Hellucination (Wrath Limited Edition)

by Stephen Biro

  I lay there and just screamed. And that’s when I saw them. That’s when they came into my view. My heart broke into a million pieces.

  More souls. I crawled to the closest one I could see. I begged for help, but my plea fell on deaf ears.

  The person slowly came into focus and I could see it was a woman, a naked woman. She was on top of a pedestal, masturbating in front of a mirror. She was surrounded by others, who were watching, telling her how good and powerful she was.

  I called out to her, “Please help me, oh God, please help me!”

  She turned from staring at her mirrored image, but she never stopped. Her fingers twirled inside her while the beings around her applauded. I reached her pedestal and began to pull myself up when I was suddenly kicked in the ribs by one of the surrounding beings. I fell back but tried to regain my balance. The woman on the pedestal looked down on me and said, “I am god, and I won’t help you.”

  I began to rise up, trying to get my bearings, when I was kicked again. I rolled away, because I couldn’t regain my footing. The woman on the pedestal moaned. One of the figures (the one that had been kicking me) moved closer to her, telling her how powerful and wonderful she was. My eyes were watering, but I could still see hazily. I fixated on the beings around her and began to stare into them. I finally realized that, in each of the surrounding figures, I was witnessing a different characteristic of the woman on the pedestal; they worshipped her with aspects of her own ego.

  They were all her, every last one of them, surrounding herself with love and pride.

  My mind shuddered at the implications. I then looked beyond, to the next gathering of people. I crawled towards them. This time, it was a man in a business suit, standing on an even bigger pedestal, with even more figures around him. He was telling them the secrets to success.

  He said, “I know you all came here today to learn how I got rich. I will tell you all this, and more, because I found the secret to life, and it’s about listening to me. It’s about doing what I say.”

  Everyone began to applaud and cheer around him, but it was all with the same voice; it was all the same person.

  He surrounded himself, worshipping himself by the hundreds. My vision began to improve, opening up my view to see hundreds and thousands of people, all surrounding themselves—with themselves. I saw all the people talking to themselves, in front of thousands of their copies, lying to themselves about prosperity and fame and fortune.

  I stumbled forward and hit a mirror, shattering it. The shards dropped everywhere, and I saw another man, staring at himself. When the shards scraped against the floor, they then began to move backwards into what the mirror once was. Whole again, the mirror now blocked my view of the men, so I walked around.

  Five naked men, all the same, had the same amount of coins in front of them. They were all in a circle, and there was one dead body lying in the middle. Their eyes darted back and forth, staring at each other. They glanced at their coins and then back again. I couldn’t fully understand what was going on until one of them suddenly had a necklace in his hand.

  This infuriated the man next to him. A knife materialized in his hand, and he stabbed the man in the neck while yanking the necklace away. The man clutched his neck, falling over, landing on the dead body in the middle. Another knife materialized in the next man’s hand, and he stabbed the man with the necklace, so he fell over, dead. He grabbed the necklace, and the pattern repeated as each man stabbed the other to death for the necklace. Like a row of murderous dominoes only found in Hell.

  The last man, covered in blood rejoiced over his greed and murder. He lifted the gold necklace high above his head and began to laugh.

  The pile of bodies crawled up into itself and regenerated into the men. The newly formed flesh of the men reached out and grabbed the one clutching the knife and necklace, ripping the jewelry away from him. They broke his neck and his body fell to the floor.

  Coins began to move as the weight of the Hell born was shifted. One dead corpse lay in the middle of the men. All of them now had a necklace in their piles.

  I stood there, amazed. The five men of the circle were all happy for the revenge and for their greed, but it didn’t last long; their eyes began to dart around at each other’s piles.

  I stepped away. My mind reeled at this never-ending orgy of envy and wrath fueled by pride. I realized he was proud of his envy to the point of murder, and it was wrapped up in greed and wrath on top of it; he was willing to kill himself and every aspect of himself to make it happen.

  I fell back down to my knees, begging God to make it stop as my mind began to make the connections. I looked over at the businessman again, giving another speech to himself on how important and wonderful he was. He still went on about riches and finding your dream, saying only he had the answer. He agreed with himself wholeheartedly in front of hundreds of aspects of himself.

  He was so proud of his greed that he was on a pedestal, envying himself. His envy and greed was so overpowering that his pride took over and his pride made those sins even stronger.

  I began to feel dizzy but was afraid to fall down and find myself stuck in this place. I could barely walk because my mind was staggered by the multi-level complexity of the sins. I walked back to the masturbating woman and saw her more clearly too.

  She took pride in her own vanity with lust and surrounded herself with envy; otherwise she wouldn’t be watching herself longingly. I walked around her and I suddenly became lost in a sea of souls, somehow prideful of their own sin.

  I found myself at the bottom of a mountain of food. On top was a morbidly obese man, surrounded by mirrors. He stared at himself, gorging on the food and relishing it. Each bite was watched slowly as he chewed. The smell of the rotten food began to overpower me. I suddenly realized I could feel again, but I wished I couldn’t. I walked around the mountain of decaying fodder when I saw another one. But this mountain was topped by a man surrounded by himself at various weights. No mirrors this time. He was lying on a couch, feeding himself, making the others watch. Each bite he took caused the others to moan in want.

