hamlet’s father if Hamlet had killed him while he was at prayer.”

“Yes, exactly like that. You owe your wife and her boyfriend for hire and salary, you fortunate old sinner.”

They shared a laugh. “I am a sinner.”

Bee winked. “You get no argument from me.”

“I was thinking of my pride.”

“Oh?”

“You haven’t told me if you liked my story.”

“Ah.” Bee looked at the last paragraphs on Dan’s computer screen. “I must have. It left me wanting more. I want to know where Father Horst has been, where he learned about losers.”

“His backstory,” said Dan.

“Is that what it’s called?”

“I don’t write a backstory for most of my characters, especially not in short fiction. They take time. You could end up writing a hundred pages for a ten-page story. Even for my novels, I don’t do as much as some authors. There were times when I wished I had.”

“The characters needed them?”

“No, the fans. You write a story about a man doing important things in his forties, and your fans want to know what he did in his thirties. I don’t know. I was only interested in what he did in my story. I admit, sometimes knowing backstories leads an author to produce more fully rounded characters.”

“I can see that,” said Bee.

“But sometimes an author lets it slip that a beloved character’s backstory included elements the fans don’t like and that contributed nothing to the tale. Then I think, what was the point of that?”

“You’ve written longer stories though.”

“Novels. A trilogy, God forgive me.”

“Is it good?”

“My most successful work. They made movies out of it.”

“I want to see them.”

“I’d rather you read the books first.”

“Why?”

“Because they made good movies.”

“Then you should want me to see them.”

Dan stood, walked across the room to an empty shelf, and pulled down his most successful novel, volume one of his trilogy. “The problem with movies made from books is that books and movies are two different media. What works beautifully in one often falls flat in the other. The only way to make it work is to keep your medium in mind and make the necessary adjustments.”

Bee replied with a tentative, “OK.”

“Human beings have a well-documented tendency to believe the first version they encounter is the right version. People who loved the book are disappointed in the movie, while those who loved the movie are disappointed in the book.”

“You want me to be disappointed in the movie.” Dan scowled. Bee laughed. “I get it. You want me to love the book. I can understand that.”

“My sinful pride again.”

Bee reached out an empty hand. “May I?”

Dan gave her his most precious possession.

Bee read When It Pours on the cover. She frowned. “That title sounds like it could be about anything.”

“That’s what the movie makers thought. They took a lot of liberties.”

“Then I will certainly read it first.”

“Thank you. The working title was When It Rains, It Pours, but there were already too many books with that one. The publishers made me shorten it.”

“Good idea.”

“You think so?”

Bee nodded.

“They should have made me shorten the book. With a little effort, I think I could have gotten the whole trilogy into a single volume.”

“Would that be better?”

Dan sighed. “Depends on what the reader wants. A tighter book is a better read, but a trilogy kills more time. And the author has more books to sell.”

“That has to be good, right?”

Dan pretended to shudder. “There are authors who have cranked out a hundred books. They find the formula for what appeals to their readers, and they repeat it until they die. They become rich and famous.”

“You don’t like that?”

“I’ve been a little rich and a little famous. I’d rather have written better books.”

Bee held up When It Pours. “Isn’t this a good book?”

“Best I ever wrote.” Dan’s smile held a hint of self-deprecating irony. “Funny thing is, I didn’t set out to write a good book with that one. In fact, it started as a sexual fantasy.”

Bee laughed. “Are you kidding?”

“You’d be surprised how many books do. I often read the work of a colleague and, part way through, I recognize the fantasy behind it.”

“Seriously?”

“I once saw a movie and decided it was a woman’s sexual fantasy fluffed up into a film. In the credits, I saw the screenplay had been written by a man. I was disappointed, but then I saw it was based on a novel by a woman.”

“Maybe this theory of yours is more of a mirror,” said Bee. “Maybe it shows you more about yourself than it does about those authors.”

Dan shook his head. “There is a whole subgenre that proves my point. Many works are built around the trope of a man who finds himself all alone in the world. There was a war, a plague, an alien attack; the magic doesn’t matter. The point is that he has the world all to himself. No bosses. No family. No responsibilities.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a sexual fantasy.”

Dan held up a finger. “Ah, but whenever you see one of these stories, you know the protagonist is in for a discovery. He is going to find out that he is not alone in the world.” Dan raised a second finger. “There is another, and that other is a woman. Always young and attractive. Usually wearing clothing that is half-torn away, if not outright naked.”

“OK, but that doesn’t sound like much of a novel. How does it progress from a sexual fantasy?”

“It progresses because writers cannot leave well enough alone.” Dan raised another finger. “A third party shows up. There is conflict. There must always be conflict. The third party is a villain and a threat to the woman. The protagonist must defeat the third party and become her hero.”

“That’s where the fluffing up happens?”

“Exactly. One of the strangest things about these stories is that while the woman was obviously the focus of the original idea, in the final story, her character is always the least developed. She is the object the villain and the hero fight over. But mark my words, when you see a story start with an empty world, a lone man, and then a naked woman, that story started in the head of a man who wasn’t holding a pencil at the time.”

Bee laughed. Then she stopped laughing and looked shocked.

“What is it,” asked Dan.

“I know a story that starts exactly like that.”

“Really? What story?”

“Genesis! Adam in the garden. Then naked Eve. And then the snake.”

Dan nodded sagely. “Yes.”

“Are you going to claim the Holy Bible…”

“Began as a fantasy in some lonely tent in the desert? I’d bet money on it.”

“That’s blasphemy.”

“Good thing I’m already in Heaven.”

Who's Who in Heaven

Over the course of years, Dan had gotten used to the idea that he and Bee were each a crowd now, not going back into closets in the evening but staying in new houses built along the banks of the stream. He heard from the angel that their planet had had to be enlarged. You could not get around it in a day any longer, not even on horseback. It still came as a surprise to him when he learned the historians were going to have a baby.

“Who will it be,” he asked the angel. “Bee or me?”

The angel’s expression managed a reflection of Dan’s bemusement. “If you will recall, there are elements of this system that were added to our original design without our consultation. This may be one of those. I know nothing of it.”

“If we ordered everyone back into our closets at sundown, where would this baby go?”

“I would not recommend that.”

“Why not?”

“Are you familiar with the story of King Solomon?”

Dan frowned. “Oh, dear! Yeah, we’d better not.”

“Although it would hardly be your first murder here.”

“Not even the first time I murdered myself. You know, there are people out there who are me but who I never think about. To what extent am I me if I am a part of me of which I am unaware?”

“You have never been fully aware of everything going on inside your own head, have you?” asked the angel.

“You mean Freud’s id, ego, and superego. The subconscious mind.”

“I would not say subconscious. You might insult important parts of yourself.” The angel looked serious. “Perhaps coconscious. Your mind is a large and complex set of processes. What you think of as your consciousness is one of those processes. It is mostly a way of thinking about yourself. Many beings get by without much of that.”

“The unexamined life,” said Dan. “I know one thing about myself.”

“What’s that?”

“I know I am not religious. I’m only here because Pascal convinced me to bet that God exists. Turned out he was right, but now I find myself wondering about this God. You are sort of like a Christian angel, but sort of not.”

The angel shrugged its shoulders. “Because I lack wings?”

“More than that. You’ve encouraged me in some rather un-Christian behaviors.”

“I am not the best angel. I told you that when we met.”

“But are you a Christian angel?”

“I am for you.”

Dan scoffed, “For me? I’m more of an agnostic, even here in Heaven.”

The angel nodded. “But you are a Christian agnostic.”

“Meaning what?”

“You came from a Christian society. Your agnosticism has an anti-Christian flavor. Agnostics from Islamic communities are more anti-Islam. Hindu agnostics are anti-Hindu. A truly pure doubter, leaning against no particular religion, is rare.”

“Are you saying you are a Christian angel because Christianity is the faith I didn’t believe in?”

“Yes.”

“And if I had been more”—Dan glanced at the head of the Bodhisattva—“more Buddhist in my doubts, you’d be a more Buddhist angel?”

“Yes.”

“Then which religion is true? What Heaven am I in?”

“I cannot tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“You would not understand.”

“Try me.”

The angel leaned against the house, looking down at Dan. “Do you remember when you bought your tankless water heater?”

“What?”

“Back on Earth, when you were alive, your old water heater broke. You wanted to try a tankless one. Why?”

“I like hot water. It seemed like the old water heater always had hot water when I didn’t need it but only tepid water when I wanted it. So, I decided to try an instant-on tankless one.”

What happened?”

Dan thought for a moment. “I called my plumber. He said he didn’t sell them, but if I bought one on my own, he could install it. I bought one. I called my plumber back. He told me I shouldn’t have bought one. I reminded him that he had said he could install it. He said of course he could. He did, but he charged me a fortune.”

“And what happened?”

“The new water heater had a twelve-month warranty. It started leaking after thirteen months. My wife convinced me to call a different plumber this time. The new plumber told me the water heater had rusted out because the old plumber had not set up the drains and venting correctly.”

“He had charged you a fortune and did it wrong.”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I bought a new water heater from the new plumber.”

“Tankless again?”

“Yes.”

“And how did that work out?”

“Beautifully. The new plumber knew what he was doing. The water heater ran for decades without a hitch. Still running when I died. What does this have to do with religion?”

The angel pointed to an ant crawling along the wall of the terrace. “Tell that story again, but this time, not to me. Tell it to that ant. Make the ant understand all the details: tepid or hot, vents and drains, plumbers and warranties.”

Dan looked at the ant. “I don’t speak its language.”

“If you did, if I gave you the power to communicate with it exactly as other ants do, could you explain your water heater situation?”

“No, I couldn’t.” Dan looked up to the angel. “You’re saying I can’t understand the truth about religion because I am like an ant compared to you.”

