When I was a spirit, I met a man in Heaven. For days and days I’d wandered throughout the citadel, eating fruit from the trees of life, drinking from the river that flows from the throne of God. I met many men whose deeds were legends back in the shadowlands, but we loved each other as brothers and were equal. I did not meet all whom I expected, though I did talk with the men who were once called Lewis and Tolkien. They brushed aside my questions about their time on earth, saying that the things they wrote then were but shadows of what they wrote now. But, those conversations do not relate to this tale.
Now, the walls of Heaven are made of the finest crystal, such that looking directly at them becomes near-impossible. It took quite some time to get used to seeing the people standing on the walls, appearing as though they were flying. The gate of Heaven is formed from a giant pearl, though what enormous oyster could possibly produce it is beyond my thought. Every building in the citadel is made of the purest gold, polished so much that you can look into it like a mirror and see yourself reflected there. It has been written that the streets of heaven are made of gold as well, and this is also true. It is a shining city we live in. In the middle of the street, which is twelve feet across, there a chasm through which flows the river of life. The entire city rises up in tiers until you reach the top tier, which holds only The Throne Room of our Lord.
When I first met Max, I was wandering in the west end of the city. While it is impossible to become lost in Heaven, it is entirely possible and quite common to forget your purpose and end up in a completely unfamiliar part of the city. But then the architectural genius of Heaven is made clear, for if you follow the river of life back to its source, you will arrive at the center of the city. I had stepped into the river from my home and floated where it would take me, not being concerned in particular where I went. This had become a rather trendy method of visiting friends across the city, or just lazily enjoying the ride. As I lay face down in the water, a shadow fell across me, accompanied by a shout. A man reached down from the street at my eye level and dragged me out of the water by my collar, spluttering and coughing. It was most irregular, and not at all pleasant. Once I had swallowed the water and got some air in my lungs, I gasped, “What in heaven did you do that for?”
“I just saved your life!” The man said, shaking water off of his hands.
“No you didn’t,” I laughed, “What a ridiculous notion!”
I took in my strange and unnecessary rescuer. I could not tell you his proper skin coloring, so caked in filth as he was. His hair also was caked with dirt and mud, though I believe it was originally black. He had a wild an untrimmed beard, that flowed jaggedly over his breast. His eyes were bright, but their color was constantly shifting, in the time that I examined him, they had already gone from blue to green to brown. He was garbed in the same flowing robes as everyone else I had seen, a pale golden color, with one important exception. This man wore no shash. This was shocking to me; everyone from the street sweepers to the administrators wore a sash of designation. On it was your name, its shade advertised your gifting and profession. Your sash told the world who you are. This man did not have one.
“But...you were drowning...” The man seemed embarrassed at my attention, and now an expression of confusion darkened his brow.
“Everyone knows that you can’t drown here, and you certainly can’t die. Death is dead, or hadn’t you heard? Now tell me quickly before I become angry, why did you disturb me? Is this some new game that the council of entertainments has invented? Or did you take it upon yourself to invent this particular type of tomfoolery?”
“I...I don’t know...” He said, drawing away, his eyes flicking around as if looking to escape me.
“You are a most curious person.” I said tilting my head to the right, “What has happened to you that you are filthy so? Do you not bathe like other men? And--” Here I leaned in and whispered, “--what in heaven has happened to your sash?”
My whispered sentence seemed not to register on him, but at the word “bathe,” his brow wrinkled and his lip curled.
“Bathe? In this water? Who’d want to hurt themselves just to be clean?”
I was thunderstruck. “Hurt? The water flows from the throne itself, and does nothing but heal! What is wrong with you? Have you been addled? Are you drunk?”
He gave a strangled cry, “There’s drink here?”
“Yes, water from the stream mixed with crushed and fermented berries.”
