Worlds Away and Worlds Aweird Page 14

  “Michael, what in Cosmos happened on that landing? Why did you pull up suddenly at the last minute? Things like that make havoc of our schedules, as well as frightening the passengers.”

  “Look, Peter, don’t blame me. It was the tower that called for a go-round. I was just following orders. The tower says go-round, I go-round.”

  “But Michael, don’t you realize? That was the first go-round that has ever happened here. Something is wrong, seriously wrong. Perhaps the Adversary is getting a clawhold. We have to do something…” Peter’s voice trailed off as he spotted Sid. He turned, suddenly all smiles, and said, “Welcome, Mr. Herbert. We’re glad to have you here with us.”

  Sid looked at him nervously. Glad-handers were one of his worst jinxes, they always triggered some sort of trouble. But he needed a few answers. “Thank you, but where are we? This doesn’t look like Orlando.”

  “Well, no, Mr. Herbert, this isn’t Orlando. Just look around you,” he said, waving his hand at the area in which they stood, and then at hundreds of similar areas up and down the corridor, all built from the same lustrous white material. “Don’t you recognize the Pearly Gates?”

  Sid started. “You mean I’m, I’m, I’m…dead? This is Heaven?”

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Herbert. Welcome to Heaven. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it…” His voice stopped suddenly as a huge piece of the pearly wall came loose and fell on him with a loud crash, just missing Sid. “Oh, Cosmos!” came a muffled curse from under the block, and then the piece of wall floated up to its previous spot. Peter stood there, unharmed. He gave Sid a long, searching look, and then, motioning Sid to wait, went over to a nearby computer terminal and started typing. He spent several minutes at this, his frown deepening as he read. Finally he tore a sheet of paper from the printer and came back to Sid. “Mr. Herbert,” he said, “I’m afraid there has been a mistake. Your unfortunate condition, your accident proneness, is a definite symptom of Original Sin. It’s not your fault, but we can’t have you here. You’ll have to go to The Other Place.”

  The Other Place! Sid shivered at the thought. Being dead was bad enough, but to have to go down into eternal torture? “Wait a minute,” he said. “If it’s not my fault, why should I have to suffer? Can’t I file an appeal or something?”

  “Mr. Herbert, I know it’s very hard to understand, but here in Heaven we pride ourselves on perfection. Perfection is our main weapon against the Adversary. You, on the other hand, spread imperfection with your accident proneness. If we allow you to remain, we weaken ourselves in the eternal struggle.”

  Peter had left his pencil sitting on top of the terminal. Now, suddenly, the pencil rolled down the sloping top and into a ventilation opening. There was a bright flash and a loud pop, and the terminal began to emit clouds of dense white smoke. Peter slapped the OFF switch and grabbed a fire extinguisher.

  When the fire was out, Peter wiped his forehead and turned back to Sid. “You see what you’re doing to us, Mr. Herbert? No, you must go. Quickly, please.” Peter took Sid’s arm and walked him to a large elevator. There was only one button, marked “Down,” and Peter reached in through the door and pressed it. As the doors closed, Sid tried to jump back out, but he found that his muscles wouldn’t obey him. The elevator started to sink.

  After a long time, it could have been minutes or hours or even days, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Sid stepped out and found himself in a hotel lobby, facing a sign that read “Hotel Brimstone.” The registration desk was straight ahead, so Sid walked over to it. Of course the clerk, a slender man with tiny bumps on either side of his forehead, was very busy shuffling papers behind the counter and managed to ignore Sid for almost ten minutes. Anyone else might have given up and gone away, but for Sid a mere ten-minute wait was good service.

  Finally the clerk, realizing that Sid was not going to leave, put down his stack of papers and said, “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I was sent down by Peter, I just got here, and I have no idea where I should go or anything. My name is Herbert, Sid Herbert.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Herbert. We received a message about your arrival. You’ll be in room thirteen-thirteen. The maid is just making it up. It will be ready in an eon or two. Just have a seat in the lobby and we’ll page you when it’s ready.” The clerk waved Sid toward a row of uncomfortable-looking benches.

