The Department of Hate - A Love Story (28 page)

“I vaguely recall that conversation.”
Lucifer continued to mock him

“If that was your goal you certainly fucked it up. Fuck up after fuck up. Yes I was watching, very carefully.  Your first girl friend, the student - who you obviously felt nothing for - randomly killed in a park. And after that, you were even more useless, pathetic. No connection, no empathy. You just didn’t have it in you.
All those women! You were cold and dead, you might as well have been fucking rubber dolls – because that’s all they ever were to you.” Jarrod listened carefully. It did put his short and unhappy life into some kind of perspective. He’d never understood it at the time. He ignored the irony of being lectured to about lack of empathy by Satan. He was starting to feel morose. He thought to himself

‘But then it did after all, almost end well.’
But this didn’t help.  He spoke out loudly, in his own defence

“I did fall in love at the end.”
Lucifer replied harshly

“Ah yes! Cassandra! The mighty Beelzebub pining over a fucking female. Doubly pathetic. And you fucked that one up too. She left you. Her choice. I was there.”
Jarrod couldn’t deny it and didn’t reply. If only he could just see her again, talk to her; ask her why she did it. He had to see her. There had to be some small chance. He was suddenly lost in an image from his recurring dream. He was once again dancing with Cassandra in the concert hall in Vienna. She was wearing the same long red gown, face glowing, eyes shining brightly - her beauty simply dazzling. They held each other tightly and moved elegantly to the rhythm of the waltz. He felt a pang of loss and longing that was almost unendurable.

Lucifer watched all of this with cynical disdain. He knew Beelzebub was lying. He just didn’t know how or why. There was a knock on the door and one of the lesser demons came in. He spoke quickly.

“Master, you summoned me
.” Jarrod was surprised for a moment. Then he remembered the telepathy. That would be a very useful skill. While he was thinking this, Lucifer replied to the demon.

“Ah
yes, Botis. Get two soldiers and take out those five old assholes in the main drawing room. Do it suddenly, cut their throats and throw them in the Pit. Botis saluted

“Yes Master
.” And then turned around and left.   Jarrod looked at Lucifer incredulously

“So much for loyalty and honour.”
Lucifer smirked

“Their words not mine. I’m just tired of them. They are of no further use to me. I don’t know why I put up with them as long as I did.”  He put on a fake and exaggerated expression of disappointment and rejection
, almost pouting, before continuing.  “And after all this time, still, none of them will put out. Well, not willingly, and I’m sick to death of having to beat them into submission every single fucking time.” Jarrod was not displeased by this latest revelation.  It was a stark image. Maybe the Nazis hadn’t got off so lightly. Fucked up the arse by Satan nightly and then thrown into the Pit to rot for all of eternity. Good !  He replied sarcastically

“Another little glimpse into life in Hell
.” Lucifer snarled at him

“Fuck you.”

Jarrod was starting to feel angry. The situation was just so absurd and so impossible. Cassandra had left him by her own choice. He didn’t see any way of getting her back. She didn’t want him. As for the other women Lucifer referred to and his whole wretched life on Earth, how much of it was his own fault, really. Other people in general were impossible to deal with: treacherous, self serving, vain and so very easily offended - above all intellectually, so utterly limited – and that was putting it mildly. Constitutionally incapable of simple direct honesty, any semblance of objectivity! Women in particular were a complete enigma. How was it possible to ever have
even the slightest fucking clue what they wanted? Except for when they wanted to rip his face off because he was not sufficiently infatuated with them. That bit was clear enough. He thought of every slight and every insult that he’d ever endured - each of them recalled in complete excruciating detail. Had he not always done his best to avoid trouble – to simple stay out of the way of the multitude of overly aggressive mediocrities who just wanted to shit on him for some reason or other or simply because that’s what they liked doing? And for what? For this? He didn’t deserve this. None of it was his own fault. He’d thought that Cassandra was different – that she got it. Then she betrayed him too. It all hurt so badly and the only possible response was rapidly growing anger – white hot burning rage. 