  Was the first obese man proud of his vanity and gluttony? Was the second proud of his laziness and even prouder of making them envious of himself? Was it all wrapped around pride and his greediness for food?

  I continued to make my way, trying not to get lost, but I surely was. I came upon a woman killing a male version of herself, laughing each time she struck him with an axe. Each blow took a hunk out of her male counterpart. While she was lost in laughter, a replacement of her male self-emerged. She hacked into him again, and it repeated. Blood spattered across my face, but I had to watch. I couldn’t turn away. Then the next man re-formed and transmogrified into her, and in turn, she turned into him. She had the axe again and lifted it over her head and let it swing deep into what used to be herself.

  Then it repeated: The woman killed the male version of herself five times, her anger and wrath wrapped up in pride. Each time, she got to kill the person she felt deserved it, and it was her—albeit the male aspect of herself—and she hated herself for it.

  I walked though crowds of people. Thousands of people would surround just one person, themselves. Their sins were supercharged by the sin of pride. Each sin a stumbling block for each soul until pride stepped in, taking over the sin and emblazoning it in the confines of Hell.

  I didn’t know where I was even though I knew exactly where I was. I began to feel faint as dizziness washed over me. I could still taste the blood on my lips. My ears could only hear the echoes of self-serving people that were talking to themselves while relishing the sins of their lives, and now their sins in Hell. I could feel my heart beat faster as I tried to breathe. But I felt pressure from all around me. My vision spun, and I prayed to God for mercy. I was sorry for living my life the way I had.

  Darkness overcame me.

  ESCAPE…UNDERSTANDING AND BELIEF: HOPE AND FEAR

  I jumped out of bed, about to scream. My body
spasmed to the point of unconscious pain. I fell to the floor. Heaving and gasping in total agony, my mind raced to eternity and back within seconds. I jumped up and threw on my clothes.

  I knew what I had to do. I ran to the door, grabbing my keys off the coffee table. I stepped out into wonderment.

  How can I explain this? The overbearing gorgeousness of reality and of life I took for granted for so long was still there. The windswept forest and blades of grass before my eyes were ever so green that I stopped in mid-stride to breathe the lushness in. Every nuance and every inch and microcosm in every detail swept me away with a beauty I had never known before. Even the cement looked wondrous in its grey manmade pattern. And as for the living things, my eyes almost rolled back into my head for the sheer joy of seeing them again.

  That’s when dread hit me.

  I ran to my car because I knew what was wrong in my heart. It had first come to my attention while going through the Ten Commandments, while God was showing me the way. It was the Second Commandment, and I hadn’t even realized it; I hadn’t even thought of it as a sin.

  My mind kept repeating: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

  My mind raced as I opened my car door and jumped in. I pulled out like a madman, starting to feel better, knowing I was going to take care of it. Internally, all I could think about were the life-size rubber corpse and the five-foot rubber alien I had hanging on the wall of my video store. I didn’t make these things and wondered if I was crazy for thinking such a thing.

  On a conscious level, it was just art. On a subconscious level, I was breaking the 2nd Commandment without even realizing it. I had to take them down as fast as I could.

  I pulled out onto the highway, and life was still ten times brighter than I had ever experienced. The sun dazzled my eyes, and the colors leapt out at me. I tried to calm down as I drove.

  I thought over and over: “Anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath…”

  I had a representation of an alien, which is typically above us, and a corpse, which is typically below. I don’t know if God actually made aliens someplace else in this galaxy or another. Even angels can be considered aliens, because “alien” means, in the strictest sense, not of this earth.

  I swerved and almost slammed into a car in my desperate panic to arrive at my store. It was over 40 minutes away, and I had only been on the road for five. I tried to calm down again when I realized what had happened to me. God visited me. I went to Hell and back. I’d been tempted by demons and Antichrists and false religions and somehow, someway, I’d made it through. I began to think about why God came to me. Why would he choose me over others? I’m not holy. I’m not even a good person. I try, but fail all over the place. I began to think about it, hard. I know I was visited by a demon that tried to manipulate me for months. Tried to turn me away from Christianity. Tried to get me to lose myself in other religions and reincarnation, psychic powers and new-age religion while trying to get me to kill myself. Sending friends and strangers to manipulate me, confuse me, and to stop my search for God. Doing everything It could to steer me away from the truth. But I held fast. I held onto what He was. I came to a realization at the end, that He was what He was. I couldn’t transfer my selective or wishful image of Him onto His actual being. Yet I still marveled at Him. That’s when God came, showing me the truth and sending me to Hell to see what it is we really do in our sinful lives.

  I laughed because I knew I was saved. I began to feel this wonderment of actually meeting God in the only way I could and I was elated. It is hard to explain how I felt. I was overcome with joy. I yelled out to the Lord, “Thank you God! I knew you would come! I knew you would! Thank you, thank you!”

  By this time, I was near my store. Cars zipped by, and the sky was perfectly clear. It was as if I had won the lottery: Your life is safe, no matter what you do. But I had a personal, one-on-one encounter with God, and the feeling was 10,000 times better than any lottery jubilation.

