I pause for a minute, finishing up my fried cake.
The fighting medieval one’s name is Sanders Sword Sunblanket, or S.S.S., also a friend of Cecil’s and is considered one of the better swordsmen here. Much better than Cecil. However, he thinks very highly of himself, BIG ego here, so BIG that he thought he could beat a krellian. Seeing a krellian now, he doesn’t think the same way.
“So you think we’re going to oblivion?” I ask.
Sanders runs around to the krellian’s front. Then he goes behind him again. Then to the front. Circling the stickman — motionless man, does not move, like a mantis, waiting for the man to strike, waiting to make its own strike.
“Of course,” Christian says, his eyes not leaving the fight for a second. “Unless the walm is destroyed, it will get us eventually. There’s only so many souls we can steal before our own souls are stolen, only so much. We’ll prolong the inevitable, and that’s okay. But someday, probably soon, we’re going to be emotionless, just like our parents.”
“You don’t seem too worried.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I’d rather keep my soul, but if it happens, it happens.”
“But your soul is the most important part of you. Satan’s right about that. Without it, you’re absolutely nothing, a zombie, a flesh machine. And oblivion is the worst place you can ever go. Everything you ever did will be forgotten. You’ll have no future, no present, no past, no consciousness, nothing.”
“It’s still not that important,” Christian says. “Going into nothingness isn’t something you should worry about. If anything, it should be a worry-reliever. Your struggles, uneasiness, fears, bad times are all uplifted, erased. It’s the only true peace. It is like sleep without dreams, forever.”
I argue with Christian because I choose to fight oblivion as Satan does. Oblivion is the only enemy I have and I will not let it win. I think there is still hope for my soul. Maybe the walm will go away in time, or maybe I will be working with Satan forever. Either way, I will never give up, and never go into oblivion.
Sanders thinks about attacking. This thought is such a strong thought that it reaches the krellian’s mind, and the krellian thinks that Sanders is really trying to attack him. So he swings around and clubs the man in his forehead. Sanders completely startled by the stickman moving. And he is more startled by the movement than by his skull being broken indoors, and the blood tickling down his cheek and neck.
“Well, why don’t you go there now?” I ask him. “Without a past or present in your future, why live your life at all? Everything you’re doing here is going to be for nothing.”
“On your way to oblivion,” he says, “always take the scenic route.”
Christian smiles, watching the medieval one’s body as it is hauled away, trailing some roasty hot red, and a chunk of hard white…
Scene 9
The Trouble with Music
Rippington is facing an overpopulation crisis today. Word got out through the walm about the festival of war, which most races have heard is the greatest and most violent entertainment in the universe, and hundreds upon hundreds of people are piling into this (my) city every hour. And Satan speculates that all of these beings will take up permanent residence in this (my) world and so will not be returning through the walm.
I’m not positive how overpopulation is going to affect Rippington. There might not be enough food and water to support so many people; everyone is going to suffer. But I’m only afraid for my own suffering, selfish thing that I am, especially because I’m afraid of being inside of a large crowd. I am not normally claustrophobic. Being inside of a closet or a tiny room or a coffin doesn’t scare me, but inside of a crowded room or a crowded party puts me into a tornado-like panic. I’m not good with people other than my friends. People that go near me make me uncomfortable; they steal my air before I get a chance to breathe it.
This overpopulation is good for business though. All of Satan Burger is filled with beings on their way to the festival of war, getting some food for the long-long walk across town. And everybody has a soul to sell for a deep-fried grease-filled Satan Burger. I always have to explain to the customers what a Satan Burger is. I tell them, “It’s deep-fried in animal fat, which makes it crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. And remember, they’re only two for the price of one.”
It is twilight now, but the outside still looks like morning.
I am working the register while Mort and Christian cook. All of us have to where a uniform of red shirts with red hats, and the hats have tiny red horns on the top, to make us seem more satanic.
The line is very dragging and I am the only person managing it. The register is rolling in my rolling vision, making it hard to find the right keys, swirl-whirling off the counter. I hear many complaints in many different languages — complaints that I’m not moving fast enough I’m sure. I go out of my body and into the line to see how I look: I am like a confused old man, hitting only one register key each minute, drugged up in a daze. I find it funny that everyone is so impatient to lose their souls.
Since nobody pays in money, you’d figure there would be no reason for a register — that’s what I was thinking yesterday and why I agreed to work the counter. But the register is used as a typewriter that writes down each customer’s order, and prints it up for the customer to sign. The signature is an approval for Satan to take the soul away from the customer after the soul leaves the body.
The customers are willing to trade their immortal souls for food. True, it’s the best tasting food ever created — so they say — but I wouldn’t trade my soul for anything. They do not know, however, know that they are to lose their souls immediately. Most of them think that they will go to hell after they die, which they don’t think is bad because dying doesn’t exist here anymore. But that’s not the way it works. Satan Burgers are so good that they make your soul lighter than air, and it floats out of your body and flies around the room.
Right now, Satan is chasing souls around the dining area, scooping them up with butterfly nets, placing them inside of a little tupperware container that says, in BIG black magic marker letters: H E L L
When a soul leaves a being, the being’s consciousness doesn’t completely leave with the soul, some of it stays with the corpse. The consciousness is made up of memories, thoughts, and emotions. After the soul leaves, the body keeps a little bit from each of these things. It gets the soul resin — the only energy that the majority of people have inside of them now. You can go on living with soul resin, but it won’t be any fun. The only real point to living when you’re in the soul resin state is to keep on living.
Before, when there were still gates open in heaven, when people were allowed to die, dead corpses would have soul resin still inside of them, left behind. Sure this resin would be useless, because the body doesn’t move anymore, but it could still be sensed by certain individuals that were born with the ability to sense creatures from the afterlife dimension.
Now that people can’t die, there are all kinds of undead beings drifting about, just like Gin. They are only undead because they still have their life-force. If something like the walm takes away their souls, they will no longer be undead. Their soul will go to oblivion and their zombie body will only have soul resin. And when a zombie has nothing but resin for a soul, it thinks: “The only real point to living is to keep on living. But since my corpse has no life to keep on living, I must go to my grave and fall into a deep, dark sleep.”