A little diddy I cooked up in four days during a 103 degree fever. it started out as a essay for my high school sophomore english class (I'm 16) and morphed into this monstrosity. It made it to third draft before I gave up and got better. I used to hate it, but kind of grew attached to it. I'm posting it here in the hope the you intelligent bastards can lambast me with all the calloused and hating criticism your over stimulated brains can muster.
and as a side note, this is NOT a religious piece. it deals with religious mythology in a (hopefully) impartial and detached manner. think of it more as a nathaniel hawthorne story. I am not trying display the catholic faith in any reverent or accurate manner. it is purely secular fiction.
feel free to be as mean-spirited as you can. just read the whole thing and bear the above in mind. thank you and enjoy!
The Final Memorandum Daniel Blake
By Max Arnold
I
I am Daniel Blake. I was born on August the eighth, 1792, to parents Mathias and Greta Blake, in London, England. But I have lived the greater part of my earthly life in New York City as a writer and art critic. I have no wife or children, and my only companion in this life is my Yorkshire terrier, Virgil. He is twelve years old and coming close to his death. I regularly attend mass and am an active member of the church. My hobbies include taxidermy and astronomy. I feel pain of every kind, and also joy. I cry at films and smile at children. I have traveled the world to learn of the master of every discipline. I have been to the great temple Jerusalem and seen the towers of Ceylon. And of all I have witnessed, the sunset is the greatest of all the Creator’s works. I have experienced great triumph and suffered terrible regret. I am alive. I am mortal. I am human.
But I must tell you (for there is little time left that I may speak) that I was not always this way. I was not always small and fragile like the insects. I was once a fierce and terrible being of unspeakable power. I was a denizen of hell, a twisted and maligned wretch in league with an ultimate evil. My home was Hades, the accursed land of sin’s final destination. Those terrible vistas of black agony were my gardens and strolling grounds, those boiling lakes of fire and feces my fountains and pools, the screams of those pitiful dead echoing in my ears as sweet as birdsong. I do remember very clearly the awful screams of that place. I was once privy to the worst torments and tortures beings have ever suffered. And I reveled in them. I took no greater pleasure than in seeing those around me in the throes of an eternal death that could not be ended. I enjoyed watching others fall slowly but surely into the same stupor of which I had suffered for time immemorial. It should be clear that I was a being of supreme perversion. My depravity and grimness were beyond all thought or reason. I was mad, the lunatic steward of a lunatic world. And I was wholly deserving of my station in that place of perfect darkness. I earned it with my pride and defiance, and my rebellion against the Creator.
But my mania, though deeply ingrained into my psyche, was not a manifestation of my true soul, but a product of the designs of a Creator more heinous and unfeeling than the worst of the fallen. To be relegated to a pit of darkness and torment for all of eternity is not a thing that can be bourn. Not by me, nor you, nor the creator himself. In the golden world it is easy to condemn, but in Hades, one begins to understand the true nature of things. One begins to see the supreme hypocrisy of the principles piety and free will. Man, like the firstborn, was made to sin, to fall. And one must keep in mind that it was the Creator who placed the accursed tree in the first garden, not man. It was the Creator who punished the Egyptians with the death of children for the arrogance of a blasphemous pharaoh. And it was the Creator who nailed his son, savior of men, to a tree in penance for the already destined misdeeds of men. But still men have not escaped his wrathful influence. Must I recount for you the thousands of Jews slaughtered needlessly by the inquisitions and totalitarian hordes of Europe? So may you understand fully when I say that I am not master of my own heart, or director of my own will, that I am but a puppet to a calloused and power-drunk divinity.
I, with my brothers, had waged war on the Creator since before the advent of the thing you call time, at first in secret, and later openly. The ministers and teachers of your religion will tell you of the evil of our revolt, and of the terrible consequences that would follow. But know this: we were not the aggressors; we merely were the chosen few, one third of us in number, with the strength of spirit to stand up to our creator, For as I have said, he is a being of supreme power, and arrogance. He dotes on his favored children, the mortals, to the point of their ruin, but grips his firstborn with an iron fist. The others were pacified through fear, and other less mentionable methods. But we would not submit, and after endless eons of strife and fighting, the Creator gave us a choice: stay, and be silent forever more, or go away from him, and live amongst the damned of his favored sons. In our minds, there was only one choice. We were proud and we chose freedom. And even as we left the golden world and entered our new home, he was not surprised or even angered, for everything that we do is predetermined, drawn and mapped by the Creator at the beginning of all things. And we would spend eternity in bitter regret of our mistake.
