The Magic Flute

by J. J. Park

VISION III: HELL

  They were flying through a dark tunnel for an indeterminable time.

  “This tunnel seems to have no end.”

  Finally, Gopan grumbled, breaking the silence, and as if it was a cue, immediately their bodies changed direction downward, falling fast.

  “What is happening? Where are we going?” Karl said with fear in his voice.

  “I thought we’d be going back to Arizona,” he added in a mumble.

  “I don’t know. Something is different this time. We seem to be going from one vision to another,” Dyami answered.

  A while after, dim light from an unknown source showed the surroundings and revealed a bottomless dark gorge and sharp-edged rocks around them. It seemed that they were falling into the belly of Earth, where the sun never entered.

  “We’re surely going down to hell,” Gopan uttered in fear.

  At last, their feet touched the firm ground, but the suffocating odor of death and oppressive force drew energy out of their bodies in no time. Legs felt as heavy as lead, requiring all of their strength to take even a tiny step. All their movements became painfully slow.

  Even more, they sensed the presence of something overwhelmingly miserable and sad. Slowly surroundings became more visible, and they saw distorted and torn figures all around them. Ravenous harpy eagles ripped and devoured their flesh with a voracious appetite and endless feeding frenzy. Shrieks and screams pierced their ears.

  Shocked by the gruesome scene, they quickly turned their backs and tried to move away, but their leaden bodies barely moved.

  HEROES IN HELL

  Somehow, they managed to step away, but into the toxic smoke, despairing sighs, murmurs of regrets, and accusations:

  “If there had not been….” “It was her fault that….”

  A figure of a short man appeared through thick smoke as he moved. Mindlessly, he circled heaps of skulls, utterly self-absorbed, lost in his thoughts, and unaware of the surroundings. Overcome by the fetid air of burning flesh, he gagged and coughed.

  “He looks familiar,” Dyami said.

  “It’s Napoleon. Look at the black bicorne hat,” Gopan answered, recalling pictures he had seen.

  Napoleon was in his impeccable signature outfit, the green tunic, white breeches, black bicorne hat, and riding boots.

  “You don’t say! He, who so many people admire!” Dyami exclaimed.

  “This is a perfect example of how the masses can think and move together in the wrong direction,” Gopan said.

  When he was not coughing, Napoleon waved a red, blue, and white striped flag just as he did during his war maneuvers. He seemed to believe and expect his Grande Armée to follow him. However, there were no grenadiers, voltigeurs, fusiliers, chasseurs, and carabiniers.

  He was all alone, utterly abandoned in dismal hell, surrounded only by angry and accusing ghosts of “Inferior people” he once executed. He grumbled in French:

  ‘’Pourquoi cette merde en bas de soie m’avait trahi? Pourquoi je n’avais pas vu ça en arrivant? ‘’ [Why had this shit in the silk stocking betrayed me? Why didn’t I know this was coming?]

  He pulled his hair in regret and fury, thinking back to the betrayal of the statesman, Talleyrand,

  ‘’Pourquoi n’ai-je pas envoyé Louis-Nicolas Davout pour se battre à Waterloo?’’ [Why didn’t I send Louis-Nicolas Davout to fight in waterloo?]

  ‘’Si seulement, il n’y avait pas eu la pluie torrentielle pendant la nuit, je n’aurais pas attendu aussi longtemps pour attaquer Wellington.’’ [If only there were no torrent during the night, I would not have waited so long to attack Wellington.]

  ‘’Pourquoi ai-je envahi ce pays, la Russie, cette terre maudite?’’ [Why did I invade this accursed country, Russia?]

  Napoleon’s regret for his mistakes and bad decisions during the war was endless. The same man used to take a long hot bath sipping orange blossom tea while contemplating the unthinkable:

  “What would be the most efficient and cost-effective way to exterminate inferior people?”

  There was no relaxing long hot bath and the pleasure of sipping orange blossom tea now. Instead, the sickening odor of burning flesh suffocated him miserably. Phantoms of those “inferior people” he detested so much haunted and taunted him.

