Hell's Midwinter Night: An Allegory
Submitted to the Palatial Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, for consideration.
Nico (no. 2,304,222) of the Seventh Choir, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology
St. Aquinas Infirmary, 9th Precinct / Level 22,
The Palace of Heaven.
In the dual millennia that I have worked for this humble institution, serving the glorious realm in which we exist, I have never come across such a strange case as I have today. If one might bear with me, I propose that its analysis might aid our understanding of certain character abnormalities.
The patient, male, was referred to me by a nurse who seemed perturbed and unwilling to take his history. To me, he presented calmly; dressed nondescriptly in white robes; seemingly healthy; wings straight and groomed. However, his demeanour seemed to carry no emotion. To look into his eyes was to look into an empty void. Depression, I assumed - a standard cause or effect of psychological trauma. I sat him down and bade him speak.
Immediately, he claimed he was from Hell. A traveller, supposedly, having found a way to pass from that place to this. I immediately noted his delusion as severe, since (as we are well aware) there is no passage from Hell to Heaven - only the vice versa is available. My second immediate note: The condition of believing what he believed was enough to be condemned to Hell by any court of this Palace.
Nonetheless I allowed him to continue, if only to explore the details of his psychosis and thus allow more expedient diagnosis of it in future. The following details were, almost synonymously, pertinent and interesting:
He claimed that Hell, as he knew it, was a series of corridors. His exact words: “Long, never-ending corridors, where one may not die and whilst one lives there is no release from your continual agonies”. When asked of the nature of these agonies, he listed (at length) physical torments and predatory beasts, the likes of which I do not wish to sully my report with. Suffice to say they were hideous, bloody and base – the plain and disingenuous pain invented by all “travellers” from Hell. However, when pressed, this man mentioned something altogether more curious. He said that Hell had seemingly been constructed solely for his own, personal punishment - that its worst torture seemed pertinent to him and him alone. On further questioning he revealed that (forgive my including his blasphemy), “the entire, g-dforsaken place was ruled by [his] love”.
His “love” being a “real” person – a lady – that presided over his fictitious Hell. She was an angel (excuse the punishable idea of a true angel being in Hell) and it was through her natural healing aura, that inhabitants of his Hell could continue functioning through wounds that would render any normal person useless. This idea is interesting, because as angels (of course) we do possess such an aura which heals those around us – but it would have to be a powerful angel indeed to exert a healing aura over the “infinite lengths of Hell’s passageways”. This detail shows how our own realities can enter our fantasies and make them understandable, perhaps even palatable.
I digress…
My immediate concern at this point: Why was his soul mate, president of his Hell, so sadistic as to subject him (and the “millions of souls [he] saw wandering the corridors with [him]”) to such horrific pain as they walked? He responded with a paragraph so outlandish, that I transcribe it here for your perusal:
“The tortures and beasts were not a function of her, but a component of Hell itself. She was called the ruler of Hell because she kept us alive to witness it, continually and infinitely. But she did not do this deliberately – she was an angel and unable to control her healing powers. Simply through her existence, and presumably caged or bound in some way, she kept us alive to witness our recurrent murderings.”
He said that she did not love him – that this was his torture – and that “standard physical pains were as nothing compared to the fact that she existed and didn’t love [him]”. He stressed that although her healing aura infuriated his companions, for him it was a deep reminder of her existence: “Her touch was on [him], always”. He would have gladly died, not to be free of his wounds, but to be free of her and the knowledge of her. The fact she was the very mechanic that kept him functional was the axiom of his Hell – his “torment, made profound by the fact that she had no deliberate part in causing him pain. It was [his] own love of her that tortured him”.
Already, a deep and detailed psychosis had been revealed to me. Here was a man, claiming to have come from a Hell where his inescapable love for a girl was tormenting him more than the myriad amputations, castrations, infibulations and configurations of the flesh that Hell could inflict.
But, to be sure, we had still not come upon the full depth of his fevered imaginings. I asked him how he came to be here – how he escaped Hell. He said he had simply woken up here.
He said that there comes a time in Hell, when his love – the angel - falls asleep for an age. The whole of Hell becomes dark and as she begins to slumber, her healing aura dissipates and people die. The death beyond death – the perfect death. The beasts of Hell turn ever more savage as they realise their prey will not regenerate, “fighting over the last scraps of flesh like starving lions, tearing you to pieces in a quick death quite unlike the constant, lingering pain of wakefulness”.