  Sid went over and started to sit down on one as directed, but somehow his foot became entangled in the legs of the bench and he upset it, dumping the occupants to the floor. Instead of scattering across the room, however, they all rolled on top of the large demon in the center and knocked him unconscious by the sheer weight of numbers. Then, realizing that the demon was no longer guarding them, the former occupants of the bench got up and scurried out the door.

  The desk clerk pushed the alarm button, but at the first blow of the hammer the gong shattered with a loud crack, leaving the hammer to vibrate back and forth silently. The clerk grabbed the phone but that was dead too. He threw the useless phone down and ran around the end of the desk, but he slipped on a small throw rug, fell to the floor, and knocked himself out. Sid, still trying to extricate his foot from the legs of the bench, watched in amazement. He was used to accidents happening around him, but this series of events was the worst he had ever seen. He shook his head and waited to see what would happen next.

  He didn’t have long to wait. One wall of the lobby collapsed, revealing a swimming pool filled with molten lava and millions of people immersed in it up to their necks. The three sides away from him were completely enclosed, but the nearest side was just a low wall. Guard demons patrolled the wall, prodding with their pitchforks any damned souls that approached too closely to the open side and freedom.

  The upper stories of the hotel were disintegrating now, and a large hunk of debris fell right on the edge of the pool, cracking the wall. A stream of molten lava squirted out and struck one of the demons a terrific blow in the chest, knocking him backwards and out of sight. The crack widened to a gap, then progressed in either direction until the entire wall was gone. The resulting tidal wave of lava washed all the guard demons under the lobby of the hotel, but somehow didn’t affect the souls in the pit. As the level of lava got down to their ankles, they turned and ran toward and through the back wall of the pool.

  Sid was flabbergasted. He had never seen such a collection of disasters. Was this simply his accident proneness, or was it something to do with the place in which he found himself? Suddenly there was an even louder noise and the entire hotel collapsed around him, leaving him standing on one tiny bit of intact floor in a sea of rubble and debris.

  He looked around and realized that the area of destruction was widening, a vast expanding circle around him collapsing into shards and dust. The sky was filled with thousands and millions of damned souls making their escape as the guard demons were caught in the undertow of destruction. In one direction, the tide of lava lapped at the feet of an immense black iron castle. The castle itself was beginning to shake, but from the castle a superhuman voice said “Enough!” and everything froze.

  Standing on the balcony of the castle was a giant man, somehow both bright red and inky black at the same time, with huge horns on His head and a long, pointed tail. He was surrounded by a dozen or so of the guard demons. He looked around at the ruins of His domain, and finally His eyes fell on Sid. “Who are you?”

  Sid looked around, but there was nobody else for miles. Realizing that the being was talking to him, he replied, “I’m Sid. Sid Herbert.”

  “You will address Me as ‘Sire’ or as ‘Your Foulness,’ worm, or suffer the consequences. Tell Me, what are you doing here?”

  “Yes, Your Foulness, Sire,” quavered Sid. “I was in Heaven, but things started to go wrong, so Peter sent me down here. Something about Original Sin and how I was destroying their perfection, and I couldn’t stay there. He put me on the elevator down to the hotel. I’ve always been accident prone, Sire, but nothing like this. Things just s
tarted to collapse around me.”

  “Silence!” thundered the giant being. Then, in a more conversational tone, “Original Sin My cloven hoof! Peter never was very smart about these things. Original Chaos is more like it. You’re cursed with a touch of what was there before the Seven Days. On Earth, or in Heaven, the orderliness of Creation keeps it in check. But down here things are a lot looser, and well, you see what has happened. Millions of damned souls escaped, and probably saved by now. The whole place a wreck! It will take eight or ten eons just to rebuild the lava pool! No, you can’t stay here!”

  Sid considered this, then asked, “But Your Foulness, if I can’t be in Heaven and I can’t be in Hell, what’s left?”