  Amid scolding accusations, the only regret Napoleon had was the painful memory of his defeat at Waterloo. He pulled his hair in fury, unable to get away from it.

  “What a sad sight!” Gopan said.

  “If people saw him now, do you think they would still revere him?” Dyami questioned.

  “The world is full of men and women with different value systems,” Gopan said.

  Karl, who had been studying Bible, recited Jeremiah 17:9:

  “The heart is deceitful above all things,

  and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

  They turned and moved away from Napoleon, but only a few steps took them to another pathetic figure. Millions of phantoms hounded him in the same way; laughing, mocking, scolding.

  “Hitler. I expected him,” Dyami commented, recognizing the distinctive mustache.

  Karl gasped. There was the man he once worshipped, in hell, surrounded by phantoms.

  “Yes, who can forget Hitler! No one would doubt that he is in hell,” Gopan said.

  “He is making a speech. Is that German?” Dyami asked Karl.

  “No, it isn’t German. I don’t know what language it is,” Karl uttered, distressed seeing Hitler.

  “It sounds more like a cock-a-doodle-doo to me,” Gopan commented.

  “I guess you are right! Look at the roosters and cackling hens around him. They seem to understand him,” Dyami said.

  Hitler gestured, attempting to make a grand oratory, looking for adoring Aryans who would salute him with

  “Heil Hitler.”

  Instead, a group of cackling hens responded to his speech.

  Aghast, Hitler raised his voice a notch higher, but only more of the Kikeriki came from his mouth. A group of roosters raised their cock-a-doodle-doos in response to Hitler’s loud cackling.

  In humiliation, he continued to walk and march around in the little space, searching for his admiring Aryan audience. He could only find phantoms of the very people he detested.

  “ I’m the Führer of the great Nazi army,” he shouted.

  “Is that you, Heinrich Himmler? Is there anyone left who’ll listen to my speech?” Hitler asked.

  He looked at Karl expectantly, believing he was the commander of the Gestapo. Karl looked away, taking a deep breath.

  “Is that you, Joachim von Ribbentrop? What is happening to me?” He called out for his close confidant, looking at Gopan.

  “Is that you, Joseph Goebbels? What happened to our beloved Aryan nation, Germany, and the German people, the superior race?” Hitler continued to pour out his delusional diatribe.

  Karl no longer worshiped Hitler since he had started reading the Bible. Nevertheless, seeing Hitler in these surroundings and circumstances deeply affected him. It was more than he could absorb at once.

  “Let’s move. Let’s leave,” Karl asked Dyami, pointing at the flute.

  They all turned around, and Dyami tried to reach the flute; however, they faced another grisly sight just a few steps away in a large cave-like structure. It was dim, but they saw movements inside.

  Suddenly, numerous cold-blooded reptiles loomed into their sight from obscurity. The snakes crawled and twisted around on bladed rocks, intertwined with one another. Sharp blades of stones cut their skin, coiling them further into even tighter grips. Heads wearing miters appeared, their faces etched in pain, grimacing in agony.

  Frightened, Dyami blew the flute, and in a flash, they were in total darkness and deafening silence. They now had no sense of direction, place, or time.

  “Oh, no! Not again,” Dyami said in despair.

  The three had experienced enough macabre visions. They desperately needed to get away from the horrifying spectacle
s. Frantic and panicky, they stumbled and fumbled in despair, trying to find a way out of the darkness.

  In the meantime, though, the positive sign, while they struggled along, was that they no longer felt the oppressive energy around them. Moreover, bodies returned to the natural state.

  Nevertheless, they could not find the way out of the darkness and continued to plod and lag in desperation until they heard; “caw, caw.” -a faint raven’s call.

  Their ears perked, and spirits lifted. So relieved, they hasted toward the cawing, finally locating a pinpoint of light far ahead. The tiny light grew more significant as they rushed toward it.

