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Arts and Entertainment > A Prayer, for Hell [Chapter 1 & 2 of 18]
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Article rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Author : Dennis Siluk
Advance: before you get into this story, let me first present a little history of it. The name of this story was originally: “Agaliarept, the Henchman,” back around 2/2004, then I added the subtitle to it around 4/2005, “And the Portrait of Ms Rice,” and now it is of course what I consider it proper name, “A Prayer for Hell,” added 26 December 2005. But the story goes back to l986-87 when I was visiting an old folk’s home in North St. Paul, Minnesota. I went there to talk to the old folks, about Christian things. As a young boy a lady by the name of Mrs. La Rose, used to take me there as she visited her friends, and so forth, so I did likewise, especially during the years I was working on my Masters Degree at the University of Minnesota, in Counseling; thus, I not only needed the experience of counseling, but a little evangelism didn’t hurt.
To make a long story short, this story dates back in part to this time period, and to be moderately honest, the main character in the story is the true blue person I spoke to. The dream I had afterwards came many years later, and I wrote it down in 2004, and now you have it for the first time in print. It’s been a long time coming, but for some reason I felt it was time to finish this overdue project.
At Hells Gates
She looked, looked, and looked:
Down, down, upon the tireless tide,
Of deadly souls, walking on by—
What of life: These lives want of me?
What does this soiled land command?
Lost, tracked and merged in spies—
Even in death, someone profits, yes:
It was the winter of l988, she died,
No green grass, only ash dark skies
She looked, looked, and looked:
After her final winter’s breathe, she
Looking upon the ludicrous…
1.
The Meeting
[At the Old Folks Farm]
“If I can’t be with him in heaven, I’d rather go to hell and be with him there!”
‘Twas, quite a statement, said I, to me—she just burped it out—up and out that is, like a wedged chicken bone in her throat. With her not so aging, sparking—bluish-green eyes—as I made my rounds at the old folks home, in North St. Paul, Minnesota, which was converted from a farm long before I can remember—it was the summer of l986 (or thereabouts). As I walked through the hallways, narrow they were, with there high ceilings, a brief spark, a cluster of moans, lights going on and off in the little cell-rooms to the right and left of me, many of the old folks, convalescents—not so old, sitting in wheelchairs in their rooms, the hallways, silently followed me with their eyes, desperate to find a new sunset, yet they were mostly gone for them now—likened to old pieces of leather their skin was, aging old leather, old tarnished wilted leather, burnt by the sun: weather beaten by the long winters of Minnesota. They knew I knew they were going, about to go on that last and everlasting journey, the land of thirst for some, where there is no water, yet, for others it is still the land of thirst, where there are waterfalls and lakes all about.
Yes, there they sat, roamed the halls, these old men, with old broad shoulders, once exceedingly active throughout their lives, now strikingly still; the last lost world for them. What would I say, I asked myself: should I be given the chance to remain in this lost world or travel over to the next? I can say what I think I’d say, but my time has not come, so how can I accurately say anything, yet I’d dare say I’d chose this, unless I had strong shoulders and a clear head for thinking, and mobility, and knowing where I was heading in the hereafter, that would all come into place; but this day I was there doing Evangelism work for the most part; praying with whomever wished to pray; —asking whomever wished to be asked if she or he, or they would like for me to come and ask Jesus Christ into their hearts, their lives—to be saved.
—Before I go any further, let me introduce myself to you: DLS, that is me, nothing fancy, no PHD in front of my name, and no pious name in back of it just a plane folk from a nearby church doing some evangelism work as I had often did back in those days, I say those days because it is now of course, eighteen-years past (or perhaps more now). The woman I am about to refer to in this story is Alexandra Rice: Ms Rice; a lady of about 39-years of age—not old by all means, yet with no means of support, and with a deadly illness. Point of fact, some of her fascination was possible due to that fact she was not a pal to anyone, other than to the memory of her dead father, this of course was the first item I had to digest to get along with her, for she simply laugh at those who attempted to look down on her, and it seemed many did.