That was his release. The sterile nothingness. However, every now and again, the angel would stir in her sleep, and revive everybody in Hell for a brief time. His description of Hell during this time was alarming:
“Each time I woke, the dark surroundings became ever more horrific. The corridors became full of the dead, their sundered flesh piled fractally and deep, which in turn was eaten by the hungering beasts until they licked blood from the walls to satiate themselves. One day I woke to find huge, slithering fiends preying on each other, their increasingly bloated forms filling the passageways. Still later I woke and it had become one, solid entity – a nightmare monster which sprawled every corridor, feeding on you in ways that shudder me to think of. But each time she stirred and I woke, it was simply a reminder of her existence. I welcomed the ever-more expert butchers to slay me, hoping each time that she would sleep forever and that I would never wake.”
I put it to him that he had, indeed, woken - but here in Heaven. He confirmed this and stated that he didn’t know how this had happened. At this vastly improbable impasse in his story, I scoffed unsubtly, proposing that it might be more likely that he’d been here all along and simply dreamt up this intense fantasy of his.
He opposed me, saying that he had recovered. He had found a place – this place, Heaven - where he could forget her. He went on to question whether it mattered what he thought, since he had improved and was only sitting here because unscrupulous friends of his had spread rumour of his secret. I informed him that his remembrance of such perverse nonsense was enough to have him sent to Hell, and that this was why he was sitting here having to account for it.
At this point he pleaded with me not to send him back there – to the eternal bond between himself and that girl. In pleading, of course, he only justified that he was incurable.
I would surmise that the poor fellow was suffering from a heartbreak so acute, he’d constructed a delusion in which to role-play his recovery. Of course, this is acceptable in the usual circumstance, seeing as it had apparently worked. But with equal measure of clarity, the fantasy that he constructed is unacceptable to our laws and beliefs.
Thus: I trust that my simple notes above do not warrant myself to be condemned – I have merely related his interview, for the benefit of interest and education. If it is deemed that such accounts have no place in Heaven, then freely take this manuscript to be burned and left to smoulder in the underworld. Of course, after our brief dialogue, I had the man sentenced to precisely that fate. His state was irrevocable and of immense danger to our security and faith.
It is disturbing; the fantasies we dream up, to deal with and explain emotions that we otherwise could not.
My regards and blessings,
Nico
Nico (no. 2,304,222) of the Seventh Choir, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology
St. Aquinas Infirmary, 9th Precinct / Level 22,
The Palace of Heaven.
In the dual millennia that I have worked for this humble institution, serving the glorious realm in which we exist, I have never come across such a strange case as I have today. If one might bear with me, I propose that its analysis might aid our understanding of certain character abnormalities.
The patient, male, was referred to me by a nurse who seemed perturbed and unwilling to take his history. To me, he presented calmly; dressed nondescriptly in white robes; seemingly healthy; wings straight and groomed. However, his demeanour seemed to carry no emotion. To look into his eyes was to look into an empty void. Depression, I assumed - a standard cause or effect of psychological trauma. I sat him down and bade him speak.
Immediately, he claimed he was from Hell. A traveller, supposedly, having found a way to pass from that place to this. I immediately noted his delusion as severe, since (as we are well aware) there is no passage from Hell to Heaven - only the vice versa is available. My second immediate note: The condition of believing what he believed was enough to be condemned to Hell by any court of this Palace.
Nonetheless I allowed him to continue, if only to explore the details of his psychosis and thus allow more expedient diagnosis of it in future. The following details were, almost synonymously, pertinent and interesting:
He claimed that Hell, as he knew it, was a series of corridors. His exact words: “Long, never-ending corridors, where one may not die and whilst one lives there is no release from your continual agonies”. When asked of the nature of these agonies, he listed (at length) physical torments and predatory beasts, the likes of which I do not wish to sully my report with. Suffice to say they were hideous, bloody and base – the plain and disingenuous pain invented by all “travellers” from Hell. However, when pressed, this man mentioned something altogether more curious. He said that Hell had seemingly been constructed solely for his own, personal punishment - that its worst torture seemed pertinent to him and him alone. On further questioning he revealed that (forgive my including his blasphemy), “the entire, g-dforsaken place was ruled by [his] love”.
His “love” being a “real” person – a lady – that presided over his fictitious Hell. She was an angel (excuse the punishable idea of a true angel being in Hell) and it was through her natural healing aura, that inhabitants of his Hell could continue functioning through wounds that would render any normal person useless. This idea is interesting, because as angels (of course) we do possess such an aura which heals those around us – but it would have to be a powerful angel indeed to exert a healing aura over the “infinite lengths of Hell’s passageways”. This detail shows how our own realities can enter our fantasies and make them understandable, perhaps even palatable.