  They soon arrived at the cave entrance and saw the raven perched on the high acacia branch, just as they had left it.

  It was sundown. Bare branches looked sinister in the darkening light. They walked fast to get away from the cave and trees, which reminded them of the horrors they just left behind.

  Kuruk waited for them in the living room. He breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw Karl with them but kept his silence. While they were away in a vision quest, his mind disquieted with troubling thoughts.

  After all, how could he or anyone explain Karl’s sudden disappearance if he went back in time? His explanation of

  “Oh, he disappeared into the woods just as he had appeared one day,” would not convince anyone.

  He welcomed them all heartily.

  SELF EXAMINATION

  After these horrific visions, Dyami, Gopan, and Karl needed to unwind and digest. They convened the next day to examine what they had experienced.

  The experience had a particular impact on Karl, a different person from who he was in Germany before his transport to 21st century America.

  He now found humanity in all people. The kindness shown by Dyami and Gopan and their families had reinforced the positive change.

  He studied the Bible with the same enthusiasm and zeal he used to have for Führer and embraced the teaching with as much passion.

  “What in the world did we go through? I am still not sure why we had these experiences one after another. We wanted to go back to the forest in Germany as Karl wanted. What happened?” Gopan raised the question as soon as they sat down in the teepee.

  “I know. There must be supernatural reasons why we had those visions. Have we learned something from it?” Dyami questioned.

  “We saw the evil side of human beings and its consequences,” Karl said.

  “I am mystified why specifically we saw slave trading and Holocaust. There are many other human atrocities known and unknown,” Dyami went on with questions.

  “Perhaps these events are ingrained into human consciousness as the most extreme. It’s easy to understand why we saw Hitler and Napoleon in hell, though. How would you characterize their offenses?” Gopan expanded questions.

  “Most definitely, it was pride. Those two men were full of themselves,” Karl answered again.

  “What about the snakeheads in miters? I presume they were religious figures,” Dyami said.

  “Probably evil, corrupted Roman Popes,” Karl mumbled.

  “How would you depict slave trading?” Dyami and Gopan asked simultaneously.

  “It’s greed! It seems there is no boundary when it comes to greed for money,” Karl declared.

  Dyami and Gopan were unacquainted with materialism. As Karl explained, they understood what greed for money could do to human beings.

  They saw how and why William, who otherwise possessed some fine qualities, could carry out such a savage business. It was greed and ambition for material wealth. As a wealthy person, he could establish himself in a respectable position in his hometown.

  Dyami and Gopan saw for the first time how society at large operated.

  After the meaningful discussions, Karl returned to the sanatorium. The idea of returning to his old life was now out of the question.

  He began to think about starting a life in the new century and a new country. He thought about finding a job in the construction industry or architecture. He had studied architecture in Germany before he joined the army. It seemed reasonable to hope for it.

  He developed a good relationship with Mila, and they had a mutual admiration for each other. He envisioned his new life with Mila and Donner. There seemed a possibility of finding happiness despite the oddity of the circumstances.

  ***

  Two elders, Kuruk and Taza, summoned Dyami and Gopan to the teepee the next day. They brought their acorn tobacco pipes, filled them with Brazil roll, and lighted them. The scented smoke filled the teepee. The two elders looked pleased and ready to hear two young men’s adventures despite Taza’s poor health.

  “Well? What happened? I see Karl didn’t go back to Germany,” Kuruk remarked casually.

  “We had three visions, one after another. It was dizzying,” Dyami reported.

  “That must’ve been quite a journey,” Taza chimed in.

  Dyami and Gopan explained whole events from Liverpool to the Gold Coast, the Atlantic crossing, Holocaust, and hell. The two elders listened to them attentively without interrupting.

  “We saw horrible things that you can’t imagine. We witnessed the cruelest and the ugliest side of humanity. It’s unimaginable that anyone could do such things to other human beings. It was pure hatred,” Dyami passionately voiced his feelings about the visions.

