Within the Walls of Hell

by Taniform Martin Wanki

  Sandi: (Remains silent staring at the messenger)

  Messenger: Instead of using religion to unite people, you used it to bring separation among them calling some holy people and others pagans and infidels. As far as the institution of marriage is concerned, religion, social status, race, origin and financial conditions are not supposed to be an issue. My master blesses any marriage so long as there is love, honesty, sincerity, dedication and respect of the rule laid down by my master and not your spiritual leader.

  Sandi: You seem to be against all what my spiritual leader preached and stood for.

  Messenger: I’m not the one who is against it but my master. Now tell me, do you think our creator was pleased with your actions?

  Sandi: (with a smile) Of course and he is supposed to reward me by crowning me a martyr and surrounding me with many virgins for my pleasure. So, when are you taking me to Him? I’m itchy to get out of this place. It does not resemble one bit the one my spiritual leader talked about. He painted a picture of a golden city with our creator sitting on a throne with many servants around Him. I don’t think the place is as hot as this one. Please take me there.

  Messenger: Have you forgotten so soon? Remember I told you that once you get in here, you never get out again. Well, I’m sorry to inform you that there will be neither a crown nor virgins for you.

  Sandi: (smile dries up. looks very worried) .Why do you say that? You are not the Creator, are you?

  Messenger: I’m not the creator. I am His messenger. He sent me here to point out your mistakes if you feel that you have no reason to be in here. If He preferred that you come here, it is because He did not approve of your actions down there. He wanted Everyman to do just ten things to make Him happy. His fifth command was that no man was allowed to take a life. By killing so many people and taking your own life, you went against that fifth command which made my master very unhappy. That is not all, by taking your own life; you deprived your son of a father and your wife of a husband. That child and wife were beautiful flowers in my master’s garden and your job was to take care of them to grow. Instead of being a father and husband or the gardener, you abandoned it and were doing what you were not assigned to do. By breaking up marriages in the name of religion, you destroyed the foundation on which my master’s holy family was to be built.

  Sandi: Please wait, wait, wait! Are you trying to make me understand that I sacrificed myself for nothing?

  Messenger: If you had died in the course of trying to save someone from armed robbers, a wild animal, a ruthless government system, a collapsing building, an oncoming vehicle, that would have been a worthy and noble sacrifice. Your kind of sacrifice was motivated by pride, revenge and the glorification you would get from men. You do not turn houses of prayer into blood baths and you call it a sacrifice. My master was not anywhere in that picture.

  Sandi: What are you telling me? Does it mean that my spiritual leader lied to me and many others?

  Messenger: I’m afraid he did not only lie to you but he equally misled you.

  Sandi: (Unable to stand on his feet) Iif my spiritual leader lied, he should be the one to be punished and not me, right? I was only following instructions.

  Messenger: Well, that is the reason why my master endowed each and Everyman with a brain. If you were mentally impaired, that would have been a different story. You had the choice either to use your head and spare the lives of your victims or not to use your head and follow blindly the instructions of your spiritual leader. You decided to follow his instructions to the latter. You called some of your comrades who took their own lives in a huge explosion alongside the lives of thousands of innocent people as martyrs. You sent congratulatory messages to encourage your other comrades who tried to kill thousands but were unfortunate to have been stopped. You called them heroes and used your tongue to motivate the young and gullible minds to join your ranks. That praise for carnage was very disheartening to my master. Converting people through the use of force was wrong. Using explosives to destroy the prayer houses was wrong. In many parts of the world even right now, some of your comrades are still burning houses of prayer belonging to their brothers whom they consider as enemies. They kill thousands in the process. Let me tell you that all those still indulging in such horrible acts would atone for their actions when they leave that world. Landing here is the outcome of your actions while you were down there.

  Sandi: So what is this place?

  Messenger: It is called the Land Of Eternal Discomfort. If you will excuse me, there is someone who would be knocking on that gate soon.

  Sandi: (Stops the messenger as he tries to leave) Please wait, I would want to give that spiritual leader the beatings of his life. You would direct him into this place when he comes, right?

  Messenger: I am not the one to direct him here. Where he goes from there depends on him. If towards the end of his days down there he regrets his actions and begs sincerely for forgiveness, our Creator can forgive and take him in. Our creator is very merciful when you ask for forgiveness from the bottom of your heart. But you must do that down there and not here. If you had made good use of the brain our creator endowed you with, maybe you wouldn’t have been here.

  Sandi: (surprise) what!!! Our creator would take him in if he regrets his actions and begs for forgiveness sincerely? After all what he has done? I can’t believe it.