“Worse than that. I can’t understand it, either. I am told that there are beings who get it, but I am not one of them. You and I are both ants. We get analogies, stories that give us a vague sense of what is really going on.”

“Everyone who goes to Heaven,” said Dan, “or to Hell I suppose, gets the religion they believe in, and nobody really knows the truth?”

“That is how I understand it,” said the angel.

“That’s pretty unsatisfying.”

The angel gazed off into the woods. “I could be wrong.”

Dan looked over the edge of the terrace. He noticed people below, walking beside the stream.

“Do I need some sort of super-consciousness to preside over all the beings I have become?”

The angel looked down on the walkers. “No, I do not think so. A man who barely knows himself is the perfect leader for a community he barely knows.”

Dan followed the angel’s gaze and saw long lines of people walking well-worn paths flanking the water. They were all heading for the bridge and the road that led into the woods. “Hey,” he called, “where is everybody going?”

A man looked up. Dan was almost sure it was one of him. “To the college.”

Dan felt a naughty thrill at this news. “Is there a game this afternoon?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then why is everybody going to the college?”

“Big symposium. Top notch philosophers, scientists, theologians. Should be quite a conversation.”

“Conversation? About what?”

“The topic is the problem of Hell.”

Dan turned to the angel. “Is Hell a problem?”

The angel looked at the growing crowd crossing the bridge to merge with those already on the other side. The mob poured into the woods. “Somebody thinks so.”

“I suppose I should get over there.”

“You already are. Quite a lot of you. I imagine some of you are on the panel.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

The angel smiled. “I do. Go.”

After the symposium, coming back across the campus under the golden light of a setting sun, Dan was dizzy. Not physically—he was in no danger of falling—but mentally. His head was spinning with ideas.

Were they his ideas? Bees? Jointly theirs? Somebody else's? It was so hard to say. He had to talk to someone about them. Not the mob flowing around him who were already talking about them, but to someone else. Who?

And where had all these buildings come from? This was a real college now, not just a backdrop for his sexual fantasies. There were lecture halls. Classes were held. He learned that he had attended classes. He had taught classes. When he concentrated on it, he was aware of things he had done here in other bodies, but it still surprised him.

Coming toward him on a walkway paved in crushed pink stone, he saw a familiar face. “Dean Dolcett, were you at the symposium? I didn’t see you there.”

“Greetings, Dan.” The Dean clapped Dan on the shoulder. “Sadly, I was called away by other duties. Good session?”

“Wonderful. Brilliant speakers. Marvelous conversation. I don’t want to sound like I am bragging—after all, I was half the people on the stage—but I learned so much despite that. Really worthwhile.”

“Glad to hear it Dan. Sorry I couldn’t be there. Problems came up at the last minute.”

Dan felt the familiar thrill. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Why, yes, Dan. You’d be just the man.”

“A game tonight, is there?”

“There is.”

“The losing team’s cheerleaders will need to be dealt with?”

“They will. But our executioner was called away.”

“You have a lot of trouble with that.”

“We do. I wonder if we might persuade you to step in again. You’ve done such a splendid job in the past.”

“Well…”

“A look at the visiting team’s cheerleaders might help you to decide. That’s them over there.”

The Dean pointed to a group of coeds standing near the entrance to the gymnasium. They were a particularly attractive gathering. Dan was eyeing them appreciatively when he froze.

“Something caught your attention?” asked the Dean.

Dan nodded.

“Recognize someone?”

Dan nodded again.

The Dean stepped close enough to speak softly into Dan’s ear. “That’s your wife, Dan, at the age she was in college, when you first met her, when you fell in love. That’s the woman who, with one of her many lovers, would go on to murder you. Depending on the outcome of tonight’s game, you might become her executioner. Should add some interest to the contest, don’t you think?”

“No.”

“No? I should think that every point scored would…”

“No,” said Dan. “I have other plans this evening. Sorry, Dean Dolcett. I cannot help you.”

“But Dan…”

“Absolutely unavailable. I need to go now.”

The Dean watched in puzzlement as Dan left the campus and walked into the woods. The Dean called to the visiting cheerleaders, “Sorry, ladies. The game has been postponed.”

“Why?” asked one of them.

The Dean looked up, held out his palm, looked down again and said, “Rain.”

“It isn’t raining.”

“It will.”

“The game is played indoors.”

“Not tonight.”

When he got back to the house, Dan needed a drink. He muttered to himself as he mixed a cocktail. He was still muttering as he mixed the second and the third. He was drinking like the demon. “All this time, yet they still don’t understand me. As if I would ever want to…” Dan looked around the room. “Where in Hell is… I mean Heaven. Where in Heaven is… Why should I blame them for not knowing me if I can’t even remember where I am? Where in Heaven is Bee?”

He knew the answer. She was upstairs in their workroom. She was writing. She was always writing these days. That was what he had wanted, was it not? What somebody had wanted, anyway. He was sure it had not been his idea originally, but he had figured it out. And it was just what he wanted: a truly fine student. That was his Heaven.

But what about Hell? Those had been such good ideas. He had wanted to tell somebody. Who? Just as he finished the third drink, he figured it out. Dan went out onto the terrace. He was unsteady on his feet, but his voice was firm as he declared, “I want to speak to the other angel. The big shot. The one way up in the hierarchy.”

Nothing happened. The sun was below the horizon. There were a few clouds. Soon the planets would be out. There were even stars to look for now. Big, bright stars. But no angel appeared. Dan was not sure if this was good or not. He wanted to talk. He shouted, “I want the one who ran with scissors.”

His voice echoed off brick, stone, and glass. Before that echo died, the scissors arrived in a blinding ball of light. Dan did not recall falling to the ground, nor had he made a conscious decision to lie down, but his face was now pressed against the terrace tiles with his nose slid into a crack between them to get as low as possible.

“You know better than to prostrate yourself before an angel,” said a voice that sounded like the sort of being before whom it would be a good idea to prostrate oneself. The voice was loud enough to be heard above the tremendous slicing sound of blades on blades. “Get up!”

Dan decided to obey, but then he felt the breeze from what he took to be a rapidly rotating blade passing just over the back of his head. He feared it might have cut his hair. “Can’t,” he managed to squeak.

“Ah,” boomed the voice. The sound of whirling blades stopped. The light dimmed. A child’s voice said, “Try it now.”

Dan attempted to stand but found himself to be trembling so hard that his limbs were weak. He could barely raise his head. With some effort, he rolled himself over onto his back so that he could look up at the child by tipping his eyes toward his forehead as far as they would go.

The child bent low, bringing its mild face close to Dan’s, upside down and nose to nose. It smiled. Dan smiled. Then both began to laugh. “You know,” said the child, “you do not have the right to summon me.”

“Sorry about that,” said Dan. “Didn’t mean to overstep my authority. Thanks for coming. Do you think you could help me up?”

The child placed a hand behind Dan’s head and slid another under the small of Dan’s back. The force the child applied was startling. Dan found himself suddenly on his feet, falling forward into the house. He caught himself in mid-stumble and spun down onto a couch just inside the door. “Would you care to come in?”

The child entered and hopped up onto the couch beside Dan. “Was there something you wanted to talk about?”

“Yes,” said Dan. What was it? He knew he had wanted to talk about something. “My wife?”

“What about your wife?” asked the child.

“They think I want…” Dan stopped.

“Want what?”

Dan looked at the child. Its face was so innocent. This was going to be a difficult conversation. “Do you think you might take on a less childlike appearance?”

“Do you want the rings back?”

“NO!” Dan startled himself with his shout. “No rings. That won’t be necessary. This will be fine.”

“Good. What do they think you want?”

“They…um… I…ah… Do you…?”

“I have seen your pornography collection, if that is what you are getting at.”

Dan stared. “Out of the mouths of babes.”

“Comes strength,” said the child. “Maybe I can help you. What do they think you want?”

“They think I want to murder my wife.”

“You cannot. You lack the power to have any effect on the Earth.”

“Not my real wife. A copy. As part of a sexual game.”

“They think you would enjoy murdering in fantasy the woman who murdered you in reality.”

“Yes.”

“Murdered you so that she and her boyfriend could live together.”

“Yes.”

“On your money.”

“Yes.”

The child shrugged. “I can see where they might think that.”

“That’s not what it’s about.”

“What what is about?”

“Those games. Those fantasies. They aren’t about hurting people. Not really. And they certainly aren’t about revenge.”

“Do you want revenge?”

Dan had to think, which was not easy in his state. “Yes, and absolutely not.”

The child waited.

“I mean, I feel that desire at times, but I definitely do not want it. I hate revenge. I hate the idea of revenge. Most of what is horrible in the history of the world is people getting revenge because they think someone did something terrible, but the reason those people did that terrible thing was to get revenge for some earlier terrible thing. Everybody on both sides in every war knows they are on the side of right because their memories go back only as far as the other side committing an atrocity.”

“But this would not be real revenge. This would be no more real than any of your other games.”

“It misses the point of those games. That’s why I say they don’t understand me. If they did, they would never have proposed the idea.”

The child sighed. “Be fair, Dan. You are not an easy man to understand. With your past, it would make more sense for you to be a misogynist. Maybe a serial killer. One would reasonably expect you to jump at the chance.”

“Well, I jumped away from it.”

The child nodded. “Good for you. Is that all you wanted to talk about?”

“No. In fact, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about at all. Your arrival threw me off my train of thought.” Dan glanced toward the bar by the fireplace. “Your arrival and perhaps too much to drink. I want to talk to you about the problem of Hell.”

“Is Hell a problem?”

“It sure is. We had a symposium discussing that, and they came up with solutions.”

“To Hell?”

“Yes. Good solutions, I thought.”

“Such as?”

Dan furrowed his brow. Then his face brightened. “A physicist had one.”

“A physicist,” said the child. “That surprises me.”