  “Silence!” The giant raised His pitchfork and sent a ray of searing redness upwards into the void. After a short time, a beam of equally searing white lanced downward, then merged with the red to form a golden tube of energy connecting Hell with Heaven for only the third time since the Fall. Satan spoke, and Sid could hear whispers of a voice replying from the other end. Sid wondered if it was Peter or perhaps even Peter’s Boss, but he was afraid to ask. After an indeterminable amount of time, the conversation ended and the golden tube vanished. The giant demon aimed His pitchfork at Sid, and again the searing red ray leapt forth. Before Sid could even think about trying to duck, he was enveloped in a universe of red, and then all went black.

  Sid’s taxi had gotten a flat tire on the way to the airport, and he had arrived at the terminal barely on time. The girl behind the counter had been most unpleasant about it, and Sid blamed that aggravation for the fainting spell at the security checkpoint. He had experienced a sudden sharp pain in his chest and almost blacked out.

  A courteous airport attendant whose name badge read “Michael” noticed his discomfort and gave him a ride out to the gate in a little electric cart, but even so, he was delayed, and when he got there all the other passengers had already boarded.

  They were just about to close the door, but the girl at the desk waved him through into the plane. He just had time to stow his bag and his jacket in the overhead compartment and take his seat before the pilot started to taxi out to the runway.

  From that point on the flight was ordinary enough. They ran out of Coke one seat before they got to him, and he had to drink ginger ale, but at least there were enough meals. One time before he had gone hungry when they ran out. The flight remained ordinary all the way to Orlando. Sid looked out of the window once in a while, but all he saw were clouds, ordinary clouds.

  The plane landed at Orlando, but not without a go-round. As Sid disembarked, he saw two men arguing about the landing. One of them, the pilot, had a name badge reading “Michael,” and Sid thought he looked a lot like the other Michael who had given him the ride out to the gate. Sid wondered if he had somehow acquired a guardian angel named “Michael,” but then he laughed and dismissed the resemblance as a coincidence.

  As Sid left the Orlando terminal, he heard a scream. He turned and saw in horror that a large bus was veering up onto the sidewalk and heading straight for him. Then, suddenly, it stopped. Sid shivered in relief, amazed that it hadn’t hit him.

  He would have been more amazed had he been able to see the invisible figure of Michael, directing a mixed crew of demons and angels working together in concert for the first time since the Fall. They had stopped the bus and saved Sid’s life. They were determined to keep Sid out of Heaven and out of Hell, even if it meant he would live to be a thousand.

  And he did.

  Hansel and Gretel

  [Sometimes, the old fairy tales could use a bit of updating]

  ONCE UPON A TIME, on the edge of a great forest, there lived a very poor woodcutter with his two children, Hansel and Gretel. They had a cow, whose milk they made into cheese, and they had a large garden filled with tomato plants. But even with the few pfennigs the woodcutter made selling his wood, they barely had enough to eat.

  The woodcutter had been very sad since his wife died. Then he met an attractive widow with three daughters, Marcia, Jan, and Cindy, the youngest one in curls, and soon he married the widow. His new wife often ill-treated his children and was forever nagging the woodcutter, and the three stepsisters were very mean to Hansel and Gretel. The family had little enough to eat; what had been barely enough for three was now much too little for seven.

  The stepmother was always saying, “There is not enough food in the house for us all. There are too many mouths to feed! We must get rid of the two brats.” She kept trying to persuade her husband to abandon his children in the forest, with the three stepsisters echoing her words. “Take them miles from home, so far that they can never find their way back!”

  The downcast woodcutter didn’t know what to do.

  Hansel overheard his parents’ conversations and comforted Gretel. “Don’t worry! If they do leave us in the forest, we’ll find the way home.” He slipped into his youngest stepsister’s room and looked around. Cindy had a magnificent collection of Barbie dolls and clothing. Hansel spotted a box that had over a hundred pairs of Barbie-sized shoes. He filled his pockets with the little plastic footwear, then went back to bed.

  At dawn, the woodcutter led Hansel and Gretel away into the forest, telling them they were going to survey a new stand of timber. But as they went into the depths of the trees, Hansel dropped a little shoe here and there on the forest floor.