“Then I wouldn’t be able to drink it anyhow.” He sighed, and spoke no more, just stood there staring at me sadly. Slowly, my gaze softened. Clearly, this man was an invalid. He thought that the water burned like fire, instead of soothing like a balm. What foolishness! But if he indeed believed it to be true, he was deserving of great pity. Ideally, I could push him into the water and hope it healed him. But that would not work, because he clearly did not believe that it had the power to heal him.
“Come with me.” I said, reaching out for his hand.
-----------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
I brought this stranger to my house, stealthily making our way through the city. Well, Max was stealthy, I walked along as usual. Once or twice, a Seraphim Unit would fly overhead, and Max grabbed me and pulled me into the closest alley. The seraphim travel in units, each unit being made of three, each squad containing three units, and each legion containing three squads. They have been and always will be an army, the rigid structure that was created for them is maintained to this day.
“What are you doing!?” I demanded the first time he manhandled me into a side street.
“We have to hide, they’ll see us!” He whispered fiercely.
“But what have you done?” I asked, but he would say nothing. I became very concerned that this man was a criminal, and not merely an invalid. I hoped to Heaven that I would not be implicated in his crimes if we were arrested by the seraphim.
Finally, we reached my home, where I set him down in a chair in my kitchen, and fetched my writing things.
“Now,” I said, licking the tip of my quill before dipping it into the ink bottle, “Let us begin with your name.”
“My name?” The man said uncomprehendingly, gazing vacantly about the room.
“Not your full name obviously, I am much too impatient to wait that long. Just your short one will do.”
“My name’s Max.” He said slowly, as if he was unsure, as if his name had grown strange in his lips through lack of use.
“Max.” I mused, mulling over it. “No that is not correct.”
Now the man grew irritated, “I know what my own name is!” He snapped.
“Well, you were not too sure merely a few moments ago.” I said, trying to be patient. “Regardless, that is not your true name. I want you to tell me the name that was given you when you entered here. The one written on the sash you have forgotten to wear.”
“Well then, my name’s ‘Stop him!’”
Now it was my turn to stare blankly, “What?”
“That’s right.” Both fear and pride filled his voice in equal measure, as I looked on him with mounting horror, “I wasn’t brought into heaven, I pushed my way in.”
“What--but--that would be impos--” I spluttered, dropping my quill to the floor where it snapped in two.
“--Impossible?” He interjected, loosing a manic giggle from the depths of his throat. “But I’m still here anyway.”
Quickly, I retrieved a fresh quill from my bed chamber and prepared a sheet of paper. “Start at the beginning.”
“What do you care about me?” Max said, pulling his wild hair out of his eyes.
“Because that is my occupation, I am a wordsmith here. I am charged with revealing to others the glorious truths that are made known to us every day by Our Great Lord. I believe that he has sent you to me to be recorded, so that others may hear about your impossibility. “The Man Who Snuck Into Heaven: Unwanted and Uninvited.”
“You sure know how to make a guy feel welcome. Fine, I’ll tell you my wretched story,” He snarled, aggression claiming dominance of his features, “But I doubt it’ll help me.”
“I was a good man on earth--I was, really. Not the best maybe, but better than some of the slime balls I worked with. I was no Hitler, no murderer, no rapist.” --Here I flinched at his words, no such disgusting terms had ever been used in my house until he arrived.-- “I was a man of business, I had a fine house, a new car every several years, and a bee-yoo-ti-ful wife.”--here he had the gall to raise his eyebrows at me, the rogue!-- “I went to church, like everybody else, maybe not every week but more often than some people. I had prayed one of those prayers when I was a kid, so I figured I was covered in the religion department. But, I couldn’t stop myself from indulging in all the pleasures I could find. My wife eventually left me, my kids never visited, and I died a lonely old man with no hope. I wasn’t alive when the bowls of wrath were poured out onto humanity, but I felt it happen anyway. Like a lightning bolt, or a meteor, it ripped through me, and suddenly I could feel things again. I rose up from the ground and saw a bunch of other dead people rising up with me. The sky was torn up like a piece of paper, and the horde of seraphim swarmed across it, and they ran all over the place, gathering everybody for judgement.
