FRANCOIS DE VILLE

Is There A Place Like Hell?

Where am I? What the hell is this place?” I asked as nobody but an empty dry terrain is beyond the surface of nowhere. I shouted: “Oh my God!”
“God? Do you think God will hear you upon this flaming vacuum? Come on, Gilbert—use your mind!”
“Who are you? How did you know my name? Oh my Lord! Where am I? Whosoever and wherever you are, can you please tell me where I am? Where the hell am I?” I shrieked as I inquired someone—nobody—maybe disguising…no, no, no—it’s not my delirium I think. It’s real.
“Many questions…but you’re right.”
“I can’t mean to understand you. Right what? Have I said something—”
“Yes. You really are now in Hell. No doubt,” answered by whoever this ‘nobody’ is.
“Hell? What the hell—”
“Er?”
“There is no place like HELL!” I uttered.
“There is. Seriously.”
“You know what? You are so misleading. Maybe I was just in Ethiopia or South Africa or in Atacama. This place is just a desert, it can either be one of those but it can never be hell!” I screeched in the intonation of my argumentation with somebody whom I cannot see.
“Well, if you don’t believe that this place really is Hell, how did you come to arrive in Azacama, Gilbert?” He asked.
“Azacama? You mean Atacama?”
“Whatever.”
“Er…” I pondered awhile and said joking, “Maybe I was sent by George Bush to experiment the humidity in Atacama and compare it to Baguio City.”
“Funny—ha, ha and ha.”
“Well, it isn’t a joke.”
“So do you believe that you are now in Hell?” He asked over again.
“Well…maybe…but how can you prove that I’m really in Hell?” I questioned him—curiously waiting over his answer.
“Simple. It’s just I to prove that this is really the Hell,” he replied in a way that’s too much different from what I think.
“You? How could you ever prove in such way when I can’t even see a single quark of your body?” I asked him with his mystery that startled my mind.
“If I said you are talking to your conscience, would you believe?” he sent me a query again.
“Why—am I talking to my conscience?” I answered with an inquiry.
“What do you think of this—a “Tell-tale Heart”?”
“So, I’m not talking to my conscience?”
“Of course—simply because you don’t have that!” he said, just I thought, while laughing hysterically.
“I don’t have that?”
He didn’t bring me to answer.
“Well, we’ve ran conversations now but I still can’t preview who you are—can you please reveal yourself?” I asked.
“Reveal—you sure?”
“Yes. A hundred percent sure.”
It never took even a single couple of seconds to really reveal him. The still moist turned into a swiveling breeze; little by little a black hole was bulging in front of me. It’s him—the man in a black robe with an axe-like scythe. I was petrified when I saw him—the axons of my nerves can never stimulate my feelings—I was suddenly paralyzed.
“So…do you believe me now that this really is Hell?” He did ask me.
My mouth seemed to be numb. I was turned into a stone in fear—scared to death—that I fell down as if a shattered candle. The rest of what I think is history; I felt lifeless.

