In Himmel

My death had been like falling backwards into
something dark and watery, the grisly clutches of a
midnight stream, only the water never hit. There was
just the falling and falling, then, stranger than
strangeness, the slow climbing, one step, two step,
though it were no dance, up the steps to the pearly
gates. My sender hadn't followed, though by the look a
thousand others had, spiralling aways down into the
clouds and who knew how far below...
	I held the bullet in my hand, the one that had but
shortly plugged my heart. Couldn't remember pulling it
out, but there it was. Seemed to me the shining thing
was a key in my hand, to the door that'd opened me
onto here, climbing these steps, shuffle-clump,
shuffle-clump - one step, two step. I put it in my
pocket.
	The pearly gates looked like the jaws of a mad dog
flung wide and as if if they were drooling with
probably I guessed the tears of the damned. For them
only the last Big Rebuttal, then "downstairs that way
Jack,"  shuffle-clump, shuffle clump. No drinks my
round for guessing which way I'd be headed. Bloody
hell.
	And too right I was, for well before hell freezing
over was it my turn to make the landing and be
upstanding and there was old St. Peter looking tired
like he'd been there and doing it since forever, and you
bet all sweetness he eyed me sharp and said no
hesitation, "You may not pass!", cause I could see it he
felt sure the look of me felt Big-Bad, Mr Trouble come
to town, and weren't he right.
	So that was when I pulled the gun (you may think
it strange that I'd pull a gun in that place but it's not
near so strange as what was coming) and put it to
Pete's grey head cause one thing first thing I wasn't
having no hot coals nor no Devil having my soul for no
lollypop if there was aught to be said about it first.
But Pete to his holy credit weren't fretting zeroes, he
just looked on at me kind of sad and shrugged his
shoulders with clouds of angel dust coming off them.
	"I want to see the Boss!" I said, all menacing in
case there was any doubts in that skull of his as to my
intentions, but he just looked on like all he wanted
was to see the back of me and that for the last time
too.
	Behind, the endless line down the stairs had by
now come aware of the disturbance I'd begun, though
they couldn't see the gun, and they couldn't hear the
words over the prattling oratories and mincey music
from the loudspeakers.
	"What is god?" sang the angels. "God is a starry
eye..."
	My answer to that being "he blinks!" - pushing
forward through the gates, poking the blue metal in
the direction of anything that glittered, then came I
face to face with the very Him of Hims himself,
scanning me like I was a naughty school brat with his
eyebrows like great brooms wrenched together in all
maximum fearsomeness. Fazed only secondarily by
this weighty figure I eyed him back, though thinking it
best not yet to line up the blue metal, and I said, very
cool I thought, "Who are you?"
	"You know who I am." he said. "I am the starry I." he
said. "I am all the I's and eyes that are."
	"My eyes are mine" said I.
	"As are mine." he said. "All of them."
	"What is it you want of me here Mr I?" I said.
	"Nothing." he said.
	"Then where am I bound?"
	"You are bound in yourself."
	This god is clever, thought I, perhaps he is not
even God...
	"And what of hellfire and torture - of which we in
the world have heard so bloody much?" I said, gripping
the gun butt fractionally tighter at the harking of his
answer to that.
	"That is where you are bound." he said, which I
took to be the last word on it so out flash with the
gun, aimed true in no fey way straight centre at the I
of eyes.
	"You are not God!" I challenged him.
	There come a voice from somewhere saying "Curse
him oh Lord, for he knows what he does!", but did I
falter? No I did not.
	"I am faith." he said.
	"And God? Are you God?"
	"Without faith I am nothing.' he said, which could
hardly be thought good enough. I tried to be more
menacing with the gun than I already was.
	"I'll not go!" I said. "By what authority do you
command my fate?"
	"Only by the authority of Universal Momentum." he
said.
	"I challenge your authority! You are not God! Prove
you are God!"
	There were shouts all around at this, a few cheers
from behind.
	"Proof, proof!" they cried. "A miracle!"
	"Without faith I am nothing." he said, this time no
better than last time.
	"Ha!" I said.
	"A miracle!" they cried. "A miracle!"
	"A miracle..." he said, very tired-sounding.
	"A miracle." I said, waving the gun. He looked at
me. I screamed. The gun had turned into a snake,
sliding through my hand, coiling its tail slowly round
my wrist. But I didn't drop it. It turned back into the
gun.