“Physicists are scientists who understand a great deal about how the world works.”

“I know what a physicist is. I am not a child,” said the child.

“Of course,” said Dan. “This physicist suggested that we might plunge Hell into a supermassive black hole.”

“Like in the center of a big galaxy?” asked the child.

“Yes, one of those.”

“So, try to make Hell go away.”

“Not just that. The idea was that Hell involves a promise to the blessed that sinners would be condemned to eternal torment. But eternal torment is insanely unfair. No matter what sins a person has committed during a lifetime, eventually the punishment outweighs the sins so much as to be ludicrous. Imagine a sin so great that it deserves a thousand years of torment. Eternal torment will over punish even that sin a thousand-fold and just be getting started.”

The child nodded, a fact that Dan found encouraging.

“This physicist said time behaves strangely near a black hole. The closer you get to it, the slower your clock appears to an observer on the outside. In fact, there is a sphere around a black hole that is called the event horizon because when you get to that sphere, as seen by that outside observer, you have no more events. Your clock stops.”

“What would that feel like?” asked the child.

“That’s the point,” said Dan. “To the outside observer, your clock stops. You stop. But from your viewpoint, you just keep falling. Everything feels perfectly normal. In fact, from your viewpoint, it is all the outside clocks that are going faster and faster until, just as you cross the event horizon, the outside universe’s clocks all run infinitely fast.”

“Why do this to Hell?”

Dan was warming to his topic even more than the alcohol had already warmed him. “Say the outside observer has been promised that all those sinners will be tormented for eternity. As he sees Hell falling into the black hole, he sees the suffering of those sinners going on forever. The promise is fulfilled. But from the viewpoint of the damned, the whole thing happens in a rush and is over in a moment. The blessed observe an eternal Hell, while the damned experience a short one.”

The child considered this idea for some time, which pleased Dan. Finally, it said, “Destroy Hell? I am not sure black holes work that way.”

“Neither was the physicist, but he pointed out that God should have the power to make them work that way.”

“That is a point,” said the child. “But even if it did work, would that be tricking the blessed? Would they fall for such a trick?”

“Just how I felt about Pascal’s wager,” said Dan. “Yet here I am.”

“So you are.”

“And that wasn’t the only good idea. A philosopher had an interesting one. Let me see if I can remember it.”

The child waited.

“OK. Am I the same person now that I was when I was born?”

“How do you mean?”

“The molecules that make up a human body are replaced roughly once a year. People grow. They change. I have known men who were loved by some people and hated by others because they behaved one way in some situations and another way in others. If I am an angelic child at the age of nine and a selfish scoundrel at the age of fifty, are those both the same person?”

“Interesting way to look at it,” said the child.

“What if God looked at it that way? Maybe in one moment of a person’s life, that person deserved Heaven, while in another, Hell. Instead of judging based on what we happened to be in our final moment, God could divide us up into segments of ourselves. Send what we are in our good hours to Heaven and in our bad hours to Hell.”

“People would become mobs of subdivisions of themselves.”

“I’ve been living sort of like that lately,” said Dan. “It works.”

The child nodded. “Truer than you know.”

“You like the idea?”

“You have certainly been looking at Hell from new viewpoints.”

“There was another one. This time, from a theologian.”

“Uh oh,” said the child.

“This fellow said the Golden Rule and the existence of Hell were mutually exclusive. The only person who could claim to support both would be a person who wanted to be sent to Hell.”

“Makes a kind of sense. What do you do about it?”

“Missionary work.”

“To Hell? Heaven is infinitely delightful. Hell is infinitely horrible. Who is going to volunteer to go?”

“Everyone who sincerely believes in the Golden Rule.”

“Do unto others. You are correct. But Dan, be practical. Those people in Hell had a lifetime to reform and failed to do so. Do you have any idea how long it might take to truly convert them?”

“I admit, it is a challenge. There were other good proposals. The thing is, I want to tell them to the right… being.”

“Being whom?”

Dan adopted a reverential tone. Or at least a quiet one. “God. I think God should hear these ideas. I want to tell God.”

The child smiled. “You just did.”

Dan took a moment to let that sink in. “Are you saying that you are God?”

“Yes, Dan. Of course I am.”

“Then I was right to prostrate myself before you.”

“I am God, and so are you, Dan. Human beings forget that they are God. You believe some of you suffer delusions of grandure, but the truth is, most of you suffer delusions of insignificance.”

“So, is this a Pantheist Heaven?”

“Dan, what have you been told about God?”

“Omniscient. Omnipresent. Omnipotent. Mysterious enough that I cannot understand.”

“That all sounds right,” said the child. “Now think. If God is omniscient, then God knows every single word of our conversation. God also knows the thoughts we had before we said those words. If you had a thought that God did not, God would not be omniscient. You could keep secrets from God.”

“That does seem unlikely,” said Dan.

“If you could be in a place where God was not, God would not be omnipresent. You could hide from God. If you could do something God was not doing, God would not be omnipotent. You would be holding back some potency for yourself. All in all, you could plan to sneak up on God and bash God on the noggin. God is not such an inferior being.”

“But that means God is everything,” said Dan. “In which case, God is sort of nothing.”

“Nothing like what you imagine,” said the child.

“But this hierarchy of yours, who is at the top?”

“God, of course.”

“OK,” said Dan. “Say you go to the angel above you, who goes to the angel above that angel. Where does the top angel in that hierarchy go?”

“You want to know if we could trace the hierarchy up to a palace with a bearded giant sitting on a throne of stars.”

“Yes!” said Dan. “Or no. Which is it?”

“There is the mystery. That you would even ask the question tells me you could not fully grasp the answer. Dan, our hierarchy is not one of power or position. It is a hierarchy of understanding. The only being who fully understands the Universe is the being who is that Universe. The rest of us, you and me, get to speculate. Some of us speculate at higher levels.”

“Is there a point to all this speculation?”

“I think so. We are parts of that Universe. Our thinking, and that of all thinking beings everywhere, form the thoughts of God.”

“I think…,” said Dan. “I think I need to go to bed.”

The child stood up. “Good idea, Dan.” The glass doors to the stairway down to the stream opened. “I will see myself out.”

“Yeah,” said Dan. “That would probably be best.”

Potientials

There was no sunlight off to his left. In addition to the familiar sound of falling water, there was someone knocking on the door.

Dan sat up. He had been dreaming that he was a neuron in the mind of God. He had spent much of the night building up potentials and then flashing them away to other neurons, all the while knowing he was part of a thought yet not knowing what that thought was. The knock came again. For a moment, Dan believed it was adding to his potential. He shook the remnants of the dream out of his head. “Come in.”

The door opened. The historian entered. His hands were busy, but they weren’t doing anything. Just busy.

“What is it,” asked Dan.

“I want to go back into your closet.”

“Now? In the middle of the night? What for?”

“Nothing,” said the historian. “I mean, I want to be nothing. I want to go back to what I wasn’t when I wasn’t anything.”

“Why?”

“My wife is gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Gone from existence.”

“Well,” said Dan, “have Bee pull her from her closet.”

“Bee is gone,” said the historian. “Bee is gone, and everyone who was Bee is gone, including my wife. They are all gone. I want to be gone, too.”

Dan got out of bed. “What do you mean, Bee is gone? How? Where?”

“I don’t know. Just gone. A lot of people are upset. The ones who still exist. Your closet may get a great deal of traffic today.” With that, the historian opened Dan’s closet, stepped inside, and closed the door. Dan opened his closet and found it empty.

Dan dressed hurriedly and ran downstairs. No breakfast was waiting. Why would there be at this ungodly hour? And without Bee. Through the windows, he saw the angel and the demon on the terrace standing in the moonlight. They had anticipated his intention to summon them. He stopped in the doorway.

“What has happened? Where is Bee?”

Angel and demon each looked to the other to reply.

Dan stepped to the faintly glowing angel and fixed his gaze upon it. “Do you know where Bee is?”

The angel nodded silently.

“Where?” Dan shouted loudly enough to suggest that he had already anticipated the response.

“I took her back to Hell,” said the demon.

Dan spun to face the clawed darkness. Again, a shout. “Why?”

“The original proposal for this project,” said the angel, “as accepted and approved by powers above and below, depended on your acceptance of Bee as your slave.”

Dan had spun again. “I accepted her. I accept her. She is my slave.”

“And,” continued the angel, “on her acceptance of you as her master.”

“She accepted me,” said Dan.

“Not anymore,” said the demon. “Late last night, she renounced you as her master and demanded to be taken back to Hell.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Perhaps,” said the angel. “It was the second time Bee got into Hell by renouncing a savior. Certainly an unusual habit.”

“But why? We were happy here. She was happy. Wasn’t she happy?”

“She was,” said the demon. “Very happy.”

“And will she be happy in Hell?”

The demon shook its head. “Nobody is happy in Hell. That’s rather the point.”

“Then why would she want to go there? Was it me? Was eternity with me worse than Hell?” Dan lowered both his head and his voice. “It was, wasn’t it? I tried. I tried everything I could. I tried to make it possible for her to live with what I am. I thought it was working, but I failed.”

“That wasn’t it, Dan.”

“It wasn’t me?”

“It was you,” said the angel. “But it was not that.”

“What did I do, then?”

“Dan, you told her to keep a journal.”

“I did.”

“Why did you tell her to keep a journal?”

“I told her all writers should keep a journal. It’s good practice for writing since you do it every day. Even when you hit a snag in your current story, your life goes on. If nothing else, you can write what you had for dinner.”

“You keep a journal.”

“I do.”

“You told Bee to keep a journal, citing your own as an example. Did she read your journal? Did you read hers?”

“No. I told her a writer’s journal should be a private thing. That way, you don’t have to be self-conscious when you are writing it, since only you will ever see it. You can put anything and everything into it.”