  Suddenly Hansel and Gretel found that they were alone. The woodcutter had ducked behind a bush, muttering something about too much coffee for breakfast, and then snuck away. When night fell and the woodcutter did not return, Gretel began to sob bitterly.

  Hansel too felt scared, but he tried to be brave for his sister’s sake. “Don’t cry, trust me! I can get us home. Look, the full moon is rising.” Soon the moon was almost overhead, its pale light shining through the trees. “See the plastic shoes I dropped? In the moonlight, they shine and show us the way home,” he said. “Now give me your hand, and we’ll get home safely, you’ll see!”

  The Barbie shoes gleaming in the moonlight showed the children their way home. They crept in through a half-open window, without waking their parents or stepsisters. Cold, tired, but thankful to be home again, they slipped into their beds.

  The next day, when their stepmother discovered that Hansel and Gretel had returned, she went into a rage. Even worse was the hissy-fit the youngest stepsister went into when she discovered that all her Barbie shoes were missing. The woodcutter put up with his wife’s tirade for most of an hour, but then he picked up his ax and went out the door with a most impolite gesture to his wife.

  The wicked stepmother kept Hansel and Gretel locked up all day and fed them nothing for supper but a sip of water and some hard bread. When the woodcutter came home for his dinner, he was afraid to say anything to his wife about his children not being fed properly. All night, husband and wife quarreled, and when dawn came, the woodcutter led the children out into the forest again, as he had previously.

  There were no more Barbie shoes, but Hansel had managed to grab a couple of pill bottles out of the bathroom medicine chest. As he walked through the trees, he opened first one bottle, then the other, and left a trail of little white pills behind him to mark the way. But the boy didn’t realize that what he had were his stepmother’s diet pills, and he had forgotten about the hungry birds that lived in the forest. When they saw him, they flew along behind and in no time at all, had eaten all the pills. For years after, that area was known as “The Forest of Very Skinny Birds.”

  Again, the woodcutter managed to sneak away and leave his two children all alone in the woods.

  “I’ve left a trail, like last time!” Hansel whispered to Gretel, consolingly. But when night fell, they saw to their horror that all the pills had gone.

  “I’m frightened!” wept Gretel bitterly. “I’m cold and hungry and I want to go home!”

  “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to look after you!”

  Hansel tried to encourage his sister, bu
t he too shivered when he glimpsed frightening shadows and evil eyes around them in the darkness. All night, the two children huddled together for warmth at the foot of a large tree. When dawn broke, they started to wander about the forest, but there were no paths, and nothing looked familiar. They were very tired, but they forced themselves to continue. Suddenly they came upon an opening in the forest, with a strange cottage sitting next to a large wheat field.

  They crept cautiously up to the cottage. “This looks like—” Hansel pulled a shingle loose and nibbled on the edge of it “—bread!”

  Gretel pulled off another shingle and bit into it, but then exclaimed, “It’s stale!”

  “Wouldn’t you expect bread to get stale if you built a house out of it and just let it sit there?” He took another bite of the shingle and chewed, then grimaced as he swallowed. “I don’t care. I’m hungry enough to eat this house if it was made of wood!”

  Gretel just nodded her agreement and kept chewing.

  “We’ll stay here,” Hansel declared. “At least we won’t starve.”

  He was just about to take another shingle when a shrill voice called out from inside the house:

  “Nibble, nibble, little mouse,

  Who is nibbling at my house?”

  Hansel whispered in Gretel’s ear, “Don’t admit anything, maybe we can cop a plea on this.” Then, he answered the voice:

  “It is not I, it is not I—

  It is the wind, the child of the sky.”

  They each grabbed several pieces of the house and got ready to take it on the lam, when the door quietly swung part way open.

  “Well, well!” muttered an old woman, peering out with a crafty look. “Don’t you children look hungry? Come in! Come in, you’ve nothing to fear!” Unluckily for Hansel and Gretel, however, the cottage belonged to an old witch, her trap for catching unwary victims. The two children had come to a really nasty place.