Gilbert? Gilbert?” A wake up call.
“Yes—” I opened my eyes.
“Fear no more! You’ll never be scared to death since you are now dead!” Declared by that ‘someone’ whom I conversed with.
“Dead? You serious? I’m still alive—I am with my family, you know! What I couldn’t understand is why I am here,” I replied to his bomb-like sentences.
“No, seriously. You really are wrong. I am the Death Hermit; you really are not with your family since they’ve been dead…after you’ve killed them,” he said and his eyes turned to be luminous.
“I killed them? No, no. it can’t ever be. It’s just you don’t know what you’re saying…I’m not a killer! I’m not dead! Oh please, promise me you’re just kidding!” I said as my eyes were as dull as those ruined street children who seek for the future.
“I really am telling the fact. If you don’t believe what I’ve said, then you’re just fooling yourself,” he gave me a striking impact. He might now be telling the truth.
“How did I ever kill my family?” I gave him my query.
“Come on. Let’s go in the Memory Jail. I will let you see the terrible things, er, situations you’ve done throughout your life,” he answered as he pointed the place we are going to.
We took meters of footsteps until we arrived in the Memory Jail. I could see a lot of moving pictures as if televisions. But all I can see on them are me.
“Look at this one,” the Death Hermit said, “this is the scene where you’ve killed your parents.”
I was shocked by what I’ve seen. The scene came out real. I got the lying machete on our kitchen table—it was a silent midnight when I did an evil work—I ripped them, killed them, and murdered them. Red blood were oozing through their pale bodies. I hear their souls yelling, “Gilbert, Gilbert…your conscience is running out your soul. Wake up, Gilbert. Don’t do this…” It was too late. Too late to say I love them….
Droplets of tears started to fall from my gloomy eyes. “If I could only turn back the time, I would say that I love them so much…that I love them throughout my whole life…. That I need them forever….”
I cried a river. I felt my heart losing. “You’re right. I don’t have conscience.”
“Not that way, Gilbert. God has given you hindrance to prove that you can stand by your own. He knows that you really love your family; the fact that you killed them is out of control. It’s just the way that you let an evil to manipulate the motion of your world. That is your mistake, Gilbert. Letting an evil to control you is like letting your heart and mind collide,” he morally explained.
“I’m a loser…I can’t even stand by myself,” I bowed my head and punched the truth of life.
“No, Gilbert. You’re not a loser at all. Don’t make yourself foolish. In your world—a real world—games always have winners and losers. For every game you take, sometimes, you win. And that means that you’ve proven something deep inside yourself as well as God. If you lose, it doesn’t mean that you are weak; instead, it would serve as a branch of strength to prove what you’ve not proven before. That’s life. You lose because you let yourself a loser—remember that you insisted to be a gangster,” he spread his striking words.
“But it’s now too late. I will now be a loser forever. If I could only kill my life twice, I will. It’s really now too late…too late to stand again…too late,” I said as my energy went losing.
“No. it’s not too late, Gilbert.”
“Wh-what d-do you mean?” I asked.
“I will bring you back at the times where everything isn’t final. Do what you must do for your second life. Remember not to let yourself be controlled by evil. Remember not to be a loser,” he said to me seriously.
“Why are you doing this to me? You are supposed to jail me here,” I said.
“It’s for your own good. I don’t want to see you again here. If your time comes, it must mean that you successfully completed your life, you must be in Heaven with God the second time you die,” he’s trying to give back my conscience, “Come on, Gilbert. Take this green leaf so you could be back alive.”
“I don’t know how to thank you. You tried to save my life as you do. Promise, I will never be a loser again,” I said as my eyes went glazing.
“Never mind. Take this leaf now before my mind changes.”
I got the leaf from his hand. It took me a journey back in time—I traveled spaces and dimensions. In my journey, I thought about the Hell I’ve gone. It gave me strength to complete myself.
“Thanks to you, Hell.”

I opened my eyes. I tried to look but I was struck by the white light coming from our window. I saw myself lying on my bed.
“I was back,” I whispered.
From the open door of my room, I saw my father and my mother smiling near our white Christmas tree. I woke up, wore my slippers, and ran unto my parents. I was so glorious on that day that I’m still with my family. I gave them sweet kisses.
“Merry Christmas, mom, dad.”
“Same to you, my son,” they said.
I gave them a warm hug. I embraced them tightly through my thin body and said the thing I’ve really wanted for.
“Mom, dad, I love you so much. Promise me to guide me wherever I am and never leave me.”
“Of course, Gilbert. You are our only son. We will always go with you, promise,” father said.
It never took a single couple of seconds when my mom has borne something in mind.
“Ah, Gilbert. There is an invitation letter for you, I remembered,” mom said.
“Invitation?” I questioned.
“Yes,” she replied as she opened a fresh cream envelope, “it’s for a talkathon.”
“Debate? But what is the topic of the talkathon, mom?”
“It’s, er,” she uttered as she is reading the letter, “it has said that the topic for the debate is ‘IS THERE REALLY A PLACE LIKE HELL?’…that is it…so, will you join?”
I made a twinkling smile.
“Of course, mom.”
“Is there really a place like hell?”
Now I know the answer, I whispered, as I lit up the candle hanging by our swaying mistletoe.

(Written by Marve Profilers)
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