“Nobody ever sees your journal?”

“Not likely. You know the double life I led on Earth: respectable writer, educator, and family man, but also sadomasochistic maniac. You’ve seen my pornography collection, remember. I spent a lifetime keeping that and my journal extremely well hidden.”

“You wrote all your observations of the day in it.”

“I did.”

“And continued that habit here.”

“Yes.”

“Including the day we told you about Bee’s past and why she was originally condemned to Hell.”

“Yes.”

“Bee read your journal,” said the demon. “She figured you might know her secrets, the things she didn’t know about herself. She could not resist.”

Dan felt the weight of the universe hanging over him. “No! I kept it hidden. Invisible file in an invisible account. Strong passwords. I’m good at that. A lifetime of experience. She’d never have found it.” Dan eyed the angel and demon suspiciously. “How would she have gotten her hands on it?”

“In this house?” asked the angel. “She walked to an empty shelf and reached for a copy.”

The weight dropped. “Oh, God! I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Not your fault,” said the demon. “Too many years of successful sneaking made you overconfident.”

“So, she knows what she did? On Earth? To get into Hell? The plague? The millions dead?”

“She knows.”

“So, she condemned herself to Hell again?”

“She did.”

“Bring her back.”

“We cannot do that,” said the angel.

“Then…” Dan hesitated, but only for a moment. “Then take me to her. I demand the right to follow her to Hell.”

“Told you he would,” said the demon.

The angel shook its head. “Dan, the boundary between Heaven and Hell is not as permeable as you think. Remember, it took us centuries to get Bee out.”

“There is precedent,” said Dan.

“Only with approval.”

“Not just Bee.”

“You mean your namesake?” asked the demon. “Dante wrote a poem. It never happened.”

“I mean you. You go back and forth all the time.”

“We are special cases,” said the angel. “We are the border patrol. In fact, the reason that we can is to make sure that you cannot.”

“You must make an exception. Do it for me.”

“We don’t just lack the authority,” said the demon. “We lack the power.”

Dan sank to the tiles, the weight finally too much for him. “Do you mean to say that Bee is trapped alone inside a rock for all eternity again?”

“Well, no,” said the demon. “In fact, since she went back of her own free will, she is free to wander in Hell. Turns out that was written into the final plans for this place. I must admit, it took me by surprise.”

“Me, too,” said the angel.

“Thank God,” said Dan. “At least there is that.”

“I cannot imagine what that clause was doing there.”

“I cannot imagine that she would go like this. Without saying goodbye. Without, at least, leaving me a message.”

“Oh, she did leave you a message. Rather a long one, I think.”

“What? Where?”

The demon and the angel both pointed up toward a light in the windows of the workroom.

As he climbed the stairs, Dan encountered people heading for his closet. He had not realized how many pairs of himself and Bee had grown so deeply attached to each other. Here was Dr. Howard Randall, his old physician. As Dan thought about him, he recalled that Dr. Randall had a place not far from here where he lived with that former lingerie model. They raised horses. They were extremely happy together. “I am sorry about what has happened, Doctor.”

“So are we all.”

“Yes, I understand. Are you sure you won’t remain here?”

“No. After all, I am only a copy of myself. She was why I stayed. I am somewhere else as well. Probably still Earth. If not, then Heaven, I hope.”

“Yes, I hope so, too.” The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. But how could such a fine man get into Hell? Unless, of course, the good doctor had slipped up somewhere in life. Lust, perhaps? That could happen. Too easily. The broad path. Dan ignored the other extensions of himself passing around them and continued up the stairs.

On the top floor, in the workroom, he saw that Bee knew how to leave a message he would find, not a file on a computer or a note pinned to a shelf, but an unavoidable stack of papers on the seat of his chair. He shifted the stack onto his desk, sat down, and read the top sheet.

Dan, I am sorry I read your journal, but I was sure you knew more about me than you were letting on. I had to know. As soon as I read it, I recognized that it was true. I suppose the memories were in my head all along, waiting for a trigger to bring them forth.

I am sorry I had to sneak away while you were asleep, but I know you would have insisted that I stay. I would not have stayed. That experience would have been a nightmare for you.

And I am sorry that I stole two of your characters. You don’t approve of fan fiction, but I had to know more about them. I thought I was going to expand their pasts, but I ended up giving them a future. I hope you like this story. I hope it helps you understand why I had to go.

Dan set the top page aside and began to read the one below it. A fine mist fell from darkly clouded heavens.

Bee's Exorcist Story

A fine mist fell from darkly clouded heavens. A fine mist rose from glowing globes of old streetlights. Father Anthony Antonini was a learned man, but his studies had not included enough physics for him to understand how water could both fall and rise in the same air. Although not a miracle, the result was a mysterious sparkle perhaps appropriate for tonight’s visit to an old friend.

Archbishop Thuringen, responding to the Pope’s dislike of ostentation among the clergy, had arranged to occupy a smaller palace than many of his peers, but it was in a lovely neighborhood. The brick townhouse had the appealing style of a previous century while containing the conveniences of this one. Father Antonini could enjoy the setting, no matter how this evening’s visit worked out, but he wanted it to work out well.

The young man who answered the door was someone Father Antonini knew but did not know, having met him often in communications of various forms, including video conference calls, yet never face to face. It was a pleasant face, but one which could grow stern. The clerical cleric had attempted to prevent this evening’s meeting. He was not being obnoxious, just working to protect his master. Now that Father Antonini was irrevocably here, the clerk welcomed him precisely as his rank was due.

Despite effective central heating, the room in which the priest waited had a fireplace with real wood burning. The chimney drew well, leaving a warm forest smell and no sense of smokiness. Although the chairs looked comfortable, Father Antonini did not sit. Brandy was available, but Father Antonini did not pour himself a glass.

After some time, the archbishop arrived in conversation with his clerk. both men clearly busy, but once in the room, Archbishop Thuringen came straight to Father Antonini, hands outstretched in greeting. “Tony, my dear old friend. What a pleasure this is. These days, I never get to spend time with anyone who knows me for the scoundrel that I truly am.” The clerk chuckled enough to acknowledge the humor in the remark without seeming to approve it. “What brings you to town?”

“You,” said Father Antonini. “I am here to ask you a professional question.”

“Too bad,” said the archbishop. “I had hoped it was pure friendship.” The clerk allowed himself a tiny smile.

“The friendship is still there, Horst, but it was my question that motivated travel.” Father Antonini saw envious disapproval flash across the clerk’s face. He supposed the man never called the archbishop by his given name, probably always referring to him as Excellency. It was Father Thuringen, the mentor, who had taught Father Antonini to detect such subtleties on human faces, whether a demon revealing itself through the visage of the possessed, the possessed expressing its presence despite the demon, or just a person being a person.

“Sit then,” said Horst. With a flick of his hand, he instructed his clerk to pour brandy for them both. “Before you ask this question, Tony, tell me if it involves one of your cases.”

“It does.”

“Then we should probably restrict ourselves to friendship. You are not in my jurisdiction.” As Horst took a glass from his clerk, a look of concern crossed his face. “The case isn’t in my jurisdiction, is it?”

“Not really.”

“Then, on any count, I have no say in the matter. You have come to the wrong house to seek approval for an exorcism.”

“I’m not looking for approval, Horst. Just advice.”

“Tony, by now, you have faced more demons than I ever did. You are the expert. Long ago, I put that part of my career behind me.”

“For political reasons?”

The archbishop’s face betrayed an instant of anger, but then he turned it to a laugh. “You do know me for a scoundrel. Yes, I have my ambitions, and while exorcism has its fans, that is not the path to the College of Cardinals. My colleagues are appreciative of men with managerial skills rather than a history of wrestling demons.” Horst nodded towards his clerk. “With an excellent staff to help me, I have become particularly adept at budgeting. This turns out to be a treasured virtue.”

“I can imagine. I am not planning to interfere with your career, but honestly, Horst, you are going to want to hear this case. It’s like nothing you or I have ever seen before.”

“That’s horrifying,” said Horst. “I thought we’d seen everything.”

Tony nodded. “So had I, but this is different. You’re going to want to meet this one.”

“Tony, an archbishop’s schedule is extremely tight. My clerk had to work miracles just to squeeze you in this evening. Arranging travel may be impossible.”

Tony glanced at the clerk. “Yes, I got that sense. That’s why my case will be joining us here in just a moment.”

The clerk stepped forward, adopting an expression of deep disapproval. “Are we to understand that you have invited a demon to visit the archbishop in his home? This is entirely unacceptable.”

“I’ll decide what is acceptable,” said Horst. “But Tony, really…”

At that moment, a knock was heard on the front door. The clerk, who had joined the archbishop’s staff long after Horst’s demon fighting days were over, turned pale. “Make it go away,” he squeaked. Then, in a more professional tone, “It would be inappropriate. Impolitic. Your Excellency must not allow this.”

“Horst,” said Tony, “how often have we depended on each other? Trust me now.”

The archbishop thought for a long moment. “All right, Tony. I have always trusted you and always will.” To his clerk, he commanded, “Answer the door.”

The clerk did not act. It was not entirely clear whether this was intentional. The man may simply have been frozen with fear of the demonic. Or maybe it was politics.

“That’s all right,” said Tony. “I’ll get it.”

“You will not. You are my guest. My clerk will answer the door.”

It took another moment for the clerk to find the will to move. He left master and guest in the sitting room and passed through the hall to the entryway. Here was a door he had opened often, yet now he found the act of reaching for the handle to be a challenge requiring courageous concentration. The door was heavy oak. The clerk liked it just where it was. At last, he had the latch drawn and, despite misgivings, swung the door open.

On the stoop stood a young woman, attractive, quite inadequately dressed for the weather. She smiled. The clerk frowned. She said, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

The clerk replied, “It is not the cover that worries me.”

