Forever and Ever, Amen

It was another day, and Tom was already hating it, loathing it, despising it with every essence of his being. He had asked for this once, he thought to his self, he had dreamed about it, prayed for it, pleading on bended knee, but that cruel joke he played on his self lost its bitter sting a thousand years ago. He was going to the temple again, to pray for death, just like every day. The temple. The place he'll just appear in, as in a dream, this happens every day...EVERY DAY...for over a thousand years. 'If only could die' he thought. He goes to the temple to pray for death every day, but, like every day that prayer will go unheard apparently, or is it apparent? "Please 'god', please let me die". "I'm sorry, so sorry", he would pray, but nothing ever happened, much like when he was still on earth. If only he had thought it out a little more clearly, back then, back when things still mattered, before existence itself became completely tedious and meaningless, repeating day after day. Did he really deserve this kind of punishment? No!...he used to tell his self, but he wasn't so sure anymore.


He could have anything he wanted, and did, once upon a time. He had delicious food, he had girls, sex...LOTS of sex, endless sex, but there wasn't any striving at all, he just thought it and got it. Soon, no matter what the girls looked like or what he did, it became like watching the same porno thousands and thousands of times...torture. He would do things, go places he thought of, but after hundreds of years and getting anything he wanted simply by thinking about it, it all became completely pointless. Everything was meaningless. After an endless time, he started hating existence itself.


Funny, he used to think of death as the opposite of life. Now he knows the bitter truth. It's death that makes life precious, like a rose that will soon pass away. It's death that gives life meaning, purpose, sweetness. Existence...never ending existence is meaningless. Immortality is a meaningless series of events leading nowhere and for no purpose. There is no striving. Thou shalt not want. Immortality is torture--sheer torture. There is no risk here, no danger, no excitement, no escape...nothing but boredom, endless boredom.


On earth, he had the truth right in front of his face, and never saw it. Adam and Eve were slaves once, like he is now. They lived in paradise with eyes-closed and were threatened with death if they didn't subjugate their wills to the will of their lord and master. They risked death and chose freedom instead. How he envied them. Instead, back then, he wished and willed to crawl back into Eden on his own belly. He called himself a juvenile sheep, and hated his own "carnal" flesh, and he wished to shed that "original sin", close his eyes and be in that slave's paradise where they came from. Be careful what you wish for...
He heard the stories and read the gospels. He prayed and thanked 'god' for sending Jesus to suffer for our sins so that we can live...and live...and live...and live...


He understood that Jesus was completely innocent and was tortured to death. He knowingly and willfully asked, begged, nay PLEADED that this innocent person's unjustly shed blood pay for HIS crimes, his sins. A payment that he knew he didn't deserve. He knowingly pleaded for something horrible, something that no one should ask for. It wasn't a matter of whether he really DID deserve hell or whether he really DID sin, but rather that he BELIEVED it, and did the unthinkable. He asked that an innocent person's torture and death count as his own punishment, and in turn that he, the guilty, be set free from the punishment that he, deep down, felt he deserved. "There but by the grace of 'god' goes an inncent person instead of me, the guilty".
"But, Jesus is already dead, and it would be pointless for me to go to hell" he once told himself. Now he realizes that this isn't much different than a man who tortures the innocent because he will be tortured himself if he doesn't and the innocent person will simply be tortured by someone else if he doesn't do it himself. Of course, this is what everyone Nazi middleman told himself, or everyone who commits an atrocity because they want to avoid the consequences for themselves. The point he missed was that he was responsible for his own freewill, his own soul. That was the plan, the test, and he blew it.


HE chose to let an innocent person's life pay for his undeserved pleasure. He ASKED for it! He even used to go to church and look at this poor innocent fellow in his pain and suffering...and he gave THANKS for it!! 'My 'god'" he thinks to himself, "I DO deserve this place...this torture...this meaningless tedium, forever...

...this HEAVEN."