One morning, everyone woke up feeling kinda good.
And looking forward to the day.
And everyone knew exactly how to solve all the problems that had appeared previously over the course of their lives. Unconditional love all over the place.
It somehow felt.. well, wrong. This sudden warmth and clarity surrounding everybody was simply not natural.
Although, as humans remain humans, the clarity was rather limited. Not one had the foggiest idea of what the cause of all this could be. So, they carried on as well as they could with this new-found peace, and instead the animals held a conference, their minds in a bubble of consciousness, an agreement of peace between them in this void.
The butterflies and dolphins thought that nothing needed to be found out, that all life was better off this way. The dogs agreed heartily, so did the tuna, and the monkeys concurred after a while. The seals remained indifferent, but the sloths thought it was an outrage. The armadillos couldn't decide, and the slugs kept getting distracted. The cats, great and small, held their silence, but everybody knew they were against the new order, most of them, anyway. It was too innocent for their taste. The jellyfish were silent as well, but no one knew what they thought, as no one does still. The snakes and spiders spoke amongst themselves, and were taking awfully long, but eventually a black widow crawled over to explain that they thought it was no use to participate in the larger discussion, as it was improbable that much could be changed.
More time passed, then, caving in to the impatience humming in the air, the horseshoe crabs decided to take action. They voiced their idea. Upon hearing it, a great squabble arose, the peace momentarily forgotten. Finally, the animals managed to find a calm of sorts - and took a vote. It was close, but it turned out in the favour of the crabs. So they sent an armadillo, (who wouldn't be biased) down to hell, to see where all the evils had gone. It got help from the underground beings, and got there within three days, but nonetheless suffered many a hardship on the way.
Hell. Fire. There, in a great, dark cave the Evils sat, their presence filling the air. Some were spinning, some smouldering, screeching, staring, wailing, laughing.. but most of them reminiscing in some way or another. The armadillo went up to them and asked them what they had done, and why. Silence. The armadillo, now taking in all the terrible power around it, started trembling. But it knew that no harm would come to it, as this was such a grave matter. That fact not one of the beings in the cave was ignorant of. It took a breath, raised it's voice, and asked again. Silence. At last, Famine stepped forwards. "Very well. You may receive your answer. We kill. We destroy. We do all imaginable and unimaginable things to those souls up there. Is it right? Is it wrong? We had been discussing this amongst ourselves for a few hundred years, but a number of us had had our doubts for far longer. We wanted difference, an answer, perspective, a pause. So we left. The younger ones persuaded the old to participate in this chance, this change, and see how it felt to leave things be. Feel guilt, if one had the capacity. Those who couldn't be persuaded otherwise regard this as an experiment, to see if the humans are capable of handling good in a much purer form. Not completely, mind you, we left a very few of us up there, as not to throw off the balance completely. Still, we wonder if this wasn't foolish, extraordinarily so. However, most of us refuse to return."
"Will you stay down here forever?" the armadillo asked.
"We don't know," Famine replied.
Suddenly, with a terrifying rumble, the ceiling of the cave was no more, and shining, shouting furiously, was the angel of justice - Raguel. His eyes blazed, and his presence was overwhelming to even the most ruthless of the bad that stood there.. You see, no one dared attack or even look him in the eye, because they knew they had disrupted what Raguel stood for. If you tear apart, in such a way, what a god, and angel or any other immortal being protects, you know you bow to them, and either flee or beg for mercy. Such were the rules of existence. The Evils were muted in their shame.
What the angel said to them the armadillo, upon returning, could not repeat, but he said it had something to do with the balance and harmony of the universe, and in each and every heart of the beings of earth, which were also the universe, and at this point the armadillo got a bit confused, doubled back and started muttering to itself, so the rest of the animal kingdom gave up trying to get to the bottom of it. The Evils were returning, and that was enough.
After another few days, most of humanity started getting reluctant to get out of bed again, started shouting at their kin, cradling their own swollen pride, stomping on the helpless and all the usual bullshit we all know we get up to. Balance was being restored.
The armadillo remembered one more thing, in the end. He said that before leaving, Raguel had mentioned the souls that needed to learn.. that they could not do it any other way, if they were to proceed to something else in the afterlife, or next life, or whatever happens next. The armadillo did not know what that meant, but it was glad to have escaped such an ordeal without too much trouble, but it would rather not repeat it, even in it's mind, too disturbing.
So it tried to forget about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment