The next afternoon, while he is sipping cranberry juice through a thin straw and reading an Asian graphic novel on the balcony of his suite, our hero becomes entranced by the exposed nipples in the cheap illustration of the, slatternly-dressed American heroine of the story. As he continues to stare at the nipples of the dazzling, heroic wench, his world and the graphic novel’s world begin to blur, then spin, and finally stop just long enough to pull Tobit into the breast of the illustrated heroine and into another place.
In this other place, Tobit is unsure if what he is seeing is a dream, a vision, or reality. It is not like Earth. It is dark, immensely dense with nothingness, and, though there is no visible sun, warmer than anywhere Tobit has ever been. And in this place—this warm, mysterious land—he sees a sign, hanging oddly from below, which in flaming letters reads, “An Unbelievable Place For People With Unbelief—Greetings From Him.”
People walk in aimlessly, staring upward at the dark nothing sky, smoking peace pipes filled with bubbles, and occasionally moaning hopelessly to one another. “How beautiful it would have been—how beautiful it would have been,” one woman cries, pointing at the nothing sky until she is given the peace pipe and surrenders to the more courteous hopeless state. The people at first bother Tobit, but after watching them for several seconds, he begins confident that they are harmless and even entertaining. He starts to delight in the scene of hopelessness, finding the elderly gentlemen, who cry more frequently and speak in bitter moans, especially charming.
A tall, red-faced man with no arms, an elongated tongue that stretches just past his thin waist, and a head that wobbles wildly as he walks, approaches Tobit through the crowd of aimless sky gazers. “Hello, kind sir,” he says, extending his tongue towards Tobit for him to shake.
Tobit shakes the tongue and returns his greeting with a girlish laugh. He begins to notice the smell urine, but is not sure if it comes from the floors of the underworld place from or the armless man who seems to have befriended him. He decides to ignore it.
“My name is Atheist. I’m an atheist and this is Hell. I’ll be your guide through this place of unbelievable unbelief.”
“Thrilling,” Tobit says with a sarcastic smirk. “I’m guessing you’re not an atheist anymore!”
Atheist’s body tenses and his tongue stiffens. “As a matter of fact I am. A just God would not have created a place like this.” His eyes redden. “You will learn to watch your tongue while you’re in this place.”
Tobit nods. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really believe in God myself. I just blame him when things go wrong.” Tobit looks for an elderly man to laugh at to ease the tension of the moment, but suddenly becomes aware that the people who walk aimlessly are now gone.
“Come,” Atheist says loudly, ignoring Tobit’s comment. “I think you’ll find this place quite cozy.”
“I’m certain I will. And may I say, your presence is very warm and kind.”
Atheist’s tongue curls and he forces a grin. “You may.”
Atheist leaves, his tongue swinging carelessly and his head wobbling wildly as he walks, and Tobit watches, then runs quickly to catch up. They walk on a wide, crooked path, past fish out of water who cannot die but struggle to live, past enlightened rock stars who have been reincarnated into rocks, past a sheep who is eating the carcass of her cloned self, and past a large outlet mall with 116 stores all specializing in selling specialty items to specialty stores that don’t exist. The aimless sky gazers are at the mall, and Tobit nudges Atheist’s side and points with a goofy grin. “The depressed people are here.”
“They come to the mall every day, hoping to satisfy their material lust, but none of the specialty stores ever specializes in what they need.”
“What do they sell?” Tobit squints in curiosity, trying to see inside one of the stores.
“Mostly children’s clothes.”
“Can’t they buy them for their kids?”
“There are no children here. Kids don’t have the logic to understand unbelief.”
Tobit smiles. “I guess they’re cute that way, eh?”
Atheist does not answer.
They continue their journey on the wide path, which circles the outlet mall seven times, then becomes crooked again, and finally arrive at the first destination, a lake of eternal fire where young, naked, man and woman with “Tormented Lovers” written in blood on their foreheads, and hair growing from their eyes cry in agony from the fiery water as they use it to roast marshmallows. In the distance, the theme song of The Love Boat continuously and distortedly plays in the wrong key.. Atheist looks at the scene with great pride. “These lovers are those who take great pride in themselves. They’ll gladly roast you up a marshmallow if you’d like them to.”