  Messenger: Oh yes… that is what it is. To you and your brothers down there, once someone has been brandished a criminal, he ceases to be human. He becomes a subhuman or worse still, reduced to an animal stripped of every dignity. He is discriminated upon in all aspects. My master looks at things from a different angle. When He gives sunshine, its rays touch everybody. When He gives rain, it falls on the roof of each and everyone without exception, whether good or bad. That is to tell you that my master’s ways are not the ways of man. He does not want any of his sheep to be lost.

  Sandi: (Heart broken and full of regrets) why was our Creator so dormant? I did all those things which I’ve now realized were terrible in his name and he just sat there watching. Why didn’t he do something to stop me?

  Messenger: It is not true that he just sat there watching. He did indeed try to stop you.

  Sandi: How?

  Messenger: Through your son who kept running after you and crying not to go out each time you had to go and carry out your spiritual leader’s orders…. Through your wife who cried most nights complaining of your neglect…. Through your friends and relatives who tried in vain to advice and to talk you out of what you were doing…. And even through your late mother who came to you in your dreams pleading with you to be her once good son again by doing what was right. That is how my master tried to stop you.

  Sandi: Can I have some water?

  Messenger: You saw already that the tap isn’t flowing and I don’t know when it will. You just have to be patient.

  Exit messenger

  Sandi: (jumps out of the hot room. Watches messenger as he walks towards the gate. Sees messenger go through the gate without opening it. Falls to the ground).

  Curtain

  Act 2 Sc 1

  This scene opens with the Messenger leading the new comer in.

  Stone: Where are you taking me to?

  Messenger: I’m taking you to your room.

  Stone: (Looks at the surroundings. Sees the dusty floors, broken windows and doors and collapsing walls) oooh no! This place is not good for me. Even a prisoner would not like this place. What’s worse, the place is unnecessarily hot. I’m going back. (Starts walking back towards the gate. Messenger does not try to stop him. Gets to the gate and tries to push it open. It doesn’t open. Takes a few meters backward with the intention of using his body as a weapon to knock open the gate. First and second attempts fail. Gives up and walks back to where he left the messenger who is now in the company of Sandi).

  Stone: The gate didn’t open.
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  Messenger: I noticed.

  Stone: And you didn’t come to help me open it?

  Sandi: That gate only opens to let people in. Once in here, you can never get out again. That’s what I was told when I got here.

  Stone: (Looks at the Messenger)

  Messenger: What he has said is right. Now can we go and see your room?

  (With no other word, all three head to the room next to the one given to Sandi. Inside, there is a broken couch with the materials on it torn and old. There is an air conditioner which does not work and is covered by rust. The floor is dusty and untidy).

  Stone: (Not happy with what he is seeing). Before I came here, I lived in a big mansion which was all covered with tiles. There were many servants to clean it. No grain of dust could be seen. If I saw any trace, the servant who was supposed to be in charge was immediately fired. The chairs in my sitting room were first class. (With disgust) look at what you have here….a single couch which is old and torn. (To the Messenger) Why did you direct me in here when you knew quite well that your furniture was not up to date?

  Messenger: When you were born, you were born with nothing and in the course of your life, you amassed a lot but when you died, you took along nothing. You entered here with nothing and you should be contented that you even have a torn, old couch. You’ve done nothing to earn it. I think you should really count yourself lucky.

  Stone: Did I hear you mention the word lucky? I don’t think somebody should be talking about luck in this hole which is not good even for a rat. I had lived through life and have a taste of nice things. I know what is nice and what’s not. This place is not nice. It sucks totally and completely.

  Messenger: Well, the choice was yours. You were told when you were growing up that there were two places you go to when you die. The good place was called Land of Eternal Happiness and the other one was called Land of Eternal Discomfort. You were seriously warned about the latter but where you go after you leave that place below your feet depends only on you.

  Stone: I’m just from telling you that I was living like a king down there and knew the taste of good things. I wouldn’t have possibly chosen this place. It sucks. No man in his right senses would choose a place like this. If at all I chose this place, I must have certainly been drunk.

  Messenger: That is not true. You were not drunk at all. You were in your right frame of mind when you decided to come here. All those who have come here keep claiming they never chose this place. Instead, they accuse me of directing them here. It’s true that no man in his right senses would choose a place like this one but each and everyone is the driver of his or her own life.

  Stone: (To messenger) What are you doing here? Did you decide as well to come here?

  Messenger: I am a messenger. I was sent here to take care of some people who might be contesting their presence in this place.

  Stone: He who sent you did the right thing. I am one of those who can’t remember the day, time or year I decided to come to this filthy place. If you can refresh my memory, I would be really grateful.

  Messenger: Well, let me begin with a phrase somebody you knew very well made. He said “All Men Are Born Equal.” By implication it means that all human beings must be treated fairly without prejudice of any sort and with dignity.”

  Stone: I disagree with that. He who made that stupid statement was my one time leader. He did not really mean what he said because his actions proved the contrary of what he was trying to preach. He claimed all men were born equal but had men who were forcefully taken from their homelands working on his plantations without any pay.