  This is when a large convoy of SUVs drove by, over 20 of them at the same time! My mind jumped to the hilarious thought that this was the welcoming committee of a secret Christian society and that they were trying to pull me over to give me the good news. But the cars kept driving past me, and I laughed at myself. Nonetheless, it makes your heart jump when you feel you’re part of a family that spreads into eternity. It makes your soul feel safe.

  I turned onto 22nd Street and drove to my video store. I was anxious to get inside to take the offending things down. Some of you may laugh at this. Others may understand and say, “He’s doing what he feels is right.”

  Still others may say, “He’s doing exactly what the Ten Commandments instruct.”

  I pulled into the parking lot and was inside the store before you can say, “Man on a mission.”

  I trembled as I walked in. I grabbed my ladder and went to the corpse on my wall. I unscrewed the hooks with my hands, letting it drop like a sack of potatoes onto the floor. It hit with a thud, and I crawled back down the ladder and gave it a nice kick in the ribs. The rubber body made a nice thwack sound. I pulled down the alien, then dragged it to the back room. I let it lie there on the floor.

  I felt a lot better. I felt relieved… really relieved, actually. I picked up the corpse and laid it down in the back as well. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do from that point. The sun was shining into my store. I was dazzled by the light when I remembered what day it was. It was Sunday afternoon. I fell to my knees in the store and I began to pray to God. This is how it went:

  Dear God,

  I thank you for coming to me in my day of need. I thank you for visiting me in my pathetic life I thought that was so important. I know I’m nobody. I know I don’t deserve it, and I thank you from the bottom of my soul for showing me the way. I pray you give me the strength and the ability to help others find you. Hopefully, not the way I did, but a lot easier. I want to apologize to you. I didn’t realize that you came to me on Sunday morning. To me, it was Saturday night but I’m a night owl and days and nights blend into each other. I have been doing my best not to work on Sundays. My video store is always closed Sunday, which is odd for everyone, but I’ve been doing it since I opened the place. I would like you to forgive me for working on Sunday. I had to get those offending idols off of my wall because I don’t want to offend you so blatantly and be so oblivious as to not respect you. I thank you and pray you forgive me.

  Amen.

  That’s when I fell down and just lay there, laughing to myself. I wondered how I managed to get God to notice me and show me the knowledge I needed.

  My life changed for the better after that. I drove back home and picked up the Bible and began reading it from the very beginning. I had never actually read the Bible before. I had read Revelations but that was because of Iron Maiden (I know, shitty reason). This time, it was a totally different story. I ended up quitting drugs, was talked into it only once in a while, and it always ended up like total Hell. I should know.

  I did my very best to be a moral, upstanding person. I helped a lot of people, people that needed help or to know the positive side of God. I knew I had one last frontier to conquer, and it was my first love as a child. It was something I had always wanted to do, and that was writing. For years, I studied and read and observed life, religion, philosophy and psychology to find out exactly what had happened to me. At the same time, I learned how to write. I studied the Bible during all this. I was lucky; I had my own company and could work at this sixteen hours a day. I was enthralled by everything I studied and read.

  I learned about every religion so I could understand a little more about other people and societies. I learned “nature versus nurture” and the philosophy of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. Yes, the concept of the Id and Superego has driven me up the wall ever since. I studied, learned and worked.

&nbs
p; One day, walking down the main street of Seventh Avenue in Ybor City, surrounded by thousands of people, I saw a couple of religious people standing in the middle of the street. They talked about Jesus and His forgiveness and about taking hold of Him and letting Him be your Savior.

  To digress and catch you up: I had been reading the Bible almost a year at that point. I think—I think—I was actually into my second reading of it (I’ve read it several times now). The one thing I realized from this life and my experiences is that I’m a sinner. I’ve done my best to stop sinning, but it’s impossible. Just thinking about something can be a sin. If you see a commercial with a hot chick or half-naked man in it, you think lustfully and have, in effect, committed adultery of the mind. Same with envy. We see a badass car and say to ourselves, “Oh man! I want that awesomeness!” It is the sin of the covetous.

  Matthew 5:22. “He who hates his brother is a murderer!”

  If you think about a God other than Him—even if it just feels like a personal belief—God calls it Idolatry. Have you ever used God’s name as a curse word? Hitler isn’t even a curse word, so if you have, you’re a blasphemer! And this is just thoughts, to say nothing of the actual committing of sins as well.

  From reading the Bible and personal experience I know we will always commit sin. Thinking you’re a good person or even a good Christian means nothing. All of us have fallen short of the Glory of God. That’s the meaning of everything.

  The Jewish and Christian religions are blood based. Don’t ask me why. I’ve talked to many priests and ministers, and the one question they want to ask God is, “Why blood?”

  I’ve done a lot of soul searching. Doing my best, trying not to sin, but always failing—even after meeting God and going to Hell. The only way I could not sin would be to lie down and not move, think, breath, or interact with anyone, and that’s an impossibility. And even then I would be guilty of sloth, so I just can’t win! I have a lustful heart. I told you this pages ago, and it still drags on me.