Tobit shakes his head no and explains, “I just ate.” He stares at the other side of the lake where a group of large men with hockey sticks are looking intently at the burning lake. “What are they doing?” he asks, pointing.
“Waiting for hell to freeze over.”
“How funny.”
A well-tanned naked man who appears to be in deep thought wanders by. Atheist calls him over and says, “Tobit, I’d like you to meet the late, great Jim Morrison—Jim, this is Tobit Fortran.”
Tobit stares at Morrison oddly. “But Jim’s not dead. According to most websites, he shares a condo in Reno with Elvis and Diana.”
Morrison closes his eyes and inhales the poison of the atmosphere. “I’m afraid the Web is wrong, my beautiful friend—this is the end.” Morrison stares deeply into Tobit’s eyes. “Tobit, can you light my fire?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then I have no purpose being in your company any longer.”
As Morrison starts to walk away, Tobit calls after him, “Hey, Jim—I have all your MP3’s.” He does not turn around.
“Come,” Atheist commands.
They go a distance past the burning lake. The air becomes denser and hotter the further they walk. Then finally, when Tobit’s lungs can no longer draw breath, his feet are literally on fire, and his eyes begin to bulge, Atheist says, “This is the Valley of Burning Bushes.” The Valley of Burning Bushes is not a valley and contains no burning bushes. It is a giant upside down temple of eastern architecture.
Tobit tries to look at it, but becomes faint from the lack of air and the unbearable heat. He collapses backwards, falling onto Atheist’s tongue.
Atheist tells the air around Tobit to release him, and the heat to cool him. He explains, as Tobit tries to regain strength, “The name is meant to deceive people—this is where people come to worship.”
“Who do they worship?” Tobit asks weakly.
“They worship no one. They just worship. They believe that with enough discipline to their worship they will be able to escape their torment.” Atheist smiles at an old woman whose brain is sticking out through her ears, and who is praying to nothing. Then he points with his tongue at a skinny cow drinking urine. “That’s George Harrison—he was reincarnated into a sacred cow.”
“Really?”
Atheist nods, “It’s a great honor to be reincarnated into a cow, you know?”
“He was a good person. He had it coming.”
Atheist nods. “All the crap he took from John and the other guys was enough to get him reincarnated into a pig, but he went beyond that and did well for others, so he became a cow.”
“That’s a great story.”
Atheist nods. “Come.”
They leave the temple and pass through a chain-link fence that stretches for several miles. The path becomes straighter past the chain-link fence. Further on there are signs, periodically, of plant life. “I don’t mean to complain, Atheist, but this part of the tour is kind of boring. I liked the other place better.”
Atheist continues walking.
Finally he stops and announces, “This is The Place of Dry Bones. It is cooler here, and is not at all like the rest of the underworld. Thousands of years ago the souls of several people who lived here suddenly disappeared with a man named Redeemer, and only their bodies are left. Legend tells us that they are the ones who reached nirvana and are no more. Old ladies come here now to get their soup bones.”
“Interesting.” Tobit notices that this looks more like Earth than any other part of the underworld. “Why don’t more people come here? It’s not very entertaining, but it seems very lovely.”
“Because we’re uncomfortable here,” Atheist says bitterly. “For many years, only a few people came. They were all odd. We believe that it was only through their meditation that they were able to withstand the coolness. It’s different now, so everyone can come, but we don’t like to because then we become sad knowing that it was the freaks that reached nirvana, and we know that we can never match their freaky state. It’s awful.”
“I would like to have seen them. I bet they were silly to watch.”
Atheist looks at the valley. “They were annoying little pricks. You would have hated them.”
Tobit softly giggles to himself.
“Come,” Atheist commands.
They leave the Place of Dry Bones and continue on the path, which has become wide and crooked again. “This place is certainly more thrilling,” Tobit comments as they travel into a land where microchips, RAM, and motherboards have replaced rocks and twigs.
Atheist, stretches his tongue towards the dry land full of wires, cables, glass, and deformed metal objects, and says, “This is called ‘The Land of Things Not Yet Come, But that Will Be Here, God Willing, Shortly.’ It’s kind of like our own neat little version of the House of Tomorrow.”
