Legacy of Judas - Book One

by Aragon, Christian

  It was my time to take the prepared food (and I do use that word with no seriousness of meaning in terms of what those people were fed) to the new prisoners. The men were separated from the women and I had the easier task of taking care of the needs of the female prisoners since most often they were not as much of a threat to me as the men. The magistrate knew better than to put me in a position of being harmed since his father gave him explicit instructions as such, since after all those years he still did not know where the scrolls were I had been producing, and was still producing.

  I never made much of a habit of looking at the prisoners after the first few months of doing my assigned tasks. None of them had ever stood out as anything more than common criminals, so I simply paid them no heed and went about my work. Then one day a woman caught my eye. She was ragged and unkempt and I could not for the life of me recall why she was standing out in my mind and from the rest of the women in her cell. For days I gave particular notice of her each and every time I brought in the meals. Sometimes I stared at her, she stared back, and both of us knew there was a familiarity between us. We never spoke since it was believed speaking with anyone in the prison population was an attempt to exchange information of a possible way of escape.

  Finally, during the third week of serving this group of women, I recognized her. I stood in complete disbelief of seeing who stood right before me after so many years. I wasted no time in inquiring as to what the woman had been imprisoned for, and when the guard told me of not just one crime but many, and many more she was suspected of, something that had been brewing for decades overpowered me and took my better sensibilities hostage, and then choked them out entirely.

  I clinched my old teeth together so hard some of them cracked and my gums broke and bled into my mouth. I gripped the handle of the still full bucket of steaming slop I had been dishing out and swung it violently with everything I had in me. I hit the guard who had always accompanied me through this work. He was thoroughly dazed more than long enough for me to snatch away his cell keys and open the cell this familiar woman was being kept in. The other prisoners in the cell poured out of it as I entered. One of the prisoners snatched the keys from me and ran from door to door releasing the other prisoners. I wasn't blind to all of the chaos I had just started, I needed the guards busy, and the prisoners were providing that for me. One guard was stabbed with his own knife as the women were primal and animalistic in their screaming and rampaging to escape. The men in cells caught wind of what was happening and raised all the commotion they could. All I could do was storm this woman with unfettered blind rage erupting up from some dark place I didn't realize I had within me.

  She at first tried to rush past me, but she was somewhat malnourished from the prison diet and I was saturated with adrenaline and a fury I hadn't even known when my brother died at the hands of those animals so many years ago. I grappled her and threw her to the back corner of the stone cell where the women had been pissing and shitting when the buckets they were allotted had overfilled. She cowered there in the waste and I could see in her eyes she had recognized me perhaps even well before this day. I began to reach out for her throat and upon getting a grip on her with both hands I finally released the years of rage, disgust, loathing and the sense I had survived without knowing the joys of the life I could’ve had.

  “For you I risked my life?! For you I committed murder?! I pulled you from that camp of pain, torture, humiliation, and sufferings the likes of which you never had to know BECAUSE I KNEW THOSE SUFFERINGS FOR YOU?! I’ve tried in vain to keep those memories from haunting my sleep ever since I became one of their playthings. For you I have lived out the remainder of my years as property. I was at every beckoning call of my owners and their whims, FOR YOU?! I’ve never known the touch of real love from a man. I will never know the pain and joy of bringing a new life into the world and raising it to become someone I could never be. That was because of those I saved you from! For you I have accepted this life believing during that dark night, so many years ago, I did something truly good in taking you from those monsters. THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?! BY BECOMING THE SAME MURDERING AND PILLAGING ANIMAL THEY WERE?!”

  I felt my grip tightening and I could see she was trying to speak, but it made no difference to me. I squeezed and squeezed, and watched her struggle and thrash about and dig her fingernails into my face and arms, but I was only feeling two sensations the entire time. The first was the taste of my own blood pouring down my throat from my bleeding mouth. The other was the sensation of a long awaited release built up from all my pent up anger, frustration, and contempt finally having a target on which to release themselves, and a face at which to look at and blame for their existence. I could've finished growing old and died a quiet death without this moment ever happening, but here it was, and here I go!

  I do not know for how long after she was dead that I had kept my grip on her throat. My own blood-laced spittle dripped from my mouth onto her lifeless face and my eyes dried from not blinking. I only know that at some point I was struck upon the back of my head and everything went dark. I awoke later to find myself shackled and badly beaten. The young magistrate stood before me awaiting my full return to consciousness. I knew from the look in his eyes I was not going to survive this day; my fate, after all I had been through, was finally sealed. I was still angry and uncaring of how I was now seen in his eyes. We were the only two in the room and probably in this part of the prison. I did not care in the least what was about to become of me by his hand. I began yelling at him and insulting him with every profanity and verbal attack on his manhood and character I could muster up. I spat in his face and cursed his family and the children they would produce and their children and grandchildren. Even as I looked down and noticed that he had plunged his knife deep into my gut I could not stop soiling his ears with insults and even the truths about his parents, their lovers and the secret scrolls detailing all of it. EVERYONE was going down with me! I was going to be guilty of destroying that family and two murders, but what topped off my coffer; what really put the cherry on this fucking travesty of a life was that I finally felt free of my wretched fucking past!!!

