Despite his wishes to the contrary, the fat man was being slowly lowered into the earth from whence he came. He had seen his share of trouble, and had whiled away plenty of his life in prisons, but he could not say that his life was wasted. It was, in fact... rather fulfilling. Most of the world despised him. And maybe that's why he was not being cremated at present. His body stopped at six feet under, but he felt himself sink, sink, sink deep into the ground. The fat man saw decades and centuries go by before his eyes. He witnessed the world sink further into depravity. Perversion and radical sexualities – things unheard of in his time – became the standard of living. Any horrifying fetish one could imagine had its own locale to perform such acts. He saw it all.
By the time he truly realized what was happening – his eternal soul moving about without him even willing it, he was in an empty room. It was all white. Nothingness.
“Hello.”
He quickly turned about to find the origin of the voice. Behind him, a hairless being, completely nude. Androgynous. Its flesh had a pallor. The skin of a dead man. Its eyes were great and wide and piercing. The devil? He knew he must be in hell. It motioned to its left, where the fat man noted a door which had not been so before. Rather nervously, he opened it, the hairless being standing behind him.
In the next room, again, it was simply white, save two people – beautiful people – in the middle. Fucking. Wildly. The fat man had no expression, clearly having been steeled by his own experiences in life. Noticing the fat man's unaffected air, the hairless being motioned again, a second door appearing on the wall beside him. As if compelled, the fat man went through, unthinkingly.
Through this door, a pair of men, one gripping the other by the mouth as he penetrated him. They were muscled, but not terribly attractive. The man on top was unshaven and looked to be a derelict. The one on the bottom was thrashing about, sour sweat pouring down his chest. The fat man did naught but bat an eye. As the bottom man let out a series of animal grunts, the hairless being motioned again, and the fat man was in another room.
The fat man gasped; something had finally breached his calm exterior. In the center of the room, a man in his sixties. A bishop – still wearing the hat. He had aged poorly, his wrinkled flesh hanging off his gaunt structure, his hair white. Before the bishop a girl of not more than thirteen, her lips wrapped around him. Behind him, a boy of twelve playing with him. A wide, terrible grin stretched out on the face of the hairless being. The number in the room multiplied several fold.
Now there dozens, some fucking, some sucking. Shit smeared on the ground, children and crones alike engaging in acts more terrible than imaginable. Some beating others, no implement blunt or sharp gone unused. The fat man put a hand to his mouth, his eyes went wide. Everybody suddenly stopped in the same instant. They turned to the fat man with empty eyes and beckoned to him. Simultaneously, in voices sweet and wretched. “Come.”
The fat man felt pulled by some unknown force. As if nothing could ever prevent him from joining their orgy. Before his feet brought him fully there, he took a deep breath.
“Come, Marquis, come.”
His arms, working by themselves, stripped every article from his body.
“Come, de Sade, you are in heaven.”
The Marquis grinned joyously as he joined them.
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2 comments:
Okay. First of all, let me mention that your tag is, uh, very accurate. I found this version of Heaven really disturbing, which I'm sure was your intent. I think your main goal with this story was to play with a darker side of the concept of Heaven and emphasize that Heaven really is in the eyes of the beholder, since the Heaven in this piece could quite easily be a more ho-hum person's idea of Hell. And indeed, for a guy whose name coined the term sadism, maybe Hell *is* Heaven. At least, that's what the little lit-major voice in my head hopes is true.
The piece is well-written, and I think you handled the grotesque scenes well - plenty of horrifying detail, but you don't go over the top and make it sound like a trashy horror movie. You did a great job of setting a creepy, surreal mood, and I found myself getting drawn into the story despite being wary of the subject matter.
I really liked how well you managed the descent into increasingly less-heavenly concepts while raising the tension and "eew" factor - the people and acts getting less beautiful, etc.
However, there were a couple instances of clunky phrasing. The sentence "Its flesh had a pallor" threw me out of the story. Technically, that's the correct use of the word pallor, but it doesn't flow well with the rest of the paragraph. I'm also wondering if "animal grunts" shouldn't be "animalistic grunts". In the first sentence, I found "the earth from whence he came" confusing - my first thought was, "Is he a plant?" Not to mention, "from whence he came" sounds clunky.
I was worried while I was reading this that you were being gory just for the shock value, but having finished the piece, I think it's appropriate for the character. Great job on creating a disturbing but strangely absorbing piece.
Oh, how much sense this all made! You must have read deSade's work, because this parallels what I would conceive as his Heaven as well.
I'm with Jill that some of it is a little shock value just for shock value, but I do absolutely LOVE your atmosphere. I've gotta say that the concept is so unlike you, which is awesome. It's great to see you stepping out of your comfort zone a little bit.
Each line is a bit like a spit-up moment, or a slap in the face. Very blunt and very sharp. Just make sure you don't turn off the reader.
Overall, a job well done. :)
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