Tobit surveys the land. It looks like a forgotten battlefield. In the distance is abandoned weaponry, skulls, and rivers that Atheist tells are made from tears. Beyond the rivers, Tobit can just make out a large pit of burning books. Mysteriously floating above the pit is a digital clock that reads “Are You Ready?” and is counting backwards. Tobit comments, “Its future looks a little dim.”
“Oh no, it’s really quite grand. There’s going to be a swimming pool with falling TVs where people can go and get electrocuted while swimming—that will be neat. And there’ll be this nifty little place where people can look at burning computers and reminisce about the good times while their hands and feet are dipped in our own equivalent to liquid nitrogen. There’s even talk of there being a man with a flaming erect penis, but that would be more of a tourist attraction for the ladies.”
Tobit’s face expresses a childlike joy as he imagines the House of Tomorrow. “When will it open?”
“Oh, it’s still a ways down the road. The planning committee is still making arrangements. I can have a brochure sent out when it’s closer to being open—maybe you can even have your name put on the waiting list so you can live here one day.”
“Thanks—that would be swell. I just know my son would like this place. I’d like to take him.”
A man skips past them, pausing to say with joy, “I just finished my dissertation—I discovered what the sin unto dead is!”
“Come,” Atheist commands. “We still have one more place.”
“Is there a place better than this?”
Atheist begins walking, refusing to answer.
Not far from the House of Tomorrow they begin a long ascent down a mountain; the mountains are reversed in this land—to get up they must climb down the steep, wide path.
Tobit realizes that the magnetic poles of this strange universe are reversed; everything is upside down. Though it appears that he is descending, each step for Tobit is like a steep climb up, and he is quickly winded. The blood rushes to his head as he deepens his reflections, and he sees that the only way to change this is to walk on his head. He bends over, and watches, head between his legs, as Atheist climbs quickly down. He wonders which way the toilet would flush. Breathless, Tobit jogs to catch up with Atheist.
At the summit of the upside down mountain, Atheist pauses and they overlook the life below. Demons, some carrying souls, flying joyously in and out of a bright burning sphere. Hundreds of people are worshiping the sphere, chanting like monks in a foreign tongue. The heat brushes against Tobit, though he is at distance from it.
“Is that some sort of meteor?” Tobit asks, suddenly wanting to worship the sphere.
Atheist shakes his head no. “That’s him—that’s The One.”
“It just looks like a burning rock.”
Atheist nods, “The One can look like many things.”
“This whole experiences has been so thrilling.”
They stand for several minutes watching the power of The One. Finally Atheist breaks the silence. “It is time for me to reveal your true nature, Tobit Fortran.”
“My true nature?”
“Your true nature.”
“Okay.”
“At your conception, the gods put a disk that contained the abstract reasoning of the World Wide Web between your baby butt cheeks. Your mother sold that disk some time ago to Tim Berners-Lee, who claimed to invent the Web.”
Tobit begins to feel lightheaded and bends over, staring oddly at Atheist from between his legs. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“No joke.”
“This is super-duper. I knew I was godly, but the Web thingie is new.” Tobit starts to laugh loudly.
Atheist nudges him.
“What?”
He points to the burning sphere.
Tobit stares at the sphere and realizes he’s acting foolish in the presence of The One.
They both stand quietly in the presences of The One, watching hypnotically the entering and exiting of demons and envying its power.
“There’s one thing that confuses me though,” Tobit says, ending the silence.
Atheist motions his tongue for him to say it.
“If you admit I’m a god, doesn’t that mean you’re admitting to some kind of divine reality and you are not really an atheist?”
Atheist rolls his eyes and lets out a long sigh. “Would you lay off it? What are you, some sort of evangelist now? Just because you’re a god, that doesn’t mean anything.”
“You don’t need to get snippy. I was just wondering is all.”
“See all those people?” He points his tongue at a large group of people not far from the burning spheres who are taking turns knocking a door. “Those are Mormons—they’re gods too.” He looks at Tobit, who looks hurt, and says, “I didn’t mean to make you feel common—don’t worry, you have more followers.”
“Cool,” Tobit laughs quietly. “Or is the proper slang ‘hot’ down here?”
“You must leave now.”
