Heaven and Hell (3 page)

She felt a jolt, as if her course had been abruptly altered. There was light ahead, shining forth like a lone beacon into this realm of eternal twilight. A moment later a new world seemed to materialize around her, replacing the ethereal nothingness of the tunnel through which she had passed. She stood in the middle of an arching corridor, perhaps a dozen feet wide, where the floor, walls, and ceiling were composed of the finest, cultured white marble.

She was whole again, a physical entity with weight and all of her senses intact. She turned around, surprised to discover a blank wall, not the formless passageway through which she had just traversed. She touched the wall, caressing its cold smooth surface, as if to verify that this wall was indeed as substantial as it appeared. It was.

Twenty feet ahead, the corridor opened into a chamber of brilliant white vastness. Slowly, deliberately, she walked toward it, unable to resist.

The chamber beyond was like nothing she had ever seen. Before her was something of great brilliance, that she could not immediately distinguish. Its radiance caused the white-tiled marble floor to glisten brightly.

Serena spun around and saw many tiers of seats descended in a square pattern toward the central arena in which she stood. In those seats sat a great multitude of people, all dressed in pure white. Standing in the central arena, she was separated from them by a shimmering marble wall, perhaps 8 feet or so in height. All eyes were focused on her, which gave her a very uneasy feeling. She was the center of attention. What did they want from her? What did they expect her to do?

She gazed up to see that this place had no ceiling in the conventional sense. Although the perimeter of the vast arena was replete with many towering marble columns, they appeared to serve no purpose beyond a decorative one. Above her, great billowing clouds towered toward an azure blue sky. It was awesome, yet frightening.

Again her gaze turned toward the bright radiance before her. She could perceive a great white throne, upon which sat a being who appeared to be the source of the radiance. She could not see the figure clearly, nor could she see what lay beyond the throne. Perhaps it was nothing more than the fourth wall of the arena, but maybe it was something else.

The impression she felt now was not so different from that she had felt emanating from the portal that her husband had vanished into. There was an overwhelming sense of love here, as though love itself could take on a physical form. Yet there was something else—fear. The fear did not originate from the being upon the throne, but rather was generated from within her own soul as a result of his tremendous presence.

Out of the glare stepped a slender being, standing well over 6 feet in height. Its pallid flesh took on essentially human contours, though unusually smooth and exceptionally symmetrical. It wore white sandals upon very human feet, and was clothed in a long and flowing white robe. From its waist, hung a long sword, its blade hidden beneath an intricately crafted golden scabbard.

Yet this being’s most striking feature was a pair of enormous white wings, which arched outward and upward from the back of its shoulders. If fully extended, Serena was certain they would have easily spanned a dozen or more feet from tip to tip. She was unsure as to whether they were composed of individual feathers, or even whether they served anything more than an ornamental function.

Its eyes were blue and piercing, and its golden hair long and glistening. It was difficult to determine the being’s gender, and Serena wondered if gender was even relevant when dealing with an angel.

The awesome yet beautiful being watched her every move carefully. Its expression betrayed no emotion.

“Welcome, Serena,” the being said in a voice that did not reveal its gender. “Come with me, child. The time of your judgment is at hand.” It motioned with its right hand toward the brilliant being behind it.

“My judgment?” gasped Serena, turning suddenly pale. “I don’t understand.”

“It is appointed once to a man or woman to die, then to judgment,” was the reply.

“But where is Chris? He was with me but we got separated.”

“He is not here,” replied the angel, placing a gentle hand upon the young woman’s shoulder, guiding her on the way. “It is not the time to speak of such things. It is your moment to stand before God, your creator, and give an account of your 28 years on Earth.”

“God?” repeated Serena. “You mean God, like in the Bible?”

“The only God,” confirmed the angel, who hurried Serena across the marble courtyard. “He whose will holds sway over the entire universe, over all things.”

Serena felt confused and increasingly fearful as she was guided toward the very heart of the immense glow whose brilliance dominated the entire arena. She was taken to within a few dozen feet of the great being upon the throne. At the urging of the angel, she fell to her knees.

Amidst the great luminance, Serena did her best to make out the features of He who sat upon the throne. Serena wondered if it might be sacrilegious to even make the attempt. He was clearly of enormous stature, at least 10 feet in height. Like the angels, He was robed in white, yet every part of this being glowed, especially His eyes. He seemed to have long golden hair, but not the long beard she had often seen in paintings. For a time, His gaze seemed focused upon the kneeling woman; then it shifted to one side.

“Let the books be opened,” He announced in a voice like thunder.

Serena turned to her right to see another angel robed in white. This one stood behind an ornate crystal podium that faced the being who sat upon the great white throne. Atop the podium was a large open book. He seemed to be studying it intently, turning page after page.

Serena directed her gaze once more toward the figure upon the throne. This time, instead of the figure, she saw an image of herself as a young child playing with her friends amidst a cloud of blue. Events that brought back fond memories, as well as those she would have sooner forgotten, swept through the vision before her. She saw herself learning sign language to befriend a deaf girl she had known in her youth. A 12-year-old Serena collected a thin and tossed away kitten from behind the mall and nursed it back to health. She saw herself as a teen reading to her grandmother in the hospital. She remembered the love they shared.

Yet all was not goodness and light. She witnessed once more the dreadful arguments between herself and her mother; heard the harsh and angry words. They had argued about so many things—clothes, friends, schoolwork. Her mother had been a rigid disciplinarian who seemed to lack the ability to see a situation from any perspective other than her own. The strong-willed youth’s rebellion was inevitable.