“That’s fair. Is Father Antonini here?”

“They are waiting for you inside. This way.” The clerk gestured, politely allowing the lady to go first because he had no intention of turning his back on such a creature.

As she entered the sitting room, both waiting men were startled by her appearance. She saw the looks on their faces. “Father Antonini, forgive me. This may not be appropriate, but it was all that I could find.”

“I understand.”

“Is this the possessed?” asked Horst.

“I am,” she said.

“Will you sit?”

“Yes, thank you.” She took a chair near the fire. Tony and Horst took seats on either side of her. The clerk moved to stand slightly behind the archbishop.

“Do you mind if I ask a few questions?” The archbishop had directed this inquiry to the priest.

“Go ahead,” said Tony.

Horst adopted a commanding tone. “In the name of the Creator, and in the name of his Son, our Blessed Savior, I command you to tell us how many of you inhabit this body.”

“Two. That is counting myself and the original occupant, a woman calling herself Amber.”

“So, only one from Hell. We’ve seen this before, Tony.”

“Keep going,” said the priest.

“Again,” said Horst, “in the name of the Creator, and in the name of his Son, our Blessed Savior, I command you to tell us your true name.”

“I am Nicholas Martin.”

There was a pause. “Is that the sort of thing demons are usually called?” asked the clerk.

“No,” replied the archbishop.

“Nick,” said Tony, “tell them your story. Start at the beginning.”

“Do we have time?” asked Nick.

The archbishop waved back an anticipated protestation from his clerk. “Oh, absolutely. I’ve got to hear this one.”

“I was born somewhere near the Elbe River. My mother was weak-minded. My father was unknown to me. My childhood was harsh and poor. I found fortune at last through an acquaintance who managed to get me into the army of King Heinrich the Fowler. I was a great soldier but not a good one. I took advantage of wars to enrich myself but then wasted all I had gained. I was brutish, licentious, and cruel. I committed crimes and was eventually imprisoned and finally executed for them.”

“Hang on a minute,” said Horst. “You are talking about Germany, not Hell. Medieval history, I believe. This is not the story of a demon. This is the story of a man, and one long dead. Are you saying you are human?”

Tony leaned forward. “Let him tell it all, Horst. Then we can raise questions.”

Horst looked doubtful.

“Trust me?”

“All right, Tony. Go on, Nick.”

***

Dead I am. A priest tried to save my soul, but I laughed in his face before my execution. My arrival in Hell was a surprise to me, as I had not believed in it. When I was informed of the judgment against me, I protested vigorously, but I knew that I was lying, and so did everybody else. Anyway, I was already eternally judged.

I was placed in the care of a demon who called itself Maker of Pain. It was huge and muscular, gray and scaly, with wings and claws. It took me in those claws and flew away with me.

Hell is perpetually dim. There is no absolute blackness, not even under rocks, but there is never enough light to see anything satisfactorily. Our high vantage gave me a sense of moving over endless landforms I could not make out. We finally approached a place that looked no different from other places. We came down on a plain with only one feature: a huge flat rock. For me, it was the size of a small house, but for Maker, it was a workbench. Maker put me on it and went to work.

Maker’s work was my torture. The demon was, in my opinion, good at it, although those skills would be called into question, as you shall hear. I will not horrify you with details of what was done to me. I will say only that Maker had tools for the task. These were large and strong and often sharp. Maker knew how to use them.

There were moments when Maker would turn away to fiddle with these tools, to sharpen one or to carry out some repair. These moments were the closest that I had to respite, but they were not happy times. The air in Hell is inadequate. Every breath is difficult and just short of suffocation. That air is usually a bitterly cold shriek, but when it quiets, all is suddenly too hot. There is nothing resembling a pleasant earthly breeze. It always stinks.

The dimness was infuriating. I could never quite make out what Maker was up to. In addition to clawed feet, Maker had hard hands covered like all of it in scales. Those scales scraped against the metal of the tools with a most disturbing sound. Scraping, clanking, gasping, burning or freezing on that rock, and then suddenly, there was Maker back to resume the torment that reminded me how little I had been suffering.

This went on unrelentingly. There is no sleep in Hell. You want to die, but you are dead. You want to escape into madness, but madness rules already.

Then—I would say one day, but there were no days or nights—I saw an approaching shadow behind Maker. This was another demon. Where Maker was built solid as a fortress, this creature was tall and serpentine, towering blackly over Maker as Maker loomed grayly over me. It called out Maker’s name. Maker acknowledged it as visitor. It was only later that I learned this was its name, in full, Visitor of Distraction.

But I soon decided that it should have been called Kibitzer. It stood behind Maker, looking down over a scaly shoulder and griping about all the things it thought Maker was doing wrong. Maker resented its advice, but when Maker relented and tried things Visitor had suggested, the effect was agonizing for me. The advice had been good. I was relieved when Visitor went away. Maker continued to torture me but did not permanently adopt Visitor’s suggestions. For this, I was grateful.

Unfortunately, Visitor did not stay away. Again, lacking days and nights, I could not say how often, but it felt like about once a week. Visitor always arrived from the same direction. I would detect a moving shadow there, and my guts would knot in fear because my torment was about to double. I hated Maker, but we shared one thing: we both despised Visitor.

This pattern was maintained for years. Horrific suffering is possible on Earth. I have seen it. I have caused it. The difference in Hell is that there is not the least hope of relief. One knows the situation is permanent.

Yet, there is something in the human soul, in mine at least, that cannot leave bad enough alone. I suppose it took a few years to get so used to pain that I could think, but then I thought of something I could do. Not to escape, of course, but to have a little fun, I would do something I had done on Earth a hundred times: I would play one enemy off against another.

I began by waiting for a moment when Maker was in top form, really hurting me badly, and then I gasped out, “a shame Visitor isn’t here.”

“What? Visitor? Why?”

“To understand what you can do, he needs to see you doing your best work.”

“Shut up! I don’t care what Visitor thinks.”

The sound of that obvious lie was music to my ears. I implemented my plan, sometimes mentioning how much Visitor would appreciate that last torment, other times suggesting, when Maker was off his game, that it was a good thing Visitor wasn’t watching. Once, at a time when I had not spoken for an hour, Maker slipped and dropped a knife. When it clattered on the stone, Maker mumbled, “stupid Visitor doesn’t matter,” and I knew I had that demon. Visitor was on Maker’s mind every moment now.

The next time Visitor came kibitzing, I leaned up and whispered into Maker’s ear, “Don’t let that arrogant fool tell you what to do. You’re better than Visitor.” By this time, I had learned to identify the expressions on a demon’s face. Maker agreed with me but dared not say so. This was excellent news. Nothing breeds hatred like fear. Maker feared Visitor. I could use that.

Over the next week, I belittled Maker, suggesting that every time it used one of Visitor’s proposed techniques of torture, it was doing so because it was under Visitor’s control. I spoke of how strong Visitor must be. So large. So superior. So well armored and fiercely clawed and fanged. Maker responded by increasing my agony. I paid in pain for what I did, but that was the price to exercise control from a position of helplessness. That control would pay off better than I could have dreamed.

When Visitor next showed up, it was in as arrogant a mood as ever. As the kibitzing began, I agreed loudly with it, declaring how Visitor’s advice was good but probably wasted on poor Maker who lacked the wit to apply it properly. Visitor praised my wisdom. Maker protested that this was unfair. Visitor laughed at how foolish it was to expect fairness in Hell. Maker muttered in response. Visitor said, “Don’t take that tone with me.” Maker said it would take any tone it chose to take. Visitor raised a mighty paw and came down hard, sinking a claw into one of Maker’s ears.

Maker spun around faster than I would have guessed it could. The next sound was unimaginable, Maker’s mighty jaws sinking fangs into Visitor’s belly. To do this, Maker had to first pry away a protective armor plate. I would not have thought it possible, but Maker was driven now by the rage of hatred overcoming fear.

The fear was wise, though. Visitor was the stronger beast. Screaming in a way that curdled my blood, Visitor reached over Maker and grabbed onto the rock on which I had lain for years. As Visitor lifted that mass, I slid off onto the ground. Visitor hoisted the rock so high that I could barely see it in Hell’s gloom. Then down it came again, crashing onto Maker, who was still gnawing Visitor’s guts.

Forgive me, Your Excellency, for allowing my tale to become so gruesome, but the details are necessary to understand what happened next. I now heard that gigantic stone crushing Maker like an insect. The emotions welling up in me were both joy and terror. I hated my tormentor, yet for years now, Maker had been my only companion. It was clear the rock had destroyed the foolish demon, and that left me alone with Visitor.

Through the gloom, I saw my situation, and in an instant, I was inspired. I rose and ran, shouting as I did that Visitor had been my instrument. I declared that I had manipulated Visitor into destroying Maker because I was certain Visitor was a fraud, only a pretender, never capable of understanding the work of a master torturer like Maker. Now I was free, and I would tell the tale across all of Hell of how I had outwitted that damned fool Visitor of Distraction.

In the moment when that monster came after me, I truly did not know if I was condemning myself to new horrors. I dared not slow myself by looking back, but I heard sounds that made me hopeful. Ghastly sounds of ripping. Wet sounds. Nasty sounds. Above its thundering footfalls, the voice of Visitor announced what it would do to me, predictions that I feared were true. But then the demonic voice was ended in a gurgling scream, a crash, and silence.

Now I turned. What I beheld, barely visible in murk, was both the most repulsive thing I ever saw and the most delightful. Inspiration had been rewarded. Maker, when crushed under that massive stone, had been gripping Visitor’s guts in its teeth. By inspiring Visitor to furious chase, I had gotten the giant demon to disembowel itself. As it had run after me and away from Maker, it had left a trail of its own internal organs stretched across the plain back to that stone. Maker was a crushed jelly. Visitor was a hollowed heap. Both were silent and unmoving.