“Leave?”
And suddenly our hero is no longer in the heated underland, nor is he sitting on the balcony where he originally left his earthly state. Rather, either by ironic twist or bizarre joke, he is lying naked on his belly in a large heart-shaped bathtub surround by scented burning candles. Drawing back the shower curtain, Tobit sees Mark Burnett hunched over the toilet reading a Swedish culture magazine, and immediately the romantic interlude that could have followed waking up in a heart-shaped bathtub surrounded by scented candles perishes.
“Trying to crap in here, Toby,” Burnett says, pulling back the shower curtain.
“Sorry.”
“So is this about the wife?”
“Wife?” Tobit thinks, then remembers that at the dress rehearsal that morning for the Cyber Death™, Burnet decided that Aphrodite and Pascal weren’t going to be very impressive, so he brought in an Amsterdam whore and a Pakistani girl to play their parts for the death. They will still be allowed to sit in the front row, but the camera will not show them. “No, it’s not about her,” Tobit finally says. “She’ll be okay. And she’s not mad at me—you made the call.”
“Right, right. So what brings you to my shower then?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Last I remember I was reading an Asian graphic novel on my balcony, then I…” He pauses and decides he will not tell Burnett about what happened because he won’t understand. I like Burnett, don’t get me wrong here, but he isn’t very kind and it’s rare that he takes on a passive role in any conversation. “I don’t know how I got here.”
“Do you see chimpanzees humping pink zebras?”
Our hero looks around the bathtub. “No—not in here anyway.”
- “You look like a liquored-up Asian boy on Chinese New Year in the company of three Russian whores—you sure you aren’t seeing chimps?”
“I don’t think so.”
Burnett hands Tobit a bathrobe, which Tobit quickly wraps around himself. “Looks like you’ve once again managed to create a very strange predicament for the both of us.” Burnett pauses and stares at a candle, “So…”
“So…”
“Guess you better get yourself home. I think you need some serious R and R. And besides that it’s late.”
Tobit nods. But he has never felt so refreshed. “What time is it?”
“Almost eleven.”
“Strange,” Tobit says to himself, realizing that a moment in the underland is like an hour on Earth.
Burnett walks Tobit to the door, then leaves him to reflect further about his visit to the hellish place. In the hall, Tobit walks in tight circles trying to figure out what it all meant, not just the underland but everything. But he finally gives up this hopeless pursuit and returns to his own suite to watch television, which our hero finds to be a form of relaxation that has many times led him to his deepest thoughts (once, while watching a TV movie about a man who begins a cloning ranch and trains the clones become circus performers, Tobit began to wonder if question might be questions raised about the process of making a clone, and he remained thinking, ever more deeply at commercial pauses, about this issue almost until the movie ended—but this really is another story).
Reclining on the couch, our hero notices that his feet are badly blistered and burned, but does not think anything of it because he has already turned the TV on. Tom Chokeoff, a popular American reporter, is covering the pre-death festivities of our hero live in Sweden. He reports that he has not reported a death this great since Princess Diana’s, which, in his own expert journalist opinion, was nothing compared to the turnout and coverage of Tobit’s death. Thousands have gathered at the unveiling of a statue of a computer monitor displaying the image of Tobit. People have put candles around it and they pray. One father Chokeoff interviews says he and his family will make an annual pilgrimage to the sites. Hundreds of others make similar comments. Many hope to be able to copy Tobit’s death.
The report flashes to a warehouse downtown where there is a two-hour wait to see a scanned picture of a Xerox photo of our hero that Father Aquila has blessed and put on public display. Father Aquila himself has said in an email interview that after Tobit’s death a mural of Tobit will be painted on the floor of the main sanctuary. He has also announced he will start performing cyber baptisms for a nominal fee.
After a quick sponsor break, Chokeoff returns with a report about the hundreds of vendors who have lined the streets selling hats, sweaters, T-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers that say, “I saw Tobit Fortran’s Cyber Death™ :-).” A Spanish street vendor with a heavy German accent is quoted says, “Because of the sacrifices Tobit made, I can now feed my wife and five small children—he died for good cause and I think he is saint.”