In the end, their war of words had escalated in directions Serena had never expected. It was her mother who had finally resorted to committing her to a mental hospital at the age of 14. Rebellious, mentally unstable, and a danger to herself; is how Serena’s mother described her daughter to the hospital administration. Nothing Serena said altered the fate her mother had selected for her. Her background as a youth probation officer for the county gave her more credibility and more contacts within the system than a confused teenage girl. Eventually, committing her daughter to a mental institution was a simple matter.

Serena had been confined in that nightmarish realm for more than three months. Those were the darkest of the dark times. The drugs, the incessant testing, the mind games that they referred to as counseling, broke her will. In a world of profound isolation, she was compelled to conform to her mother’s will and admit her own failings. Anything else was self-destructive.

She remembered night after night praying for deliverance from that dreadful place. As time passed and her prayers went seemingly unanswered, her mind descended into a sort of fantasy realm, a place of escape from the unpleasant reality around her. She imagined herself as a fair maiden imprisoned in a dark and foreboding dungeon by an evil wizard. Her surroundings, though far from the stereotypical medieval dungeon, reinforced her fantasy—locked doors, cries in the night, constant heavy-handed supervision.

In the end, it was her stepfather who had been her knight in shining armor. It was he who had finally brought her home, against her mother’s wishes. In the ensuing years, he was the diplomat who had managed to keep their home in a state of uneasy peace. Yet the rift between Serena and her mother remained until her mother’s death nine years later.

Still the dark times continued.

Although she was an exceptional student in school, well-mannered and well-liked by her teachers, the fearful months in the mental hospital had marked her both socially and emotionally. She had become very quiet and withdrawn, making few friends of her own age in school. Most of her classmates stayed away from the thin, plain-looking youth who had spent time in the “nut house.”

All sorts of stories about her mental state were rumored throughout the school. Because of her good grades, she was inducted into the National Honor Society, yet even this accolade gave her no status among her peers. When the school day came to a close, she withdrew into a world of her own.

Now, standing in the arena gazing toward the throne, she saw herself at home, in the midst of reading book after book on the occult. They had seemed harmless enough at the time, yet they had inevitably led her down a twilight path to paganism, tarot card reading, and magical rituals that gave her the illusion of power. They replaced the all too familiar sense of helplessness. She found escape in a variety of dark pursuits, imagined ancient gods and goddesses, and other fantasies that seemed preferable to the realities of her existence.

Somewhere along that path to perdition, her moral fiber had become tattered and frayed, as her affair with a married man 20 years her senior had demonstrated. She was 18 at the time—a wild fling with one of her former high school teachers. The affair lasted only a few months, and as far as she knew, no one had been the wiser. After all, these things happen—no one is to blame.

But now in the vision she saw it all very differently. There had been suspicions, innuendoes, talk of impropriety. Inevitably, the rumors had reached her lover’s wife through a variety of channels. Serena had been instrumental in weakening an already strained marriage, a marriage that eventually and inevitably dissolved.

“All lives in the world touch all other lives,” announced the angel who stood behind the podium. “It is within our power to influence them for the better, or for the worse. Your actions, your sins, brought about the latter.”

Serena’s life rushed forward in a dizzying collage of imagery. She witnessed her first marriage. She’d known Kevin since high school. He had been one of her few friends. Like her, he was an outsider and interested in the fantasy world of renaissance festivals and occult powers. It seemed a perfect match.

They’d had such noble goals. They would put each other through college, and in time, live the good life. They worked so hard, yet life seemed to have conspired against them. Demoralized and discouraged, Kevin had retreated into a world of computer-generated fantasy. Sitting in front of a video monitor for hours at a time, he became in cyberspace what he could not be in reality, a success, even a hero. At a time when she needed his support the most, Serena was ignored. Her attempts to become closer to him, to even be noticed, earned her a new name—a high-maintenance wife. That’s what Kevin had called her.

In the end, Serena had found the comfort she so desperately needed in the arms of other men, and at one point, another woman. In their company, she explored her darkest fantasies. She became the submissive, the slave, the witch, and the wench; whatever pleased her partner. At times she took some terrible risks, once allowing herself to be strangled to the point of asphyxiation.

Kevin knew of her nightly dealings, if not the specifics, at least the generalities. Yet, it didn’t seem to bother him. At least when she was out, she wasn’t disturbing his game. With Serena and Kevin pulling in two different directions, their marriage had lasted less than two years. When it was over, Serena descended into a deep depression that several times brought her close to self-destruction. Yet in the midst of her despair, had come the birth of new hope.

She first met Chris at the health food store where she worked. A few brief conversations with this charming man led to lunch at a downtown coffee shop, then to a more formal date. When she was with Chris, she was lifted from the depths of despair. He was charming, thoughtful, and amusing. He spoke of such wonderful ideals. He talked about God’s love, about trying to make a difference in the world. She even went to church with Chris, more to please him than to seek out his God.

After all, if God did actually exist, where had He been these last nine years as her life had gone from bad to worse? If He was so merciful, why had He allowed her grandmother to suffer so much during her last year on Earth? Her grandmother’s faith had remained strong to the end, yet to Serena, it seemed as if God had abandoned her. No, her life’s experiences had hardened her heart when it came to believing in the existence of a loving and merciful God.

Chris seemed to realize that Serena had no real interest in his church or his faith, though she did a good job at pretending she did. But it didn’t matter. He had fallen as much in love with her as she had with him. Their love led Serena to the altar one more time. This marriage was different—Chris was an attentive, compassionate husband, and Serena was absolutely faithful to him.