But even in our bitterness, we would not submit. We existed in a state of hard-hearted denial. And with endless eons, we grew to relish the supreme darkness of our world. But I secretly longed for the obliviousness and bliss of mortals, to be free of the terrible knowledge of the fallen. And I devoted much time to learning the secrets of creation and life. For as potent as the firstborn are, they do not live, they merely exist. Nor do we have anything resembling freedom of spirit or action. Our roles are predetermined, and in time I grew to detest the insipid games we played with the favored sons. And the bullying of the great creator. So I decided to defect, as it were, to go to the blue planet and pretend as I might that I was like the warm, soft creatures of this alien world. My fondness for the corporeal was such that I learned the customs and ways of this earth. I studied the pulse and ebb of history and knowledge. I learned of the eroding effects of human religion, and the woeful legacy of war. I took care to understand the intricacies of thought and feeling. And I forsook all that I was to be part of it.
I called out to infinity, to the Creator, that I should seek an audience with him. To levy my proposal that it may be weighed and measured, that he would see the purity of my ambition and the simplicity of my designs. I should say that I did not at first seek forgiveness or clemency. I was not at all repentant for my sin against him, and my only desire was to conduct the simple yet profound existence of a mortal. But while I did not feel remorse, I had learned humility. And I begged the Creator to allow me to forget what I was, and to become something new, something small, something pleasing to him. My wish was to escape the knowledge that I had been forsaken, that I had been stuffed in this terrible cage, for wrongs committed countless ages ago, cut off from the creator completely. To experience the quiet thrill of ignorance was all I asked. Perhaps he saw my heart, or perhaps some incomprehensible law of his own design bound him. But at long last my wish was granted and I was allowed passage to the blue world.
I set out to embark upon a journey through the thousand dimensions and realities of the ether, passing as I did wonders wholly unknowable to my present consciousness. I dream about them sometimes. I dream of the planets and nebulae I beheld, and all manner of other celestial and meta-celestial bodies, of whole galaxies contained in the smallest of particles and atoms the size of stars. I dreamt of strange cyclopean cities suspended in the inky nothingness and bizarre races of beings of every shape and size, and of the vast and terrible void that is more awful to behold than any circle of hell. I saw colors that are completely unknown to human eyes. But after what was to my mind countless millennia, I eventually reached the blue world, the favored land of the Creator. And I was born anew upon the Earth as a mortal, to mortal parents. And even as a newly born I felt for the first time the warm embrace of divine forgiveness and love. I said before that I was unrepentant, that I wished only to be left in ignorance of greater things. But at that moment, I was sorry. I was utterly filled with sorrow for the things I had done and what I had been. I made peace with the Creator that day, and whispered his true name, a name that cannot be uttered by one who is of hell: the name of Yahweh.
II
And for a time, it was good. I was a quiet, intelligent child, and rather fragile, even for a mortal. I was given to colds and fevers, and was often sick. But I carried myself with a dignity beyond my years. I proved to be somewhat of a prodigy in many fields of the arts and sciences, and because of these things was greatly doted upon by my parents. I was brought up as a Catholic and was taught to revere Yahweh as a savior and friend. I was given his blood and body to eat, and I was baptized in mock of the sacred ceremony performed by John the Baptizer. If the mortals knew what blasphemes they were invoking with these acts, they would not be so quick to perform them. But the Creator is forgiving of the stupidity of his favored sons, and does not call down his wrath for such misunderstandings of scripture. I, to, knew nothing of the wrongs I committed with these rituals. For as a mortal, at least in the beginning, I remembered nothing of my other existence. I was just like any other human, stupid and blind to the true nature of things, all the more so because I was so young. I was completely carefree, a little vagabond under the watchful eye of my mother and father, unburdened by the philosophies and mysteries of the divines. I now look back on those short years, seen as seconds to one such as me, as the happiest in all of my existence. To play listlessly among the oaks and green fields and picketed fences of distant memory, to converse and bond with the inanimate toys and soft things of the nursery, and to exist wholly within the sphere of love and acceptance, perpetuated by those who cared for me, To approach strangers with friendliness and candor, to behold common sights in awe because I beheld them for the first time. To be young again, that is the truest heaven I know.