  “My child, hatred is a poison. It will kill humanity in men and turn them into an evil monster,” Taza imparted his wisdom.

  “What else have you learned from those experiences?” Kuruk asked.

  “We saw what effects greed for money has on people. Many people will do unthinkable things for it,” Gopan answered.

  “This world is full of evil people willing to do anything for power and money. We don’t have to look far to see that. Millions of our people lost their lands and lives, deceived by greedy masters of deception and manipulation,” Taza interjected.

  “I am glad that you’re getting lessons on the nasty side of people and the world. It isn’t pleasant, but it’s important to know the world as it is. The sooner you learn it, the better,” Kuruk said.

  “But I can’t understand why God doesn’t intervene and let evil people prosper and flourish,” asked Gopan, the unanswerable.

  The two elders continued to smoke in silence. The same question haunted them for their whole lives. Finally, Kuruk broke the silence.

  “My dear boy, I wish I had a satisfying answer for you. We asked ourselves many times. The question of why evil people prosper and descent people suffer dogged us all our lives.”

  “What good is it to believe in God if he can’t or won’t help us? What good is it to pray to Him?” Gopan continued.

  “That is a very reasonable question, but I now realize that we have no control over our lives or events in our lives as creatures. The trick is not to give up and believe that God has answers for all these. His ways are not understandable to us,” Taza said.

  “There are enough good people in the world. That’s where the hope is, and you must become one of them,” Taza continued.

  “But there is so much Evil in the world. Look at our people. Many of our people live in poverty brought on by this society,” Gopan lamented.

  “We hope that you two and other young people in our community will continue your education and improve the situation,” Kuruk said hopefully.

  “It’s not that easy, Grandfather. It’s the whole system designed to keep us down,” Dyami grumbled.

  “It’s something we all must work together to improve. We must grow in our numbers and get involved in the political process. We must mobilize our people to speak out. We want you young people to become our spokespersons and advocates after finishing your education,” elder Taza said.

  “Yes, in the meantime, let’s focus on the present time. Wasn’t it an excellent idea of yours that we celebrate Thanksgiving? Didn’t we all have a good time? The more I think about it, the more I think we did the right thing. In small w
ays, you two have brought a positive change to our community,” Grandfather said proudly.

  10

  GROWING UP

  After the three visions, Dyami and Gopan felt grown-up and exhausted. When the summer break came, they abandoned themselves to their favorite summer activities, far removed from any care. They also had a lot to catch up with Chenoa and Ela. They had not been altogether for some time.

  One sunny day, Dyami and Gopan were floating in the lake after a long swim, only aware of the blue sky and cooling lake water. A few thin white cottony threads drifted in the expansion above. They expected Chenoa and Ela to join them.

  “There they are,”’ Soon, they heard them, shouting.

  “Come, join us,” Dyami called back.

  Chenoa and Ela swam out to meet them. They all floated together mindlessly before swimming back to the lakeshore. They amused themselves, splashing about and looking for trout under the water, then sat around talking, feeling content and happy together.

  These days, the question of two boys going to college preoccupied their minds.

  “Congratulations!” Ela said with much interest to Dyami.

  “Thank you, but what!” Dyami asked.

  “You know, the high SAT score,” Ela said.

  “Gopan had a higher score,” Dyami said.

  “Soon, you guys will be going to college,” Chenoa said enviously.

  “How is college application going?” Ela again asked Dyami.

  “I plan to send them out soon. What about you? Are you preparing yourself for college?” Dyami asked Ela.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were at the same college together?” Chenoa said.

  ‘’I am not sure about college. I still have time to think about it,” Ela said.

  “What’s the problem?” Dyami asked, a little alarmed and disappointed.

  “I dread leaving our cozy community and face the harsh environment out there,” Ela said.

  “I understand what you’re saying. I had the same issue, but talking to my grandfather helped me. You can always talk to us,” Dyami offered his support.

  “I am going to college. I am getting ready for it,” Chenoa said with assurance.