Lucifer had moved over to the window and stood in front of it - staring out at the lost souls pouring down. He seemed to be delighted. He spoke to Jarrod

“Look at that. Millions of them now.”
But Jarrod was completely enraged. He snarled back at Lucifer.

“Most of them are so fucking stupid they’ll barely notice they’re dead.”
Lucifer was amused by this, he said

“I think they’ll notice when they hit the surface.”
But Jarrod wasn’t listening. He continued his rant.

“Smug little pig brains full of self serving slop, God how I hate them
.” Lucifer was delighted.

“That’s the spirit. Keep thinking like that and you’ll be back to your old self in no time
.” Again Jarrod didn’t really listen. He focussed instead on his own use of the word ‘God’ - the great unknown, the power behind it all. He was angry at him too. Who else was ultimately to blame – for everything! He looked at Lucifer

“You’ve seen God, face to face!”
Lucifer replied carefully

“Yes. So have you.”
Jarrod thought about this, then said

“But I don’t remember. What’s He like?”
For just a moment Jarrod thought he could see in Lucifer’s expression a terrible sense of longing and heart ache, of loss and pain. But it was quickly covered over with a thick layer of cynical derision.

“Try to imagine something,
or someone, with infinite charisma, infinite beauty, promising perfect happiness, calling you in, drawing you in.”  Jarrod was surprised by this description. But he listened carefully and Lucifer continued.

“And all that he demands in return is to be worshipped and obeyed - absolute obedience and craven obeisance
.” Jarrod pondered this. Lucifer snarled

“So if that’s what you want, d
rop to your knees, crawl your way in and spend the rest of eternity kneeling at his feet, gazing up at him adoringly.” Jarrod replied bluntly

“Never going to happen.
” Lucifer raged on

“I will destroy every creature in existence before taking a single
fucking step.”

Chapter 24 – Marianne

Cassandra was heart broken. She was attending the funeral of Marianne – her dearest and closest friend, who she had known since childhood.  Adrienne was there with her.  Marianne had been killed only five days earlier on a Saturday night in the backstreets of Kings Cross in Sydney – supposedly a robbery gone wrong. Her murderer had cut her throat and then fled, leaving her to die. Cassandra tried not to imagine her friends last desperate minutes stretched out on a cold side walk, choking on her own blood, flailing about, trying to scream out, trying to call for help as the cold weight of death settled on to her - her last breathe, her last heart beat.

Now they were here in the church. There were a lot of people attending, Marianne was well known and well loved. She had a large family. Her mother and her sister were in the front row openly weeping. Cassandra looked on bleakly. Marianne’s dead body was there in the coffin in front of her – soon to be buried deeply in the hard cold ground. She could barely take it in. It was all she could do to stop herself from screaming out at the top of her lungs - in anguish and resentment. But instead she stood there silently. Adrienne stood beside her, steadfast in her support. The priest in the pulpit was mouthing platitudes – which Cassandra found simply obtuse. A loving God! Forgiveness and redemption!  Eternal life!  The saving power of Christ! She felt like puking. She could see Marianne’s mother and sister listening intently, soaking it all in. They had never liked Cassandra, seeing her as a bad influence on their precious girl. Cassandra knew that she would never see them again after today – but she felt for them nothing but tenderness. Death was so final.

Somehow they ended up in a car in a slow procession to the cemetery. Cassandra and Adrienne were in the back seat. There was an unknown man driving – he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them. Cassandra glanced at a half-open newspaper lying on the seat. There was a picture that caught her eye. She read the first few lines - well known British philosopher Jarrod Bennet discussing the recent breakthrough of French neuroscientist Etienne Barteau. Barteau and his team had finally shown in detail how the conscious mind emerged quite naturally from the brain’s chemical and electrical interactions – nothing transcendental, no soul, no God, and after death - nothing. Cassandra shook her head thinking

“Well that’s just perfect.”
Adrienne tried to put her arm around her but Cassandra ignored her. She stared at the picture of the philosopher, Jarrod Bennet. There was something about him.  For a moment she imagined that she could see in his eyes an underlying despair even deeper than her own.