	"Are you well satisfied now, all of you?" said God.
	They all stared dumbfounded at the gun that had
been a snake.
	"Again, again!" they all cried. Some of them
weren't sure they'd really seen it. Had it really
happened? They wanted to be sure, then they could
believe in him. Then they could have faith.
	"I am nothing." said God, even tireder.
	"Again, again!"
	We both ignored them, snivelling wretches that
they were. And I for one had no kind of wish for him to
do it again.
	"I'll take you to Hell with me." I said, taking aim at
the heart of God. He looked at me. The gun turned into a
snake, coils winding up my arm. This time I didn't
scream. I held the snake in my hand and looked back at
God. Then I shot him. He didn't move at first, nothing
happened, but I found I was holding the gun again,
smoking now. But it was a snake when I'd shot him. I
don't know how I did it. I don't know even if it was me
did it. Everyone stared at the gun that'd been a snake.
	"Again, again!" they cried.
	God was turning into a cloud, pouring out from the
hole in his own heart, like turning himself inside out
through it, and all the while a shimmering growing
round him. Then there was no more of him but the
cloud, and the cloud seemed like it was spreading
thinner, like if someone didn't stop it, it'd spread
away into nothing you could see. It had a smell and a
taste, the cloud. We were all breathing it then.
Smelled like I don't know what. Life. Fire, sun, rich
air, trees, earth, animals, sweat, perfume, all living
stuff.
	"He's shot him!" came a shout.
	As the shot echoed away over the sky, and God
faded away across the world there came a horrible
dead silence over Heaven.
	"God is dead!"
	"He's shot him! He's shot God!"
	All behind me and all down the endless stairs
there was moving. Some I could see were looking on
ready to join the rebellion, having been no doubt
certain of their own impending damnations. Others
were scared, stricken, afraid for their eternal reward,
frightened for the sugarcake of their flossy heavens
which they'd thought so near.
	"Is he dead? God is dead?"
	"It's not the first time that's been said." I said.
	"God is dead!"
	 "You can't pin nothing on me!" I said. "There's no
body."
	"God is dead!"
	"If he died before he can die again. Maybe God can
die many times."
	"God help us!"
	"Who is God?" I said, stalling.
	No answer to that.
	"Maybe we should take a vote?" I said.
	"Who are you?" came a shout.
	"Who is he? Is he god?"
	"Good God!"
	"No, a very bad God!"
	"God is with us still!"
	"Then who is he?" I asked.
	No answer.
	"He is no one!" I said.
	"But he is something!" came a shout, the thick
heady mist of god still wisping about. "Still he is
something!"
	"Who will judge us now?" came another, and a
great insipid moaning began all over heaven.
	"Judge us! Judge us! Who will judge us now?"
	Who would judge them now, these
Yet-To-Te-Judged?
	"Judge me!"
	"I judge you fool." I said. "Fool who needs to be
judged."
	"He has made a no-one of God!"
	"Wasn't it we made him a someone in the first
place?" I said. "Him?" I said. "A Him no longer! But now
a Thing! Every Thing! Isn't He now not more nor less
than all of us here? All the I's with eyes that are, like
he said? Am I not He, as are you not He?"
	"No! He's an impostor!" came a shout.
	"Judge me!"
	"Judge thyself for thou art God." I said.
	"Ah it is too much!"
	"Take your miserable selves upon yourselves, you
God makers." I said. I was getting slowly used to
giving orders. We argued for a long time, like we had
to all keep shouting or the guilty silence would be too
awful, but they had the questions and I was the one
with the answers. Though all the time I never knew for
sure where it was they came from, like it was just
out of the air but through my mouth, till soon I could
do it with out even having to think, though then it was
on me to turn my mind to what would be happening in
time, with all those lined up on the stairs spiralling
away to distances full of dizzyness below, how long
must they wait? Where would they go? How would
they be clothed and fed? How was one expected to run
this place now the master had left or was in hiding or
was still here but only putting words into the air for
me?
	Such it was that when I died I become the Field
Marshall of purgatory, shouting and shouting them all
down, the unjudged and all the rest of them, to keep at
bay the silence, the terrible empty silent sound of
thinking.

© David Nerlich 1993