  He slapped me across my face, removed his blade from my belly, but bleeding out was going to be too slow for him as he slid the blade easily through my skin, muscle, and between my ribs to my heart. Then I had a fleeting thought, no, an inspiration, I think. I understood now. I did do something truly good by taking her from that place. She did not just betray me, she betrayed herself and the new life she had been offered. It was her decision to become what she was, not mine. I had no quarrel with the woman in that cell and I killed her anyway. My coffer was now full and the last curse I could mutter was against myself.

  “Damn me! Damn me to hell!” I had betrayed my parents and their love and knowledge from so many years ago.

  Oddly enough a blessing befell me after my arrival in Hell. Upon becoming part of the Book of the Damned, and suddenly being part of a spiritual soup you could say, I was suddenly and finally educated, though far beyond what a mortal life could ever provide.

  Because all of us within the book all became part of each other from the moment the book was finished, we were all instantly privy to all of each individuals thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences and even each other’s educations. We share strength of emotion and stability of thought. Instantly hundreds of lifetimes knowledge, both lived and book-learned, became the property of each of us bound within the book as if we had each lived these different lives. This journal I sit and scribe now is a thousand fold more literate than what I scribed during my life in the great trade city, but mark my words; that whole fucking family drowned in their own swill after I died.

  Odd that something I could never really have much of in life was suddenly thrust upon me in not only death but also in torment.

  I felt tears on my face just before my fall. Then I felt Satan’s great blackness, and then the quills of the Thorn General. By the time Judas was skinnin
g my face I was too pissed off to care about the pain, and I let him know as much too!

  The look on Vic's face tells me this wasn't the experience she was hoping to hear. Good. Life is hard.

  Journal entry XXX

  Graduation has been and passed for Vic and her friends. Vin has been sent to a college in England, and the pair who seemed as if they were more than just soul mates could ever aspire to be have been split up and put onto very uncertain paths without one another.

  The waterworks during that hyper-melodramatic soap opera were epic beyond description because the words don't exist with which to properly express their love’s demise.

  It's better to have loved blah, blah, blah … Yawn. Spend a year in Hell and tell me all about love’s demise. I shouldn’t be this callous.

  Ms. Johansen has gotten her way and I still do not know why or how. I still have no clue as to who she is or where she comes from. I only know the pain she has inflicted on Victoria, by getting that young man’s parents to send him so far away, is unlike any pain she may ever experience again. We have both suffered our losses and I’m reluctant to admit I believe there are still considerably more losses, pain, and suffering to come into this young woman’s life.

  Vic begins college very soon. They couldn't offer her scholarships fast enough. She’ll be able to get her mind off Vincent as the next pages of her life turn. Because of Vic’s grades and numerous scholastic achievements she had her pick of colleges she could attend across the country, and then some. She had also received an offer from the same college Vincent was accepted to, but Tom said no to Vic going and proceeded to list a plethora of reasons which reinforced his decision. What he did as a sort of bribe, if you will, was asking Vic to choose one of three specific Ivy League colleges, and then he would provide her with her own home to reside in and a nice vehicle to get around in. She would have privacy and freedom unlike most other students. Vic felt a bit defeated by her father, but I know she was already trying to work up ideas on how to see Vincent again whether her dad approved or not. She accepted her father’s offer and chose a college on the other end of the country. Tom, Martha, and Vic made two trips across the country over the course of the summer; one to choose and purchase Vic’s new residence and a reasonably nice new car, and the second for the college registrations, orientations and purchasing supplies for school and Vic’s new home.

  Vic didn’t go back to California at the end of the second trip. The waterworks during that hyper-melodramatic soap opera were epic beyond description because the words don't exist with which to properly express their parental loss.

  This loss I could relate to. This was a difficult goodbye even for me, and they don't even know I exist.

  Chapter Six

  ~

  Acquisitions

  Journal entry XXXI

  Two years have passed since Victoria last saw Vincent, save Christmas at which time both went back to California to be with family and steal away any moments they could with one another. Aside from those brief times together the two of them have kept in very constant contact. This situation has taken a great toll on each of them to be as separated as they are. Each has buried themselves in their respective studies and they have followed each other’s scholastic achievements and let-downs closely; usually resulting in a lot of cheering up and strategizing how to do better on the next go-round.

  Through their written correspondence, and occasional phone calls, they have goaded and supported each other just as if they were face to face and attending the same college. Ultimately these conversations collapse into intimate words and each diddling themselves to the sound of the other doing the same. This is followed by soft good nights and breathy, inaudible exchanges until they hang up the phone.