She was in an increasingly strange mood. She leaned back in the seat and the turned her face to Adrienne

“Do you think that the prie
st actually believes in his own bullshit?” Adrienne knew that this was not the time to argue, just to agree and smile. She did have some religious beliefs but rarely discussed them with anyone, even Cassandra. She replied simply

“I don’t know darling, probably not.”
Cassandra made a face

“I think when you die, you’re dead. That’s it. Nothing more! Ever!”
Adrienne looked at her sadly

I hope not.”
Cassandra wasn’t really listening, just thinking out loud

“Marianne will be so angry, being killed like that. She was so beautiful. She loved everyone – and everyone loved her.”   She thought about it for a bit and then corrected herself.   “Would have been so angry. Oh god, I miss her. Marianne, Oh Marianne
.” She started crying again. Adrienne tried to comfort her but without much success.

They arrived at the cemetery and got out of the car. Cassandra looked about sadly. Rolling green fields of tightly cut grass, large leafy trees, low hills in the distance and right in front of them row upon row of small white gravestones. What a dirty disgusting place – she hated it - a common ignominious end to how many untold lifetimes of striving and yearning? No future, no hope, nothing.  With a creator that was either insane or sadistic or both – even if he did exist – which was unlikely. She didn’t know why she was obsessing on this – she didn’t normally. Religion and death!  Could they ever be separated?

All too soon they were lowering Marianne’s coffin into the grave. Everyone watched on sadly. Relatives and friends were all united in their grief and their anguish. They all remembered Marianne’s bright eager smile, her earnestness and the bottomless well of kindness that seemed to be a part of her very essence. Everyone would miss her dreadfully. There was some music playing, something slow and mournful. Cassandra wasn’t listening. She found herself watching Marianne’s niece –five year old Chelsie. Chelsie was too young to understand but she knew something awful had happened. She knew that her dearly beloved Aunt was never coming back. She didn’t understand why and she didn’t understand why they were burying her in the ground. She didn’t understand why Marianne didn’t just wake up. She wanted to go to her and ask her – but her mother held her back.

Cassandra looked up. Something was wrong. Suddenly there were more people standing about, watching – strange people, completely out of place. But no one else seemed to see them. They were looking straight at her. There were three very tall, very ugly men with strange faces wearing hoods – the demons Lucifer, Asmodeous and Belial. There were also three handsome men and a beautiful woman, all four fierce and warlike – the Norse gods Odin, Thor and Bragi and the goddess Freya. Standing to the side there were three grave but graceful and peaceful figures - the archangels Gabriel, Michael and Rapheal.  She knew that something very strange was happening.  There was a young woman standing beside her. Cassandra spoke to her

“Who are these people?”
The young woman answered

“I’m not allowed to say. But they’re all very interested in you.”
Cassandra turned towards her, eyes wide with shock

“Marianne!”
The young woman replied softly

“Hi Cassie.”
Cassandra couldn’t believe what she was seeing

“What are you doing here?”
Marianne replied

“I just wanted to say good bye. I love you.”
Cassandra choked up. She managed to reply

“I love you too.”
Marianne smiled sadly.

“I have to go now.”
She turned and walked towards the angels.  Michael took her hand. They were surrounded by a glowing white light. They turned and walked further into it and then vanished. The other strangers watched all of this and then turned back to watch Cassandra. After a few more moments they too vanished. The ceremony was over now. People were starting to move away. Adrienne was still there but she hadn’t seen any of them. Cassandra didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Cassandra had no way of knowing but in forty days time she too would die, killed in what was widely taken to be a terrorist bombing of a train from London to Brighton. Nine days after that the world would end.  In the fervid intensity of those final days as the world became aware of its own impending demise and descended into madness Marianne was the very last soul to fight its way out of the murky increasingly violent blood soaked depths and find its way back to the eternal peace and grace of God’s infinite embrace. Every one after her would end up in the pit, except Cassandra.