  Messenger: Whether he put into practice what he said or not or did the opposite of what he preached is not the issue here. I am using the phrase because it is very true and suits the purpose for which my master created Man. You consider the phrase stupid. What do you consider stupid about it?

  Stone: Where he said that ‘All men are born equal’. That is ridiculous… there are those who must be servants or slaves and others who must be masters. There are those who must be rich and others who must be poor. There are those who must think and make proposals and others who must execute the proposals of the thinkers. There are those that must be loved and others that must be hated. In such situations, you cannot talk of equality. Have you tried to imagine a world where everybody is materially or financially rich? Such a world would be chaotic.

  Messenger: (Smiles) I like your explanations. But there is something you’ve said there which is really intriguing and it is that ‘there are those that must be loved and those that must be hated’. Who are those that must be loved and those that must be hated?

  Stone: I wouldn’t like generalizations here. I will take myself as an example. When I was down there, I loved those that were like me, rich like me, civilized and belonged to my class. I hated those that were poor, different, uncivilized or inferior.

  Messenger: Can I ask you a simple question?

  Stone: Please go ahead.

  Messenger: From the moment you were born till the moment you left that world, did you eat just one kind of meal day in day out?

  Stone: Please come on!!! That question is ridiculous. We had a saying down there that ‘Variety is the spice of life.’ If I ate just one meal all my life, I would have died of constipation prematurely. Anybody who wants to live long must eat varieties.

  Messenger: That is something which is well said. Well, my master who made you and me love variety too. That is why he made all those people that you hated because they were classless, poor, different, uncivilized and inferior. What bothers me right now is why you loved variety and my master’s own love for variety had to be such a huge problem to you. By hating them, are you by implication trying to tell me that my master shouldn’t have created them?

  Stone: ooohh no!!! I think you are getting it all wrong. I am not against the fact that the odd category was created. On the contrary, it was a good thing people like them were created. For example they made us, the privilege group, feel important and also did the jobs we considered odd jobs.

  Messenger: I’m glad you admit that they are important because they are useful.

  Stone: There you are wrong again. They are useful but not important. People who look different, poor, uncivilized and uneducated are not important. You see, importance goes with class, respect, wealth, the kind of wife, house, car and kind of school one’s children attend. If one is worshipped by the poor, the importance is even greater.

  Messenger: wow!!! I am really marveled. But, what I don’t really understand is where that hatred for a fellow human being was coming from?

  Stone: I hated some people who were different from me, who were poor and uneducated. They had a queer way of behaving. You needed to see what most of them did especially those that were uncivilized….they sacrificed some of their brothers and sisters in some stupid rituals and equally ate some of their brothers and sisters as food. Others strapped explosives round their waists and blew themselves up. Who in his or her right senses would do such things? How can one be talking about equally with such kinds of people? How can you expect me to associate myself with those low-lives? That is why we decided to catch them by force and use them on our large plantations as cheap labor.

  Messenger: I’ve still not understood where that hatred was coming from. Was it just from the fact that they were inferior, uneducated or had some practices which you considered horrible?

  Stone: At first I hated them because they were different, inferior, and so on. But it was that hatred that could give room to sympathy sometimes. What deepened my hatred especially for those that were different was the fact that our stupid representatives in the house of legislation decided to pass some stupid bills which they called the Bill of Rights. By the terms of the Bill, those low lives were granted equal rights as those of us who mattered in the society. The stupid things learned of it and wore it on their heads as c
aps. (Really outrageous) I couldn’t stand it when my servants claimed rights when I asked them to do things they were already used to doing. They asked for payment for their services which they couldn’t dare to before. The legislators went as far as fixing the amounts we had to pay them as wages. The worse thing was that a good number of those low lives and animals took advantage of the new laws to become influential, right to the extent that they became bosses and could dare look in the faces of their former masters. The one that really choked me was the right granting those animals citizenship. I couldn’t believe that my nationality was given to those things we removed from one forest somewhere. That was all intolerable. I couldn’t just take it lying down.

  Messenger: That explains why you created an organization to sort of undo what the legislators put in place. Isn’t that right?

  Stone: I had to fight back. Those legislators thought they did what Napoleon left undone but they did not know that they were indirectly killing me with that madness they passed in the name of a Bill. Such an act inspired many other houses of Representatives around the world to do same. I started loosing millions in wealth and capital as labor became too expensive. Some of the fools who benefited from the Bill became rich like us and were helping many of their brothers to become rich as well. They produced what we produced and sold to their brothers. That was part of my market that was taken away. People like us were fast fading to the back ground as the trend continued. In different places where the same bill was passed, rich people there were wailing too. You can see that I was not the only one who suffered.