“Can you imagine sitting in the crowd of all of humanity and sweating? The shades of the past whispered and chattered to each other in languages I didn’t understand. I probably would have been just fine if someone would’ve just spoken plain English. A great wail would sometimes sound from off to my right, and I knew that from that direction the judgement would come. And slowly he did come, passing through the entire human race and talking with each person individually. At the end of that talk, he would either touch their forehead with his hand or turn away and not look at ‘em again. Finally he approached me, and looked me straight in the face. I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I ran. I knew what his answer would be, and the souls he had not claimed were already being dragged screamin’ towards the pit. So I ran. I ran until I was standing before the gates of this necropolis, and pushed my way through.
“I’ve been here ever since, and them seraphim monsters continue to dog me. The water is acid, and the food is like poison, but I’m alive. I alone snuck into Heaven.”
Moments after he stopped speaking, my quill stopped its back and forth pattern across the page. I set it down and contemplated the impossible man who sat before me. Silence grew between us like a cancer, filling the room and threatening to choke us to death.
“Say something.” Max barked. “You were awfully gabby before, why so tight-lipped now?”
“I am silent because I am thoughtful.” I said, rubbing my chin, “And I am thoughtful because I cannot decide if are very mad or a very creative liar. For you must be at least one and probably both.”
Max jumped to his feet and threw his chair behind him. “I ain’t mad!”
“Your actions are not those of a sane person. And if you are not mad, you must be a very creative liar.” I said, attempting to remain calm and reasonable, “Perhaps you have come to me with a story you want written down? It is a good one, your story, I’ve not heard its like before. It is certainly worthy of recognition as a fiction, but as truth?” I shook my head and laughed merrily.
“Why?” He cried, pacing back and forth. “The gates were wide open, I decided not to sit there like an idiot and let them drag me to Hell. There isn’t a reason for my story not to be true; I’m standing right here! What more proof do you need?”
I smiled then, for a thought had struck me. “I believe I will not require any more proof.”
Max blinked. “You won’t?”
“No. I am clearly experiencing a vision, that The Lord wishes me to record for the sake of mankind.”
“No!” Max scowled, his bushy eyebrows uniting and like a train crash in the middle of his forehead, “I’m real.”
“Yes,” I replied, still smiling, “So sayeth the phantom.”
“I am not a phantom.” Max gritted, veins writhing in his neck.
“You must be,” I chuckled, “Else you would never have past the gate.”
“Why not? The doors were unguarded and wide open.”
“Because of the promise written in The Revelation.” That stopped him in his tracks.
“What promise?” He asked suspiciously.
“As clearly stated in the final book of our dear friend John, ‘Nothing unclean will ever enter, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.’ So you see,” I said smugly, “Your story cannot be true. It would be impossible.”
-----------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
For many long moments there was absolute silence. I stood up and began making tea, not saying a word. Max stared blankly at the cup that I offered him.
“Why are you giving a drink to a ghost?” He said, his eyes sad and his face pale.
“Because it is polite,” I said, handing it to him, “and because I am curious.”
“Curious? About what? I’ve told you all there is to know.” He said, lifting his drink to his mouth.
“Well,” I said, stalling until he had taken a swig, “I wanted to see if you could consume food and drink like a normal person.”--He started vomiting before I had even finished my sentence-- “And it appears that you can’t.”
Max spewed tea all over my dining table. “What is this, poison?” He gasped, desperately scrubbing at his tongue with a cloth. I was affronted.
“Poison? Certainly not. That is water from the river,....................... mixed with the finest of last year’s mint leaves and two spoonfuls of sugar. More to the point, it is my own recipe.” I added sharply.
“I told you I can’t drink your hellish water!” His statement would have been dreadfully funny had he not been so deeply serious; as it is, his statement was merely a subtle irony I would enjoy later over a biscuit.
“This is not Hell-Water,” I admonished, rescuing the cup from him, “that really would burn your throat. But tell me, what will you do now?”