I ran. Oh, how I ran. In Hell, a man must always recover from his wounds so he can be wounded again. Over the years, I had been mortally injured often but never died. Whatever Maker had sliced or crushed or ripped away from me always restored itself so it could be hurt again. Now, that power continued to work for me. The farther I ran, the healthier I grew. By the time I reached the edge of that plain, I was springing like a young buck.

***

The archbishop signaled for a refill on the brandy. “And you ran all the way here?”

“No,” said Tony. “There is much more to the story.”

“Just as gory?”

“Not at all.”

“In that case, before we continue,” turning to his clerk, “see if you can rustle us up a snack. Then, we’ll hear the rest of it.”

Minutes later, the clerk returned carrying a board bearing a fine example of charcuterie. Here were breads, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, and thinly sliced sausage.

“Guess the meat,” said Horst.

“Thüringer,” said Tony. “I remember.”

“May I?” Nick looked down at his slender female form. “Amber doesn’t eat enough.”

“Please do,” said Horst. “I don’t believe I’ve ever fed a demon.”

“You still have not,” said Tony. “If we are ready?”

“Yes. Nick, please continue your fascinating tale.”

The clerk moved closer, apparently eager to hear the rest of the story. The possessed young woman chewed and swallowed a stick of celery she had selected from the board and seemed to be enjoying. “My history. Right.”

***

At the end of the plain, I reached a gray cliff. In the dim light of Hell, I could not see how high it rose, but that was no matter. It went straight up, smooth as glass, no cracks, no hand or footholds. I could not have climbed it if it were a mile or just ten feet. I could not continue in this direction, so I turned and traveled along the base.

As I walked, I worried. What if the demons had the same power of restoration I possessed? Were Maker and Visitor rising now, pulling themselves together, discussing what they would do to me when they caught me? I kept glancing back in the direction I had come, listening, anticipating, but no shadows loomed from the murk.

I have always had a good sense of direction, a benefit to me in my soldiering days. I felt the cliff was curving, coming around toward the angle from which Visitor had made his approaches. Sure enough, I came to a cut in the wall, a wide passageway before the cliff went on again. The surfaces of this cut were just as smooth, the floor sloping gently upward.

My soldiering senses left me torn as to how to proceed. Moving along the cliff, I had directions I could run. Once in the passageway, my options would be limited. Where did Visitor come from? Would this passage take me to some sort of demon city? Free of demons, did I want to find more of them? Or would I find resources of some kind? Did a soul in Hell need resources? Perhaps. The plain offered me nothing.

I decided for the sloping passage. As I climbed, it narrowed. It was never tight for me, but I began to imagine, somewhat gleefully, how Visitor might have struggled with it. Or could he have flown? Did Visitor have wings? If so, I never saw him spread them. Nor Maker, once he had brought me to the rock.

Now the passage leveled, sloped downward, and broadened out again. I crept along, holding close to one glassy wall, constantly on the lookout for signs of danger or opportunity. To shorten a long story, I found neither.

Days of exploration revealed to me that I was in a double valley. Each had a flat floor surrounded by steep glassy cliffs. They were joined by the passageway which was equally walled and inescapable. The only other feature was the huge flat rock and the remains of two demons. I spent much time working up the courage to go back to that rock, but when I did, the deaths of those demons were confirmed. They lacked my powers of recovery. Perhaps demons have no souls and so no reason to be restored.

Those two valleys were my prison cell. The air was thin and filthy and always too hot or too cold. I was painfully hungry and thirsty, with no source of food or water, but that had been my state since my arrival in Hell. I was perpetually uncomfortable, but I was not being actively tortured, so counted myself fortunate. I kept looking to the skies, anticipating that word of my semi-escape would reach Hell’s authorities, that Hell’s police force would be dispatched to deal with me, but nothing of the horrors I imagined ever fell upon me.

My new torment was boredom. I explored those two valleys in excruciating detail. I disassembled those two demons and used their parts to make clothing, shelter, artworks, and sporting equipment. I made speeches from atop the rock, addressing imaginary multitudes. I tried many ways to destroy myself. I wept.

And then, I saw a spot. I was standing in what I had come to think of as Visitor’s valley, the one without the rock, looking up at a cliff that I could have sworn I had looked up at a hundred times before, but now I made out through the murk a darker place. I looked away, and then back. It was still there. It did not move. I ran to the base of the cliff, but there was no way to climb up to it.

I went back to Maker’s valley, back to the rock. I selected one of Maker’s tools, one with which he had often hurt me. I carried it through the passageway like a knight with a jousting spear. I found the cliff below the dark spot and went to work. It took a long time to make more than a mark, but if I had anything in the way of resources, it was time.

Eventually, I carved a foothold, then a handhold above that, and then another and another. I made more portable tools from my small collection of available objects, things I could carry up with me. The dark spot turned out to be nothing more than a larger notch, a hand or foothold, which Visitor—who indeed had been wingless—could have used to climb. There were more such notches between which I carved my own path. And then, so high above the valley floor that that floor was no longer visible through Hell’s gloom, there was an opening, a gigantic archway cut into the cliff.

Through this archway lay a cavern. Here, Hell’s lighting played to my advantage. Hell has no light source in the sky, no sun, just an omnipresent gloom. The inside of that cavern was murky, but no murkier than the valleys outside. No matter how deeply I penetrated, I could still make out the walls and ceiling despite their being far enough away to easily accommodate a monster the size of Visitor.

I tried a shout to see if there were an echo. When my voice came back to me, amplified to a horrifying extent, I ran outside and crouched down on the ledge beside the entrance, making myself as small as possible. Surely, if any monster dwelt inside that cavern, it was now aware of my presence, but no monster appeared.

With my courage regathered, I walked down into that cave. And down it was, the passageway long and meandering. At last, I went through another archway and found myself in a large circular room, the walls being formed of still more arches, including the one I had just come through, thirteen in all.

I walked across that room, turned, and panicked. The arches were identical. Where had I come in? I made my best guess, walked back up the passage, and found myself on my familiar ledge overlooking my invisible valleys. Then I laughed loud and long. What difference would it have made if I had lost the way back to my prison? Still, I went inside and used my tools to inscribe numbers on each of the thirteen archways.

Now began a long exploration of that cavern. The twelve additional arches led to winding passages, tending either up or down, to a dozen other rooms, each also with thirteen arches. Each of these did the same thing, except that in the final set of rooms, the new arches were blind, just monstrous niches in the walls. The inventory of what I was now calling Visitor’s Caverns included one hundred fifty-seven passageways to one hundred fifty-seven rooms, and at the ends, one thousand seven hundred twenty-eight blind arches.

This will seem strange to you, but I had mapped the entirety of Visitor’s Caverns before I stepped up into one of those niches. Whenever I approached a niche, I decided to turn around as if some force there held me back, not repelling my body but my mind. However, when you live long enough with two featureless valleys whose walls, as far as further exploration showed, were unclimbably high, and one hundred fifty-seven largely identical rooms, eventually you will overcome a reluctance to push on.

I stepped up into a niche. I woke up screaming. A woman sleeping next to me spoke to me in words I did not recognize, yet I understood that she was trying to calm me. In fact, I understood each word. She spoke a language of which I was entirely unaware, and I replied in that same unfamiliar tongue. She asked me if it were that dream again. I told her that it was, but different this time. She asked how it was different. I said I could not really say. She asked me if I were still her husband. I lied and told her that I was. She held me as she went back to sleep.

I breathed. Tears came. They were tears of joy. They came because I breathed. The air was soft and warm and smelled of the woman, the bed, the house, and more. I knew without looking that there were fields outside. Their aroma was the sweetest thing I had ever known. I knew that in the morning, I would work in those fields. This rough bed was the softest thing I had ever felt. That and the woman. And I could sleep. I did. I fell backward onto stone.

I lay on the floor for some time, staring up at that niche. I wanted to step back into it, back into a body sleeping in a world with soft women and sweet air, but the repulsion had returned in force. I looked at other niches, longed to know what they held, and walked away.

But by now, I had more than simple boredom to drive me. I understood that those niches were magical passageways out of Hell. I decided to try a different niche in a different room. This time, I became a woman walking down a road on a sunny day. Again, I drew deep breaths of clean, sweet air. I danced for joy in my escape from Hell to Earth.

Suddenly, I was terrified. I looked about me to see what could be so frightening. The road was empty, running between green fields. There was nothing here to cause fear, yet that fear was overwhelming. And then, I realized what it was that made me tremble. It was that woman’s fear of me. Or, rather, her fear of Visitor of Distraction, for now I perceived her memories of terrible things Visitor had driven her to do in the past.

Only, to me, they didn’t seem so terrible. In fact, they seemed like good ideas. Following the path laid out by her memories, I walked that woman along that road, past the home of the relative she intended to visit, and on into a town. There, I walked her into a tavern where she behaved in a manner that she found abominable but that I found to be a great deal of fun. The habitués of this tavern knew this woman to be delightfully wicked when the mood was on her, which it clearly was today.

I should tell you, Excellency, I understand now that what I did was wrong. You must remember that I was coming not out of church but up from Hell. I was a man who had missed Earthly pleasures for many years. And, I had never been a woman before. I found, somewhat to my surprise, that being one offered new opportunities I had never previously experienced. I stayed inside the woman until she fell asleep on a tavern table in the arms of a stranger who she had brought there almost against his will. I had thought of women as weak creatures to be used, but they have surprising strengths.

In fact, this day—on which I did things so wicked that I will not detail them for you—began my education. I came to understand that Visitor was not so named because he came to visit Maker at the rock. He was called Visitor because he used these caverns to visit Earth, to inhabit bodies there, to make lives difficult, to drive men and women to distraction.