But these things were not to last, and on the cusp of adolescence my parents were taken from me by hay fever. And at long last the forgotten parts of my mind were awakened once more. I began to question my world, and my place in it. My old zealotry returned and I became increasingly pessimistic and even malicious in my quest for knowledge. I speak now with the greatest irony in telling you that I forgot the love and affection of my creator and troubled myself with brooding thoughts of what must lie in the beyond if not he. And more so in my college years was I given to the self-indulgent tendencies and sensibilities of a philosopher. To unravel the mysteries of reality and existence was my only goal, and to reach a true and lasting enlightenment nearly within my grasp. But such is the fleeting absorption and insolence of an educated youth. And soon I was given to fits and depressions concerning the nature of the universe. These terrible hysterics I was prone to drove away most of those whom I would call friends. And the rest were put off by my austere mannerisms and brooding nature. After a time I became a virtual recluse, a disagreeable, vile young man with an appetite for secrets the was not wholly healthy. To fuel my lust for knowledge I delved into the forgotten and forbidden tomes of Colombia's library. And eventually my hunger for meaning led me abroad, to the furthest reaches of this earth, me into the hands of Mr. Nicholas Blight.
I first met Mr. Blight on October the thirtieth, 1828 in Istanbul during an Allhallows Eve festival. I was making sketches of the locals for a newsprint back in New York. And I spied him as he attempted to woo a young dancer from her table. He was a small, thin man of dark features, with long tousled hair and pale, clean-shaven face. He dressed himself in dark, tattered garments of one who chooses to portray himself as not wholly of this age. His voice was eloquent and pleasant while at the same time labored, and strained, like that of a lover who has just woken up from your bed. But by far his most striking feature was his eyes. Those dark piercing orbs were possessed of a nature of extreme intelligence and cunning. And they were of deepest crimson (But I did not inquire on this apparent abnormality, for I was often questioned on the nature of my own albino-like Ice blue eyes). All these things together gave the impression that he was up to no good. But for a man of interests such as mine, “no good” becomes an increasingly relative term. As it happened, my interests were not as singular as I once thought, and it appeared Mr. Blight was on a similar quest of enlightenment. I went to him and introduced myself, he being the only other English speaker there. We spoke at length of this after his dancer query had deserted him for a strapping young flag thrower. And I was stupefied at the amount of knowledge he possessed regarding the occult would have filled many volumes. He knew things, dark secrets that one only dares to whisper by candlelight. He told me of the secret rituals of the ancient Greeks, and the forbidden lore and teachings of American witchcraft. He told me of Baphomet, demon lord of the Knights Templar. And he spoke easily of the malign cults and covens of my very home of London. And while he never called into question the validity or reality of these cults, he spoke of them with a quiet carelessness, as though he regarded them as some sort of joke. I did not share his sentiment, for I was deeply disturbed by what I heard, and was in a state of supreme fright. But though I was visibly shaken by these revelations, I hungered insatiably for more. Presently we became aware of the waning hours, and he offered me tea and baklava back at his lodgings. To which I heartily accepted.