“Do?” Max thundered, “I tell you what I’ll do! I’ll...well...I suppose I’ll just keep running. The seraphim are always watching for me, and the only way to keep out of their hands is to run.”
I colored slightly at his mention of the seraphim, did he perhaps suspect me? But I turned my face aside and instead said, “There is yet another reason you must be a phantom, the seraphim hunted down all of humanity and have been growing restless these past few years. None escaped them before, I doubt you will achieve it now. Especially since I imagine you are the sole occupant of their ‘enemies of the state’ list.”
Suddenly Max snapped his fingers. “There, I’ve got it! How could I have pulled you out of the water if I’m a phantom?”
I admit it freely, I was flummoxed. But I countered quickly, “If you cannot drink or touch the water as you say, how did you pull me out without being horribly burned?”
“I-” He started, and then stopped, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. “You didn’t answer my question.” He said sullenly, but his defense was gone, so I monopolized on the advantage before he could recover.
“When you drank my delicious tea merely moments ago, did it ‘burn’ you when you drank it or when you first suspected it to be from the river?”
Max said nothing, but glared at me, as if blaming me for his inability to answer.
“Your story is false.” I pronounced, trying to be kind, “But you can hardly be blamed for not knowing that you did not exist.”
-----------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
The silence was shattered in tandem with my windows (Nice windows these, I had them custom made so that they would only allow the colors of the sunset to enter my home. Sometimes I missed the splendor of the sun). My door was forced open, and Max shouted, “The seraphim! How’d they find me?”
“I called them while I was collecting mint from my storage room.” I said, unabashed.
“You did what?” He yelled, as the seraphim unit made a rapid entry into my room. From the torso up, they were made of gold, but they had seven bright blue eyes staring in all directions on their heads. From the waist down, they had nothing but flame.
“MAXWELL WHYTHER. YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND.”
Their voices spoke simultaneously, like a chorus of metal parts grinding together. Two of them surrounded Max and pinned his arms to his sides. The third gripped my arm as well.
“YOUR PRESENCE IS ALSO REQUESTED.”
“Whatever for?” I asked, “I’ve done no wrong.”
With the cryptic words, “TO BEAR WITNESS.” The seraphim marched us out into the street and toward the throne. One seraphim gripped my arm firmly, while two walked--I should say floated-- on either side of Max. His breathing was becoming increasingly erratic, and his volatile temperament looked to be showing in the flush on his face.
My home being in the southwest corner of the citadel, it took some time for us to reach the throne room, the giant building in the precise center of the city. There was no night here, but if there was, the throne room would have kept the city lit as if at midday.
As we drew ever closer to the throne room, Max started moaning and whispering, “No...I won’t do it. I won’t face him. They won’t take this from me. I’ll stop them, I’ve done it before.” Finally, he began thrashing from side to side, attempting to break free. But the seraphim took no notice and continued to drag him. His muttering and moaning became an infuriated roar, and he screamed obscenities at everything and everyone.
As a scribe, I took a literary interest in his verbal creativity; until his words began targeting me.
“This is all your fault you sick, twisted, traitor! You tricked me into saving you, and snuck me into your house, all so you could turn me in! A genius plan, though I should have suspected when I noticed you didn’t have no friends. I’ll bet your mother must’ve--” For the sake of any children who may read this, I will not continue here; know only that his descriptions grew ever more graphic and demeaning. He continued in this manner all the way up the steps and into The Throne Room itself. At that point, his roars of rage devolved into screams and shrieks of fear. And so it was that Max was literally dragged kicking and screaming before the throne.
“What in Heaven is going on?” The soft tones of the High Priest echoed throughout the chamber. Upon hearing those words, Max gave an almighty scream that sounded eerily like a kettle boiling before collapsing face first upon the floor. Truly, he had a tremendous vocal range, worthy of the heavenly choir.
The High Priest rushed to his side. “Good Lord,” He said, quite perplexed, “He seems to have fainted straight away.” He looked to the nearest seraphim and asked, “Would you revive him please?” The seraphim said nothing, but cupped his hands and dipped the bowl that they formed into the water. Too late, I realized what he was about to do.