As I was about to explain, this Sunday evening walk through the darkening halls, fragments, noiseless as they seemed to me, seemed to emit some shadows, that is, they gave me the impression to be leaping as I approached this woman. Not that she was demonic by any means, not by far, not at all—that is not what I mean to infer: this is just the truth of it. As I continued to walk I noticed her thinly arched body, sitting back in a wheelchair next to her room in the hallway—with seemingly irrelevance. Someone asked:
“Will you talk to me?”
I didn’t know exactly where the voice came from. This was not uncommon for me to hear at old the folks home, I’d have to look about often to see who it was, where it came from, inside a room, down the hall, sometimes the voices were faint, or faded out so much that by the time they reached my ears, it was but a muffle. I try to stop as much as I can but I was—back then—an ordained minister and felt my first duty was to find who needed me the most, meaning, whom I felt needed to find their way to Christ quick—least they die and not have the opportunity to be saved.
Henceforth, airily I inquired to the lady in the wheelchair, whom I’d find out soon was Ms Rice:
“Were you speaking to me, mama?” looking at the blond haired [unkempt hair] woman with the big eyes, thick eyebrows, small lips, in her late thirties, little hands with bones protruding from her skin, so pronounced it was almost the first thing that captured your eyes as one focused in on her. Her neck was a bit longer than average it seemed too, and her wheelchair was stuffed with blankets and pillows, nothing else in particular.
“Quite so,” she volunteered with an arrogant but soft voice: the arch to her back seemed to rest a bit easier, as she allowed her spine to sink into the back of the chair, as if it was in pain for a moment and the pain had lifted, “who else is walking by?” she then announced a bit on the sarcastic side. As I looked at her, I knew the days were long for her, I could tell, long and wasteful they must have seemed, for she was penniless: flat broke, poverty-stricken to the bone, if life was not to her.
To be absolutely frank, no one is rich at the old folks home I told myself, no one at all, comforted perhaps, fed yes, bathed and put to bed, like a rainbow, no more no less, that is what came to my mind as I went to talk to her, shifted my knees to her level, for the moment. A brutal and ancient land this was. Night had come early, as they all do in the middle of winter, it was February, and when you looked out the window, it was a mass of darkness. Thus, by the time you got up, cleaned up, fed, bathed, you had but a few hours to look out the window, for surely none could go out in this weather, you had to wait for mid-spring, then possibly if you could walk you could sit on the outer rim of the building in front of White Bear Avenue, and watch the cars go by. If you were lucky, and a nurse, or an aid had time, they could bring you out, possibly forget where you were, and thus, miss your meals to boot: bathroom: but you got to listen to the birds, and watch the squirrels, and yes, oh yes, the everlasting cars go by.
—“Sure,” I doubtfully answered, as if a bomb was going to be thrown at me any minute. Within the next few minutes I listened to Ms Rice, she had no good luck in her life to be forthright, other than her father—she had lost most of the control within her life structure also; as a nurse found a chair for me, I then pulled myself up from my suffering knee, and we sat but a few feet away, myself thinking I might evangelize her. Although destiny would not have it quite this way, foliage, as thick as a forest, the Amazon seemed to wedge in our conversations as it commenced further and further down the line of discovery, the discovery of one another, as the hours turned into real night, and I could tell the loss of sleep on her face, yet she insisted to talk on, that is to say, there was always undergrowth to her words and she wanted to see if she could weather my remarks to them. And at God, there was much shrubbery she was throwing my way. But I listened. Asked if she want to come to Christ; that if she would pray with me, ask Him into her life, she’d be saved, thus, go to Heaven: cumbersome as I sounded, I was hopeful.
We talked for quite a spell unto the wee hours of the night, surprising the nurses allowed it, possibly in hopes of her salvation, or in hopes of her acquiring a new lease on life, or yet possibly to avoid a showdown with her, she could by quite assertive I had noticed, if not aggressive. Many things, things she brought up to my attention seemed quite cheerless, poignant and just downright sad. She had a profound devotion to her dead father though, who had been by her side for most of her life. She was quite angry at God, and possibly the whole cosmic universe for taking him, but I tried to explain the only other alternative was for Him to have either taken you both at the same time, or her first. Hence, it seemed logical, if not practical to take the sibling last. Ye, she didn’t understand my judgment call, my sense of logic, and barked at me with a hiss of revengeful snobbyness; and so I returned to what I had imagined a crisis over heaven and hell, to her salvation. She had made a weighty statement to me, one I had never come up against before by implying: if she could not be with her father, she’d rather go to hell, that is, go to hell and find him and be with him; or so, that is how I understood it to be. I was at my wits’ end to be quite guileless. And for the most part, was trying to find a way to escape her—God forgive me for that, but it is true, yet it was not my role in life at the time to do that, and so I stayed, somewhat helpless to her dark side. Had I a phone back then, a cell phone to be particular, I’d had used it to find someone to guide me through these hours of tedious and thorny flourishing mass of her bombardments of demands and displaced anger.