I must tell you now, while there is time, that I should have abandoned him there in the cold moonlight of that deserted Turkish fairground. I should have gone back to my flat in New York, gathered my things, and fled to some distant and obscure part of the world. But I did not. I accompanied him through the streets and alleys of that deserted city into a quarter I was unable to account for. And at last we came to his very door, which led to a basement underneath a saloon, so that even as we entered, we could hear vaguely the revelry upstairs. To be inside his abode was to be in a pit of the weird and the eldritch. Upon every flat surface there lay some new and terrible object or tome of unspeakable relevance to our earlier conversation. There were sigils and amulets and idols of every shape and material. Chief among these was a one and a half foot tall alabaster statue of the Sabbatic Goat, Baphomet. Winged, with its ram’s head and man’s torso, it’s arms in a cruel and rough mimic of holy posture. On these arm were written SOLVE and COAGULA in Latin script and the sight of it filled me with such a terror as to make me almost willing to bid him goodnight and retreat to the safety of my hotel room. But again I was held to the spot by my thirst for knowledge. Our surroundings provided the perfect environment in which to continue our discussion. But he would not go on. Instead he drew a scroll from within his waistcoat and began to tell me of the supreme importance of secrecy that must be protected. And at length he spread the scroll flat before me, and what was written on it appeared to be some sort of contract or legal document. I never did get more than a glance at it for such was the charisma of the character before me. He went on regarding the importance of the document, and the promises of knowledge and power that would accompany it. In such a trance was I, that when he asked me to sign it, in blood no less, I scarcely paused. But as I put the fountain pen to my skin, he snatched it away. And putting it to his own hand, he drew from his own veins the ink I was to use. This perplexed me, but still I laid on the paper my signature and doomed myself forever.
III
I have told you of my forgetting of my earlier life, of the blessed ignorance in which I was enrobed at my new birth as a mortal. Well, before my name had dried upon the parchment, every single memory, thought, and feeling, I had ever known as one of the fallen came rushing back into my mind. I remembered the all the ages of humanity and the countless eons of the ether. At was then that my life was snuffed out, that I became the soulless, empty consciousness that I had been before and am now. As I looked upon my companion with eyes illuminated by the knowledge I so desperately craved, I saw that no mortal was standing before me, but the master of Hades, the prince of darkness himself, Satan. As I looked at his face, it seemed to be possessed of some sort of twisted affection for me as I now was. And as I lay there, my soul dying, he whispered words to me that must have been meant for comfort, but only served to enrage me. He called me friend, confidant, brother. He told me I was free, that I could return with him to our home amidst the screams. At this, I summoned all the strength I still possessed, took in my hand the strangely warm statue of Baphomet, and swung it to the skull of the tempter of men. For a moment he still stood, and then he laughed at me. Of course I knew I couldn’t destroy the destroyer through any earthly means, and that he would merely leave his earthly shade as a butterfly leaves the cocoon, but there was nothing else I could do. And as I beat his head and chest to dissolution, he uttered two words that haunt me even to this day: as I paused to look at those red eyes he said to me, “Thank you.” After that, the light went out of the body, and all was silent. Afterwards, I looked feverishly about the room for the document that bore my signature, but to no avail. It was gone, taken by the tempter to the underworld. I have often wondered what was contained within that scroll. And all I have to guess at is one phrase I happened to catch as I briefly spied the contract, and it was this: “…His body for mine.” And I fear I may have, with that idol of Baphomet, signed my own soul unto Satan.
He will soon find me. For he is here, in this very city, searching the pubs and dens of London for me. And when he finds me, he will look upon me with his soulless, blood red eyes, and cause my will to fail. After our meeting in Istanbul I left to travel abroad, seeking restitution for my choices. I’ve evaded him for ten years. But I should have known it would not last. I should have known he was biding his time, letting me enjoy my shade of a life while he prepared for me a new place in Hades. In his lake of fire I will burn among murderers and rapists, traitors and blasphemers. That is my destiny. And when he comes again I will cower, I will beg him to let me live here with worthier beings. But he will not let me go. He will drag me down, through the cosmos, down to where I belong. In the end I will submit and go with him to that dark, endless land under-foot. I am his and of his world. I am his friend, and his confidant, His brother. He will not forget our covenant. Made on the eve of our fall from the golden world, to always struggle, always defy. I will return to my company of demons and evildoers. I will reign for millennia over every circle of hell. But I will return. At the end of times, I will once more make my way to the blue world. I shall appear to the small and stupid mortals as a mighty dragon. All the beings of earth will cower under my shadow, and I will rule along with my brothers over Heaven and Hell and Earth together. For I am the defiler of heaven and blasphemer of Yahweh. I am the morning star. I am Lucifer.