  All of this encompasses why I haven’t written in my journal for so long, simply because of all the time we have spent helping Vic stay focused and reinforcing her mind with thoughts of her and Vincent being together again. It has been both monotonous and difficult since Vincent’s parents are still putting up financial barricades to keep him where he is and focused on his studies; no doubt at Ms. Johansson’s recommendations. We haven't seen that enigmatic bitch since high school graduation, but this reeks of her influence.

  It seems now that things have reached a state of comfort, or perhaps a low-key torment. Vic and Vin have, to a point, accepted their situation and have decided to make the most of it. They’ve realized by being in the schools they’re in they each have the unique position of learning ways of business and means which are conducive to the respective countries each school is located within. As such they’re making plans for combining what they can learn while separated to more concretely form the foundation of their future together once the schooling is completed. They’ve set up commerce between their two schools through a small enterprise of their own design, which is overseen by several of their professors to assist in keeping everything legal and ethical. To say the least these two are clever, industrious, and quite determined to be together. The plans they have been working on in their correspondence have proven extremely interesting to the most brilliant of those who are part of the Book of the Damned. If all stays on the path currently being traversed, Ms. Johansen will be proven the fool for tearing these two apart the way she did, but the greater goal of these two reuniting is obviously the most important prize.

  For reasons only apparent to Vic and me, she has also been diversifying her studies into areas she has decided it best Vincent not yet know about. Among these subjects have been creative writing, painting, illustration with pencils, pens and inks, etc. She has even done a little experimentation with clay sculpting; all to keep creative thought well exercised. Though, after the mess she had created in one weekend working with the clay, we both decided it was best left to people with more formal training than her schedule would currently provide for. Most of her imagination ended up on her and splattered on the walls.

  While her artistic endeavors have actually yielded some very pleasant and imaginative creations, she has also been putting a great deal of time into the study of various religions and the idiosyncrasies of each of them. She has been toiling at length over philosophical manuscripts, religious writs, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Torah, Book of Mormon, Scientology, Buddhism, Taoism, African and Haitian Vodun, Satanism — though that’s a bit of moot subject, New Age practices, Paganism and anything else which gives a point of view on the human soul and what happens to it after the demise of the mortal body. She has been working in such depth she has managed to thoroughly exhaust herself despite the Unity Command she gave herself some years ago. She has told me she believes she has even found a way to bolster that command a hundred fold, and the time was drawing closer to pursue that option.

  Vic, and we within the book, agree that all of these religions are made up of some fact, some fiction, some extraordinary exaggerations, and are all extremely and tragically incomplete. Even the paintings, illustrations, carvings and etchings which depict Heaven, Hell and whatever else these artists believed to exist other than Earth and Humankind, have been little more than fantasy based on brilliant though flawed and under-informed imaginations. Nonetheless, their artwork is beautiful just like so many other great works inspired by various religions and spiritual beliefs. It’s a shame these religions, especially the big ones with the most followers, don't inspire more creation than destruction in these times.

  Journal entry XXXII

  We finally got up the nerve to tell Vic about how her situation of separation from Vincent came to be. She was not happy. We told her of Ms. Johansen and the very strong role she played in getting Vincent the opportunity to go overseas for his higher education. We also explained that we did not understand how Johansen was so incredibly persuasive about having their son go so far away. The only clue we had went all the way back to the first time Victoria met Ms. Johansen. Those damned eyes. We’ve known since then that woman was someone to be watched and watched closely, and always be caut
ious about. Unfortunately, with the differences in geography, keeping an eye on her hasn't been within the realm of possibilities. Victoria said she agreed with what we thought about Ms. Johansen, though for reasons more based on a gut feeling.

  Within this conversation it somehow slipped out that I, we within the book, have been keeping a journal since shortly after Victoria was born. She has insisted on seeing this journal and all I have scribed within it. I really wish it weren’t my face looking at Vic after she is finished reading what I’ve put in this journal...

  Journal entry XXXIII

  Aside from Victoria getting angry, crying, and throwing up after she finished reading the journal, I can confidently say she seemed to take in the information contained within these pages rather well. She has even asked us to continue the scribing in this journal for as long as possible, and to remain as brutally honest about our experiences and observances, just as I have been thus far. She will provide us with new journals to scribe in each time one is filled.

  Vic’s deep dive into the journal has sparked a variety of conversations, including some reminiscing about Luna. But between those and other conversations, we have been speaking in great length with Vic about a subject we were actually very surprised to hear her ask about the morning after she finished reading this journal: Purgatory.

  Despite what the Catholics, Christians, and all the others offshoots and other religions believe, Purgatory is not a place where demons keep souls suspended in some sort of torment which is everlasting and keeping the souls from passing to their next destination; Hell. Who the fuck fabricated that redundancy?! In all actuality there are no demons in Purgatory at all, though it is a place of a type of torment, but not like one would think and certainly not of the silly Fire & Brimstone variety either.