I digress…
My immediate concern at this point: Why was his soul mate, president of his Hell, so sadistic as to subject him (and the “millions of souls [he] saw wandering the corridors with [him]”) to such horrific pain as they walked? He responded with a paragraph so outlandish, that I transcribe it here for your perusal:
“The tortures and beasts were not a function of her, but a component of Hell itself. She was called the ruler of Hell because she kept us alive to witness it, continually and infinitely. But she did not do this deliberately – she was an angel and unable to control her healing powers. Simply through her existence, and presumably caged or bound in some way, she kept us alive to witness our recurrent murderings.”
He said that she did not love him – that this was his torture – and that “standard physical pains were as nothing compared to the fact that she existed and didn’t love [him]”. He stressed that although her healing aura infuriated his companions, for him it was a deep reminder of her existence: “Her touch was on [him], always”. He would have gladly died, not to be free of his wounds, but to be free of her and the knowledge of her. The fact she was the very mechanic that kept him functional was the axiom of his Hell – his “torment, made profound by the fact that she had no deliberate part in causing him pain. It was [his] own love of her that tortured him”.
Already, a deep and detailed psychosis had been revealed to me. Here was a man, claiming to have come from a Hell where his inescapable love for a girl was tormenting him more than the myriad amputations, castrations, infibulations and configurations of the flesh that Hell could inflict.
But, to be sure, we had still not come upon the full depth of his fevered imaginings. I asked him how he came to be here – how he escaped Hell. He said he had simply woken up here.
He said that there comes a time in Hell, when his love – the angel - falls asleep for an age. The whole of Hell becomes dark and as she begins to slumber, her healing aura dissipates and people die. The death beyond death – the perfect death. The beasts of Hell turn ever more savage as they realise their prey will not regenerate, “fighting over the last scraps of flesh like starving lions, tearing you to pieces in a quick death quite unlike the constant, lingering pain of wakefulness”.
That was his release. The sterile nothingness. However, every now and again, the angel would stir in her sleep, and revive everybody in Hell for a brief time. His description of Hell during this time was alarming:
“Each time I woke, the dark surroundings became ever more horrific. The corridors became full of the dead, their sundered flesh piled fractally and deep, which in turn was eaten by the hungering beasts until they licked blood from the walls to satiate themselves. One day I woke to find huge, slithering fiends preying on each other, their increasingly bloated forms filling the passageways. Still later I woke and it had become one, solid entity – a nightmare monster which sprawled every corridor, feeding on you in ways that shudder me to think of. But each time she stirred and I woke, it was simply a reminder of her existence. I welcomed the ever-more expert butchers to slay me, hoping each time that she would sleep forever and that I would never wake.”
I put it to him that he had, indeed, woken - but here in Heaven. He confirmed this and stated that he didn’t know how this had happened. At this vastly improbable impasse in his story, I scoffed unsubtly, proposing that it might be more likely that he’d been here all along and simply dreamt up this intense fantasy of his.
He opposed me, saying that he had recovered. He had found a place – this place, Heaven - where he could forget her. He went on to question whether it mattered what he thought, since he had improved and was only sitting here because unscrupulous friends of his had spread rumour of his secret. I informed him that his remembrance of such perverse nonsense was enough to have him sent to Hell, and that this was why he was sitting here having to account for it.
At this point he pleaded with me not to send him back there – to the eternal bond between himself and that girl. In pleading, of course, he only justified that he was incurable.
I would surmise that the poor fellow was suffering from a heartbreak so acute, he’d constructed a delusion in which to role-play his recovery. Of course, this is acceptable in the usual circumstance, seeing as it had apparently worked. But with equal measure of clarity, the fantasy that he constructed is unacceptable to our laws and beliefs.
Thus: I trust that my simple notes above do not warrant myself to be condemned – I have merely related his interview, for the benefit of interest and education. If it is deemed that such accounts have no place in Heaven, then freely take this manuscript to be burned and left to smoulder in the underworld. Of course, after our brief dialogue, I had the man sentenced to precisely that fate. His state was irrevocable and of immense danger to our security and faith.
It is disturbing; the fantasies we dream up, to deal with and explain emotions that we otherwise could not.
My regards and blessings,
Nico
posted by Juliet is Bleeding... | 10:05 am
The best way to stay out of Love's Hell is to never fall in love in the first place, but since that is practically impossible, I suggest wearing light clothing and packing a bit of sun block. They say it's rather hot in hell, even if the atmosphere of one's mind is dark, damp, and demented.
And drink plenty of fluids. A brilliant post, JiB
masterful imagry
not even angels can escape love