In effect, I took up his tasks. A wicked man myself, I became little better than a demon. I stepped into good people and made them behave badly. Why not? If I made a man steal or beat his wife, if I made a woman drink or cheat on her husband, once they slept, I stepped back from the niche and left the being on Earth to suffer the next day’s consequences.

In most children I inhabited—yes, there were many children—I could make them do as I wished, although larger, stronger relatives would step in to confine my antics. Many of the adults I thus used were little better than children. But sometimes, I entered a person who only heard me as a voice in their head which they ignored. On such days, I shouted instructions to them to no avail. At last, I would have to ride along with them, waiting for them to fall asleep so I could return to Hell.

However, even those days were a relief. The worst day on Earth is better than the best in Hell. More and more, I found myself entering those strong people just to enjoy the ride. They tended to have better lives, to live in better circumstances, and to do things that bored me at first but which I came to view as interesting and then fascinating.

That cavern became my school, that gross of chambers, my classrooms. I always had a dozen dozen dozen teachers available, spread through every earthly land. Most were common enough, but some were wise, and a few were learned folk in higher circumstances. I had the opportunity to see the world through their eyes. They say, to know a person, you must walk a mile in their shoes. Over the next millennium, I walked millions of such miles.

It did not take long to change me. Even in that first generation of my visits—yes, generations, with each niche that led to a person who was dying being reconnected to a newborn—I became a better person. I went back and tried to heal the lives of those that Visitor and I had damaged, with some success. I reached a point where all I did was attempt to improve my people. Eventually, with the insights I had gained, I could make excellent suggestions. People came to look forward to my visits, thinking me some sort of muse or guiding angel.

Of course, not everyone accepted me. Some take a voice inside their head as a thing to be feared even if it gives them good guidance. Over the centuries, more than one priest has been brought in to exorcize me. It always works. A niche becomes inaccessible until that earthly being dies and a new birth brings the niche to life again.

I was living more on Earth than in Hell, although I did, from time to time, take a stroll around the valleys. Nasty as Hell is, I found I needed time away from the caverns. Perhaps this was why Visitor paid his visits to Maker, a need to restore one’s own personality after too much time blended with others.

I usually stopped by the old rock. I thought there about the demons I had known so long ago. Where once I had passionately hated them, I found now that I pitied them. I had been condemned to an eternity of torture under Maker, but poor Maker had been condemned to an eternity of torturing me. Maker did not seem to enjoy his work but lacked the wit to dream of better things.

And Visitor! That being had a single friend, Maker, but was unable to deal with that friend any differently than it did with those it abused on Earth. Criticizing, belittling, driving on to deeper wickedness yet never even offering congratulations on those evil achievements, this was Visitor’s only means of interaction. With my new insight, gained from a multitude of hours in the heads of other, better men and women, I found myself weeping for the fates of the demons I had destroyed.

Things in eternity move slowly, but they move. After a thousand years, I stepped away from Earth to make a visit to my valleys and found a sight that froze my blood. On that trip, I saw the rock had been flipped over. The bones of Maker’s skull, lost to me since the day Visitor had dropped that weight upon them, now lay exposed. Some great demon had passed over my valleys and flown down to investigate. Then it had gone on, taking with it news of my situation. I realized that my thousand years of peace in Hell would soon come to an end.

It was for this reason that I chose to make life strange for an innocent person on Earth. I picked the child of a devout family with a strong belief in demons. I made that child say and do things that shocked that family. Through their church, they brought in an exorcist, this good man here, Father Antonini. Through that child, I related to him my story. I visited with him through multiple people, multiple possessions, before I convinced him of my tale. Now, he has brought me to you.

***

“Did Nick convince you, Tony?”

“He has, Horst. We both know what liars demons can be, but we both know how to judge those lies.”

Horst nodded. “I suppose, by now, you are as good a judge as I ever was. The real question is why you are here.”

“Yes,” said the clerk, who until then had been transfixed by the story, “what do you expect the archbishop to do about all this?”

The priest sighed. “All I ask of you, Horst, is advice.”

“On what? How to free a man condemned by God? Talk about above my pay grade. Jesus placed the keys into the hands of Peter, but as far as I know, only Christ himself ever pulled people out of Hell. Popes hold those keys; they don’t turn them. Decisions of the Lord are final.”

“Horst, you have heard this story. Can you honestly say Nick deserves to return to eternal torment?”

“Not my decision, Tony, as I am trying to get across to you. We have been told that we may pray for the souls of the dead. We don’t know where those souls are at the time. This is a different story. This soul was judged. This prayer might be seen as a flouting of the ruling of the Highest Court. I could not possibly…”—here, Horst glanced at his clerk—“not possibly join you in such a prayer.”

“There is more to it than a prayer, Horst.”

“Oh?”

“As far as he can recall, Nicholas Martin was never baptized.”

Horst shot up from his chair. “You can’t be serious! Have you lost your mind?” He turned and walked across the room, away from the fireplace where they had sat, toward the door through which the clerk had brought their snack. He gestured to his clerk to follow. “Do you honestly expect to… what? To baptize a man in Hell? To pour the water onto a body that holds two souls and send the power of salvation through some sort of Satanic telephone system?” Horst and his clerk reached the doorway. “I’ll say one thing, Tony; you promised me a story I had never heard before. You certainly delivered.” With that, the archbishop and his clerk left the room, closing the door firmly behind them.

The priest and the young woman sat by the fire, watching the closed door. At last, the priest said, “I am so sorry, Nick.”

“That’s all right, Father Antonini. We came here asking for the impossible. In such cases, one cannot demand success. I should take Amber home and put her to bed. This experience has been trying for her. She needs the rest.”

“That is thoughtful, Nick. From what I know of you, it is what I should have expected.”

The two rose and went into the hallway. As the priest approached the front door, they heard another door open behind them in the house. The clerk emerged and called, “Wait!” The clerk walked quickly to them. “The archbishop has asked me to point out that he most certainly cannot give his permission for the baptism of Nicholas Martin.”

“We got that sense.” Tony opened the door, allowing a cool mist to blow inside.

“Well, it is official.” The clerk dropped his voice. “Then, simply as a matter of conversation, he said to me that he wondered if his good friend Tony would recall that, unlike an exorcism, one does not need the permission of a bishop to carry out a baptism.”

“He said that?”

The clerk hesitated. “I would not say so. I would not say that he said anything. In fact, all I could possibly say about this evening is that two old friends met and talked about old times. His Excellency mostly listened.”

“True enough,” said Tony. “Thank you.”

As they turned to depart, they felt the clerk’s hands gripping each of them on an elbow. “I would like to add that for myself, I will be praying for you.”

“Thank you,” said Tony.

“I mean that I will be praying for both of you.”

“Thank you so much,” said Nick. “That means more to me than you can imagine.”

“I hope never to be able to imagine how much it means,” said the clerk, releasing both their arms.

“Amen to that,” said Tony. Together, the exorcist and the possessed young woman walked into the misty night.

Plans

Dan placed the final page of Bee’s story face down on the stack. He stared at the empty place it left on his desk, wishing to bring one more page into existence that might contradict what he now understood. No such page appeared.

He turned and looked out the window. The sun was coming up. On the terrace below, the angel and the demon were waiting for him. He went down to join them, again passing the stream of versions of himself on their way to his closet. He made no effort to stem the suicidal flow. Perhaps, by now, they also knew.

Dan strode forcefully onto the terrace. “Guilt was not what sent Bee back to Hell.”

“She is guilty,” said the angel.

“And so condemned,” added the demon. “She murdered an awful lot of people.”

“Those people are why she went back. She went to Hell to help them.”

“Not everyone she murdered went to Hell,” said the angel. “She sent more people to Heaven than anyone in history.”

“Even more to Hell, though,” said the demon.

“Those are the ones she’s worried about,” said Dan. “The ones in Heaven can take care of themselves.”

“What does she hope to do for the damned?” asked the angel.

“Anything she can,” said Dan. “Make their existence less horrible. First, provide encouraging company.”

“First?” asked the demon. “And second?”

“Make them better. Tell them illuminating stories. Educate them. Get them thinking. Get them understanding. Get them ready for Heaven.”

“It does not work that way,” said the angel.

“Why not? When I arrived here, I was told that Purgatory was an invention of those who could not accept the existence of Hell, but Purgatory was the better idea. Why have Hell at all?”

“Hell came first,” said the demon. “Purgatory was a fictitious afterthought. What use is Purgatory? The damned had a lifetime to reform.”

“Not all of them.”

The demon nodded reluctant agreement. “True. Some found their way to Hell faster than others. Some got unlucky, dying at the wrong moment, but that stuff is all up to God. There must have been a good reason for their fate. Think of the people who knew that they were doing evil, chose the broad and wicked path, and stayed on it until they died at three score years and ten. How long would it take to reform one of those when a lifetime was not enough? How long to reform a billion of them?”

“How long do we have?”

The demon looked to the angel. “He has a point.”

“The point is,” said the angel, “even if there were a Purgatory, Hell is not Purgatory. Condemnation to Hell is eternal.”

“Why?” asked Dan. “Why would a just God create such an unjust penal system? What was God thinking?”

“Your thoughts,” said a mighty voice above their heads, briefly accompanied by the sound of whirling rings, but those vanished as the child floated down to the terrace and sat on the wall farthest from the building. “Hell was invented by human minds.” The voice was gentle now. “You found the Earth unjust and tried to counter that injustice with Hell. God gave you what you wanted.”

The angel and the demon were more startled by the arrival of the child than was the man. “We were a young species,” said Dan. “We were ignorant. Since then, we have practiced thousands of years of moral philosophy. We’ve changed our minds.”

“Not all of you,” said the child.

“Of course not. There are people still on Earth who need to be reformed.”

“And in Heaven? Those who demanded the existence of Hell in the first place are in Heaven now.”

