Some time later — if the term “time” means anything in this context — I awoke. At first I thought I had been taken captive, but I was not bound. Nor did I notice any pain, thirst or hunger. As I looked around I thought that the sun had not yet risen or that some fog had closed in. <\/p>\n
After a while I could see walls of some sort. I was in a dungeon, then, though where such a large place could be I had no idea. I stood up and walked toward the wall. As I walked I felt as if I were pushing through a mass of humanity, and yet — at first — I saw no one. <\/p>\n
Finally I touched the wall. And I was shocked to see that my hand was almost transparent; I could see the wall through my flesh, or rather, through whatever it was that remained when flesh was gone. For I suddenly knew that I was no longer a physical being. To say I was any sort of being at all seemed like an exaggeration. I was, to put it bluntly, a ghost. <\/p>\n
The Greeks believed that the body was a hindrance and that salvation lay in putting it aside and rejoining the Divine Spirit. We Romans were no such fools — if I may put it so strongly. We knew that without our bodies we were close to nothing. Not that we disbelieved in spirits, but we knew that the way to be a man was through the exercise of the power of our bodies. What is more, without a body there seemed nothing to keep the spirit intact, to prevent it from blowing away like dust into an empty nothingness. <\/p>\n
At that moment I realized that I was surrounded by other ghosts. I heard vague noises. I felt touches as other ghosts either reached out to put their hands on me or, as I perhaps had done to them, simply walked through me. <\/p>\n
I felt an intense sense of revulsion. I could no longer even claim a space of my own; I was being constantly violated by the casual and careless intrusion of others. Was this lack of a place of my own the first step toward nothingness? <\/p>\n
Then I realized that my state was worse than that — I could not even speak to the other ghosts to express my annoyance. Nor could I find suitable companions or even rude fellows with whom to while away the time. And time — I could not say how long I had been in this prison or even how long I had been awake. <\/p>\n
I shouted: “Hello! Can anyone hear me?” A faint echo was the only answer. The mere fact that I had a voice, on the other hand, was all that kept me from complete despair at that moment. <\/p>\n
Nothing I knew had prepared me for this. All the stories I had heard about death — Hades, the place of the dead; the waters that made you forget; Charon the boatman — there was nothing like that here, just interminable emptiness and the shadows of the dead too faint to hear, touch, or even really see. <\/p>\n
At this moment it occurred to me to pray. During my life I had seldom prayed. I felt that it was more my duty to serve Jove than to ask him to serve me. After all, would I have obeyed commands from my subordinates? Even requests had a certain air of insubordination about them. <\/p>\n
And yet, what would I pray for? I composed my thoughts and prayed thusly: “Lord Jove: I served Thee to the best of my ability during my life. And in this my death I ask Thee for nothing, save that Thou wouldst not abandon me. For I know that even Hades is not shut to Thy glory.” <\/p>\n
There was a brilliant flash, so bright it lit the entire dungeon and yet so brief that it seemed only an afterimage. After the flash there was pitch silence — the first true silence I had heard since I arrived here. Amidst this silence came a whisper of true hope – not a voice but a living breath from somewhere, a presence, telling me not to despair. Help was coming. <\/p>\n
I looked around and for a moment I saw many thousands of men — beyond my count — also looking around as if they, too, had heard or seen something. But then it was all gone. The gray fog closed in again and I was alone — except for that something, that whisper of presence. <\/p>\n
Strange to say, this was the worst moment since I had awakened. Because now the question was whether or not I would believe what I thought had just happened. Had I fooled myself? Was this just my own last-ditch attempt to find something I could hold on to before I drifted off into whatever happened to people after they were butchered in foolish battles? <\/p>\n
As I said, I had not often prayed to Jove. And I had prayed and — something had happened. On the other hand, it was nothing I had expected. And the whisper I still heard was nothing I had ever experienced. <\/p>\n
Then it occurred to me that there was no cost to believing. Here I was, powerless. Whatever happened to me would happen. But now I had dignity and hope. The God had touched me and spoken to me. I would hold on to what he had given me to the last possible instant. <\/p>\n
And hold on I did, for what seemed like a very long time. But again I had no way to measure the passing of time. I did not know how fast my thoughts moved. Did centuries pass while I clung to the last vestiges of myself? <\/p>\n
… To Be Continued …. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One Man’s Rescue from Hell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-serial","tag-harrowing","has-excerpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1159,"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/1159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodnews.homedns.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}