During this roustabout evening, it was hard not to like her, like her will to fight me, her love to find a way to her father, her misplaced anger would not allow her to reach out to the Lord; and would not be one of my achievements to bring her the word from the Lord, but one cannot help feeling relief and a sense of pride being involved with a lost soul, as once I was, and receiving and now giving the word, if not the world to her—but it could not be done.
Well, as the night lingered on even further, she frowned on most everything I brought to her attention—it was immense the flat affect she displayed for all the information that was floating about. I tried to convince her that her father might be in heaven, possibly be in heaven. She felt it was next to an insult to infer otherwise, but then she volunteered again her—almost challenging statement to God—
“…should he be in hell that is where I want to go.” Stubborn she was, but more-so than that I detected a line of anger, hurt, rebellion, revenge, yes revenge as in: I’ll sow you, or am I really talking about: pride? I know now, but it was in her face, her tone, her speech, even in her eyes. And I got to believing her, and on the other hand, feared for her: should she get what she asked for God-forbid, and sometimes we do, only to find out we were not prepared, I know this to be fully true, for I had asked once for a gift of sorts, in a business way, only to find out I was not prepared, and made a fool of myself: preparation is most essential in most things in life, or so I’ve discovered.
She looked me up and down, in a down-trodden way, again I believe, trying to let me know: life had been unfair to her, surprisingly unfair [not to me], and why should God profit by her bowing to a spirit she knew not. In consequence, it was her father who was by her side: not Him, all those years. I might also add, she felt she was not close to God, not disclaiming him, or his existence, but not close, and therefore could not claim him for her savior, not out of hypocrisy, or insincerity: for this God I spoke of could not tell me where her father was, now what kind of God was that, but should He guarantee here or me, I could tell her, for instance guarantee me that the father was in heaven, then she’d do whatever He wanted, she’d even go to this place called heaven but on her terms. My heart bleed, for I knew if there were to be someone before God, it would never work, it was not the way life was planned. And at this very moment there was little life left in her, anyone could tell that, surely she knew herself, surely that is why she stopped, I just could not come up with the answers. And should God tell me, had told me at that very moment where he was, then He would be privy to blackmail, and that was not the way He worked, or so I felt. And here I sat, almost an echo of evil to her, another person denying her of the one she loved most, her father, or so that is how I perceived it to be.
2.
Shadow of Death
I knew in the back of my mind she was only one person that was to die, just one, and if measured through out time that is not many, no not compared to the fifty-million killed in WWII, or the eleven-million alcoholics that may die this year of the cursed disease, or the more than four-million cancer deaths that may take place this year, or the five-million malaria deaths now seen around the world. No she was just one, but one I was involved with this one, if I was an angel, I’d have liked to hide like an anteater, with its long looking neck in the ant hill; feeling I had failed, but earthly people can fail. And I hope so can angels.
Had I failed or not failed, I did what I was supposed to, and my chief duty was to endure life, and so I did, and to Glorify God, and so I did, and forever more will remain wondering about her, but I did encourage her. I had learned suffering, which I have had my share of, programs us to help others, if not at lest soothe them. I had asked God at times why this or why that, in the suffering area, the pain area, and had always learned there was a purpose in it, if not to perfect the other person, or myself who sins. Maybe that was why I was trying to be a comforter, for I had received comfort from many, and from God, a recovering Alcoholic, with a diseased heart of sorts. For the afflicted, who better to learn the decrees of the Lord? But again, my purpose was done, and it was time for me to leave. I could give no more promises of heaven, of who would go, and who would not.
To be continued: 18-chapters in all
See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com
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