when Jupiter
exalts a change in season
and the days drag
on in the heat that lasts long into the night,
when the rolling
hills look to the sun
to make the image
of its surface on their faces –
his image soon
makes bare earth of fertile fields –
the men of
country will look to the heavy blue sky
and point to the
faintest wisp of cloud
knowing a storm
will soon be upon them
discerning the
hint of grey, they hurry back indoors –
how they grumble
at all the things they meant to do with this time! –
to wait out the
still hidden storm.
What science they
practice on those blue skies
eludes those men
who do not breath the air beneath them.
Indeed, soon the
dark clouds roll across the horizon,
accompanied by
the roar of lightning,
to douse the land
and mark the rise of a water sign,
only to leave as
quickly as it sprung upon the country.
In such a way was
my master’s face darkened
by the words of
those heavy, gilded men as I followed
his esteemed
footsteps in the direction of the next along our route.
As we walked, a
sound accosted my ears
like the great
lungs of a giant
sighing as though
afflicted with a grave sadness.
And I said to my
leader: “Master, what is the source
of this noise so
different from the other sounds of Hell?”
Thus he said to
me: “Wait, and you will see.”
Surmounting the
ridge, a sight met my eyes
unlike any I had
yet seen
on this infernal
voyage.
We came upon a
massive kettle lake
with acrid,
saline steam rising from it’s roiling surface.
In this vast sea,
we saw new faces both grinning and sobbing.
The swimmers
tossed upon the boiling waves
pulled down by an
unseen force, as if they fainted
when they reached
the surface.
Tears streamed
from the eyes of some,
feeding the waters
so that their level did not diminish
in spite of the
steam that rubbed raw the faces of my master and I.
Others were
forced into a grotesque grin
by the devils
flying above who caught their cheeks in their hooked hands
and tore them,
sharpening the water with their blood.
“Master,” I
asked, “what souls are here cooked?
What have they
done to make cry and sigh so?
And what sin have
those who are forced to grin committed?”
“These are those
who in life who, either with tears or smiling,
forced others to
their will by feigning sacrifice.
The ones who grin
are those who cheerfully gave others the knife
asking them to
attack and by doing so forced them not to.
The ones who cry
are those who sacrificed with sighs and fainting,
who by doing so
seemed pathetic and beguiled the pity of their friends.”
As my master
explained, one sinner found her way to the bank
reaching for my
hem as tears made her eyes
into a picture of
the place in which she was punished.
A rasping sigh
escaped her mouth, like the hiss of a serpent.
as she was pulled
back by an unseen power, I kicked away her hands and
the long tendrils
of her hair continue the quest of her hands from moments ago.
“Can we not speak
to these sinners?” I asked my guide.
“They cannot
speak to us. They are deprived of the
thing by which they
defrauded those
who loved them, leaving them only to sigh as you see they do.”
Anonymous and
disfigured as these condemned souls were,
I could not
discern a face among the many;
nor could I
discern station, family, or profession.
“Is there any you
can pick out?” I pleaded to my master
“There are so
many, surely you know one.”
Said he: “I will
try, as you say there are many and they dart in and out of view”
As he scanned the
seething multitudes,
one was pulled by
the left cheek into the air,
just as quickly,
she flailing and bloodied returned to the waters.
“That!” cried my
master “did you see she who fell so recently?
She was one who
played her games on her children,
so that they
could not tell her suffering from that of St. Perpetua or St. Felicitas.
‘Cheerfully, she
told her children of her burdens
describing her
sacrifice in detail that she made for her joys.
As they cried for
her, she opened her arms and bathed in their tears.
‘Here, she bathes
in true suffering. Condemned
to wear that
smile for eternity. The same one she
flashed before her cult
she now has
carved into her cheeks by the devils here.”
“That one whose
hair reached out like a thousand hands behind her,
I believe I
recognize her. Know you her story?”
I asked, watching
in dread of her return.
“I did not see
her, but I know the one you describe.
She was a false
friend to many who cared deeply for her.
She deceived
them, giving them the knife and the power to dig it in.
‘She refused to
express her desires, instead coding her meaning and leaving it to be found
and was
disappointed when no one cared to find it.
She played upon
the hearts of her friends, and caused them great pain.”
“I am glad, then,
that I kicked her away.”
I responded,
turning my eyes from the pool,
“I have known too
many like her that I do not want to meet another.”
At this my guide
smiled, the darkness long banished from his visage.
“Come,” he said
“we have many more to see,
these here do not
merit any more of our concern.”
The descent to
the next pocket was not one for those weakened
either by sin or
by boiling. I clambered down the ridge,
leaving those
souls who overburden themselves
following the path
beat before me by pious heroes and by my esteemed master.