Chokeoff then interviews a young unnamed American computer programmer who has flown in for the festivities. Tobit immediately recognizes the nameless programmer as the teen from the airport, and is pleased he’s had the courage to leave his hotel room. “Why do you want to be here? What is it that makes you want to see the death?”
The nameless teen programmer laughs. “Because that’s us—his death represents the birth of my generation. Tobit’s a saint…a martyr. I just want to be a part of it. One day my kids are going to be doing an essay on this, and I’m going to be able to say I was there—I experienced it.”
“There has been some controversy from a few minority groups of so-called ‘Christians’ that say this death is unethical and that supporters of Tobit Fortran’s death are supporters of murder. What do you say to that?”
The nameless teen programmer thinks hard, then replies in an enlightened tone, “I say Jesus death was unethical, so they can just go piss on themselves.”
“Well said,” Chokeoff says quietly, and thanks him for his time. Next there is a special report about the Guggles. The lead singer has announced they will rerecord Internet Killed the Video Star with the altered lyrics and sell it exclusively on the Web as an MP3. All proceeds would go to the Start-up Foundation (a nonprofit organization for underprivileged children who cannot afford domain names and Web-authoring tools). He has also announced that they will never play the song again, unless the family asks them to do so. You’ve really just got to love that lead singer—he’s such a humanitarian.
The report ends with Chokeoff describing some of the more popular of thousands of Tobit Fortran fan websites and also makes mention of the hundreds of so-called “copycats” who also want cyber death. One man (he was from Maine) shot himself in the head and blew his brains out, but the lighting was all wrong, and the few who saw it (the marketing was also poor, like the lighting) complained of the lack of quality and of originality.
The special report ends and the regular newscast returns with a breaking news story reported by a reporter who had himself once been breaking news once after having sexual relations with the wife of a former president. He announces that an Muslim has barricaded himself in a Swedish children’s hospital with a bomb strapped to his chest and is threatening to blow himself and the hospital up to awaken people to the millions persecuted by extremist groups in the Middle East.
The news begins to bore Tobit, and he turns it off to start thinking about what his last words will be. He had planned on saying, “A world without anti-Semitism is a world that lacks power,” but he decides on “coffee bean,” his second choice, after a short debate with himself.
He scribbles the two words on a piece of paper so he won’t forget them and starts to bed. As he walks past Pascal’s room, he notices that the door is cracked, and he peeks inside. Pascal’s eyes are closed, but he is typing. Our hero steps closer and watches Pascal. He’s at a search engine and is typing into the search field, “Thank you for this day…for my best friends DkyIky27, JoeNbdy11111111, + JavaSrpt18. Keep me safe & teach me your ways. Amen.” He opens his eyes and clicks search, then quickly closes the browser before it is able to return any results. He stares at the screen with blank resolution for several seconds, stretches, and turns, startled to see his father.
“Just came in to say good night.” Tobit explains.
Pascal nods, satisfied, then writes quickly into the palmtop and holds it up. “I learned a new programming language today.”
“Yeah?”
Pascal nods and writes, “I read about it online, then wrote a little program to see how it works.”
“I sure am proud of you, Pascal—not just for that, but for everything.”
Pascal smiles.
Tobit smiles.
“Is this a father-son moment?” Pascal writes into his palmtop.
Tobit ponders. “I think it just might be.” He hugs Pascal quickly. “Good night, son.” As he walks away, a voice says, “Good night, Dad.”
When Tobit turns around, Pascal is holding his palmtop, which reads, “Gotcha, Dad! I taught my palmtop to speak! I used my new programming language to do it. Isn’t it neat?”
Our hero giggles. “It sure is.” Outside, he crosses his arms and reflects on how great it is to be the father to such a smart, well-grounded little boy.
He goes into the bedroom, where Aphrodite is awake and starring out the window. He decides he will not tell her about the place he went to earlier, because she’s still upset and jealous about Tobit being a god.
He tells Aphrodite about his dying words, but she does not want to hear them. She is upset about being replaced at the death.
“It’s just isn’t fair,” she complains.
Tobit kisses her cheek and says sweetly, “Maybe he’ll change his mind when he sees you at my death.”
Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Whatever happens, I just have to say—this was one hell of a chapter.
Yours truly,
The Narrator