“No my Lord! He has a most curious affliction that--” The seraphim proceeded, heedless of my cry, and poured the water down Max’s throat. Instantly, Max’s body contorted, wracked by terrible tremors. Before his eyes were even open, he was retching water onto the floor.
“I’ve told you before, I can’t drink your water!” He swore again, “Jesus Christ, can’t any of you listen?”
“Yes?” The High Priest coughed quietly behind him, “I believe you said my name.” Max turned white again, and looked longingly at the floor, no doubt hoping to faint again. Seeming to know Max’s desire, the High Priest said, “Please don’t faint again.” He circled around until he was looking Max straight in the face. “You’ve put this off for far too long.” He said to himself, then his face grew stern.
“Max!” He barked, “Look me in the eyes.”
Max’s eyes struggled to look anywhere else, but his gaze was drawn inexorably to the infinite eyes of the High Priest. “This is a very serious matter; one I’ve never had to deal with before. It is despicable that you were allowed to sneak into heaven, but that shall swiftly be remedied.”
He looked at the seraphim and commanded, “Take him to the gates.”
The seraphim bowed and said, “AS YOU WISH, SIR.” Then the whole party marched--again, I really should say that seraphim float--to the gates of Heaven.
-----------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
At the gate, Max was silent. Throughout the journey, he would occasionally open his mouth, but would inevitably close it with a sigh. He now he stood before the gates of Heaven, with tears rolling down his cheeks, all pretense of calmness completely torn away. The High Priest stood with his back to Max, looking down from heaven into the lake of fire below.
“I will now finish what I started many months ago down on earth.” He looked at Max with great solemnity, and reached out his hand.
“Maxwell Whyther. You have been charged with high treason against the kingdom, as well as personal effrontery towards several key members of said kingdom, including myself. I find you guilty, and I give you your just reward.”
Then, he placed his hand on Max’s forehead and breathed in deeply. Slowly, a great change was wrought in Max. His skin began to glow, and great clods of earth began to flake off of him. He had screwed his eyes shut before but now they were open, and I could see them shining like fire. Then with a blast, he was torn asunder.
I felt conflicting emotions as time slowed down. I was sad, for even though he had a bad temper and a limited vocabulary (except for when he was swearing), he was in general a good friend. He had “saved” me from drowning. At the same time, I felt a germ of satisfaction. Max did not belong in Heaven, he was a piece of unfinished business. Of course, I knew that Max was not dead, though he would soon wish for death.
Tentatively, I looked down from the gates of heaven, searching down below in the lake of fire.
“Where is he my Lord?” I asked, concern furrowing my brow.
“Max is gone.” He said, running his hand through his hair unconcernedly.
“But where did he go? I do not see him down below.”
“That is because you do not understand, though you did come close. ‘Nothing unclean will ever enter, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.’ You do of course remember telling that to Max?”
“Yes...” I said, struggling to remember, then I whirled around, my mind twisting and reeling. There stood Max. But he was not Max as I had previously known him, he was tamed. His beard was trimmed, this bushy hair had been cut in the current style of Heaven. “How!?” I gasped, unable to comprehend.
“Max is dead.” The High Priest, “As it should be. But this man is alive. And so, I give to him the inheritance that he deserves, for you are my brother.”
The Max-that-was-no-longer-Max looked at the robes and sash that were being offered to him and burst into tears. But he was happier than he had ever been in his life.
----------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
To this day I still have no inkling of whether this tale was a vision, or whether Max was a phantom. Certainly, he has disappeared into the citadel and I have not seen him since. But to me it matters not. This story is familiar to me, for it is my story, just as it is the story of anyone here in this celestial kingdom. The High Priest waits outside my door, he says he has a purpose for this scroll, though I know it not. So to you dear reader, whoever you are, I bid you farewell, though I know not where or when you are. Thank you for your time.
~ A Man, who was once like Max