“All right. The reform must be universal then. I want to go to Heaven.”

The angel and the demon shared a glance. “Dan,” said the angel, “you are in Heaven now.”

“You know what I mean. All the way in. Like everybody else.”

“Everybody else?” The angel shook its head. “I do not see you, Dan, as a man to spend forever glorying in the divine presence. You would be tired of it in a week.”

“He would not,” said the child. “It is an eternally satisfying practice.”

“Bah,” said the angel.

“You should try it sometime.”

“That is not what I intend to do,” said Dan.

“No?” asked the angel. “What are your plans?”

“I intend to pray.”

The angel and the demon caught each other’s glance again and burst out laughing. “Nobody prays in Heaven, Dan.”

“Why not?”

“They are in Heaven,” said the demon. “What would they pray for?”

“For you. For everyone in Hell.”

“That’s not how it works, Dan. You can’t pray people out of Hell. And certainly not demons. Nobody prays for us.”

“Bee will.”

“Prayers in Hell are never heard.”

The child leaned forward to catch Dan’s response.

“Are you saying,” asked Dan, “that there are things even God doesn’t know?”

“Of course not,” said the angel.

“Then prayers in Hell are heard.”

The child sat back and smiled.

The angel frowned. “Heard, yes. Not acted upon.”

“Heard is a start.”

“You think that you and Bee, praying in Heaven and Hell, will bring Bee’s victims across the boundary?”

“Again, that’s a start.”

“A start?! To what? Do you intend to bring out more than Bee’s victims?”

“Why not everyone? We have infinite time for the project. Let’s shut Hell down. Honestly, I don’t understand why people in Heaven aren’t already working on it.”

“The saints believe that those in Hell belong there forever, often because sinners abused those saints horribly on Earth. The rest of the blessed have forgotten all about the occupants of Hell.”

As he considered this revelation, Dan’s face moved from confusion to disgust to fury. The angel’s face was stern. The demon nodded agreement. The child, however, was simply watching Dan, waiting to hear what the man would say.

“I hate revenge.”

“So we have heard,” said the angel.

“But,” Dan continued, “revenge is still more honest than forgetting the suffering of others. I’ve seen that often on Earth, the comfortable enjoying all the world has to offer while ignoring the millions struggling in poverty. You are telling me that sort of evil has spread to Heaven?”

“Spread? It is enforced. The inhabitants of Heaven are meant to enjoy eternal bliss. Many of them could not do so if they were thinking of the suffering of the damned. When they arrive, their memories do not come with them. The blessed exist entirely in Heaven. They have forgotten Earth and are unaware of Hell. It is the only way. Would you deny them their reward?”

Dan looked to the child sitting on the wall, who nodded gently. Was that agreement or encouragement? Dan turned back to the angel. “Not deny. Postpone. Even if it took an octillion years to get everyone out of Hell, that would still leave those saints eternity to enjoy their bliss. And they could do so with a deeper knowledge that they had earned those rewards.”

“They have already earned them.”

“But again,” said the demon, “Dan has a point. Eternity minus any finite period is still eternity. I bet it wouldn’t take an octillion years. Probably less than a trillion.”

“Do not pretend you understand such numbers,” said the angel. “Reality itself has only been around eighty billion years.”

“Eighty?” asked Dan. “Our physicists thought they had it pegged nearer fourteen.”

“That is the universe containing Earth. God produced earlier versions. We angels and demons come originally out of one of those.”

“Then why make my universe?”

“Ours were duller worlds. The Creator found us too predictable. Hence, the Earth and human beings with genuine free will. I understand that making that was tricky.”

“And why me?” asked Dan. The child nodded. “Why was I the one chosen to fulfill your plan? I believe I was correct when I said it was because I am a writer and a teacher of writing.”

“Writing for whom?” asked the angel. “You have no readership. You and Bee were in the same room the whole time you were writing. You could have turned to each other at any moment and said directly to your only audience what you were typing. Nobody else was here to ever read your works. You have invented a new kind of futility.”

“You don’t understand,” said Dan.

“You do not make sense,” said the angel.

“He does,” said the child. “Tell them, Dan.”

“All right.” He addressed the angel. “Have you ever read one of my books?” He turned to the demon. “Or you?”

Both shook their large heads.

“Neither has almost anybody else.”

“I thought you had a best seller,” said the demon.

“I did. A million copies. Many of those were never opened. That happens to books. They are given as gifts to people who won’t read them. Or someone buys a copy intending to read it but never gets around to it. On the other hand, some copies are read by multiple readers. So, let’s say I had a million readers.”

“That is not nobody,” said the angel.

“Almost,” said Dan. “In a world of eight billion people? For every person who read When It Pours, eight thousand didn’t. Fill one of our larger football stadiums with a random selection of humanity. Ask everyone who has read my book to clap. Ten people would applaud. You wouldn’t hear them over the rumble of people shifting in their seats.”

“You’ve thought about this,” said the demon.

“I have. Now, consider all the people who lived before my book was published and all who will live after it is forgotten. In that ocean of humanity, my readers are a drop.”

“You are a failure, then,” said the angel.

“I would not think so even if my stadium were silent. Writing is not just about selling books. Writing is a way of thinking. That is what I wanted Bee to understand, and she got it. Maybe too well.”

“Are you saying you would write even if nobody could read?”

“If one were alone in the universe, it would still be worth the time to write. All my books start out as half-formed ideas. The writing is what gives them their final shape. Whether fact or fiction, I always know my subject better after having written. I’ve had times when I only really understood my own book on the third rewrite. I have written books that changed my mind. Writing is the best way of thinking.”

“And you have used it to think of the idea of fixing Hell.”

“Mostly Bee. But she would not have gotten there if I hadn’t taught her how to write.”

“Now, you want to go to Heaven to foment some sort of revolution. A revolt in Heaven is what gave us Hell. You are not going to fix Hell. You are going to create a second one.”

Dan looked to the child. “I don’t think that will happen this time.”

“No,” said the angel. “It will not. Frankly, Dan, it is not just that you would not be happy in Heaven. Heaven would not be happy with you there. I do not believe the reason they let us use you for this project was because you teach writing. I believe it gave them a way to keep you out despite your winning Pascal’s Wager.”

“Too bad, then. Bee is gone. This project is over. Take me to Heaven.”

“I will not,” said the angel.

“I will,” said a mighty voice. The whirling rings were back, hanging in the air beside the edge of the terrace where the child had been sitting. “Come with me, Dan.”

“How can I?”

“These rings are not blades; they are understandings. The moving intersections are new connections, new ideas. The further one rises in our hierarchy, the less one exists as flesh and the more as thought. Have faith and come with me.”

Dan looked at the angel and then the demon. Both appeared doubtful. “What the Hell,” said Dan. “I’m already dead.” He ran to the edge of the terrace, jumped up onto the wall, and took a flying leap into the spinning rings. They vanished and Dan with them.

The angel and the demon went to the edge of the terrace and looked over the wall. Dan was not below them on the ground, whole or in parts. In fact, nobody was there. The stream of people coming to the house to seek Dan’s closet had vanished.

“What just happened?” asked the demon.

“I think,” said the angel, “our project achieved its purpose.”

“I thought the purpose was getting that poor woman out of that rock.”

“So did I. She is out. But now, I have my doubts.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning you and I thought we had invented this game, but all the time, we were only pawns. This whole thing was part of someone else’s plan.”

“Whose?”

“Someone high up in our hierarchies. Someone who understands things we do not.”

“How high?”

“I would not dare to guess.” The angel turned, bent low, and went through the doorway. “Join me for a drink?”

“Yeah,” said the demon. “Don’t mind if I do.”

“What will you have?”

“Do you know how to mix a Sazerac?”

The angel looked at the bottles on the bar with obvious confusion.

“Never mind. Hand me the whiskey. That tall bottle.”

“Here you go.” The angel poured itself a glass of rosé. “Do you suppose they can actually do it?”

“Do what?”

“Do you suppose Dan and Bee can reform the universe?”

“Sounds unlikely.”

“All reforms sound unlikely the first day. Will Bee really be unhappy in Hell?”

The demon took a long drink from the bottle. “She won’t be comfortable. Nobody is. But she has a purpose. Helping others was always her favorite thing to do.”

“Except for that period when she was murdering them,” said the angel.

“Even then, I think she was trying to be helpful. Some murderers are like that. Yes, I think she’ll be happy.”

“Unlike Dan. He’ll be miserable in Heaven.”

“I don’t know,” said the demon. “Dan’s not all that bad.”

“Oh, come on,” said the angel. “You’ve seen his…”

The demon held up a clawed hand. “I am starting to think a man should be judged by more than his pornography collection. Despite his inclinations, Dan tends to do the right thing. Outside of his fantasies, that is. I think he’ll be fine.”

“He should have stayed here. He loves this house.”

The demon nodded. “True. Even I have come to like it. I only wish the ceilings were higher.”

“Agreed,” said the angel. “Perhaps we can do something about that.”

The demon looked around. “You wouldn’t want to mess with the proportions.”

“Of course not. We’ll scale the whole thing up together.”

The demon took another gulp of whiskey. “Make it our clubhouse on the border?”

The angel sipped its wine. “I like the sound of that.”

“Me, too.”

“You understand that Dan and Bee’s closets will not work for us.”

“Not a problem.” The demon stretched its claws. “I am comfortable with who I am. What about their computers, though?”

The angel reached onto a window ledge and pulled up a small card that had not been there. “Here are the administrative passwords. What do you intend to do with them?”

“Dan makes a good case. I may try my hand at writing.”

“Fiction or non-fiction?”

“I think poetry. I will try to capture Hell from a demon’s point of view. Someone should get it down before Hell goes away.”

The angel nodded. “Good idea.”

Google Sites

Report abuse