THE MAGIC THING THAT HELL MUST BE

THE MAGIC THING THAT HELL MUST BE
by Novelvision

FROM THE "INTERNET NIGHT" ESSAYS OF NOVELVISION

This is an essay about revenge.

Of course, I am not normal. And this has led me to talk to some remarkable Internet ladies. Being male, in between the every eight seconds that I am horny, I have asked these women questions about life and how they feel. Most always, I get no joy. Most often I find any woman I talk with to be just as clueless about things as anyone, male or female, that I may talk with in “real” life. My reckoning of things is that most people don’t have any insight into much of anything beyond the things they were taught to believe as children. Even if they rebel against their teaching, they return.

But once in a while, I find a very special lady. They are more rare than I would think, given the number of chat hosts and “Internet whores” that there are out there in the netherworld of cyberspace. Sometimes I can’t believe how many women have web cams or some kind of Internet setup to snag a dollar from “dumbass” males like me. I have come to wonder about these women more and more. I have thought about the insults that some might get as they are forced by poverty to do such work – say in some very religious place like Romania.

I loved one in Romania, a sweet girl, really. She had been a chat host for quite a number of years. I do believe she lied about her age. I believe when last we “talked” that she was probably about 29, but she may have been younger. It is a “good” age for a wise female to be—of the talented and seductive sort. ...An unknown, mysterious age of perfect femininity. She was, of course, so perfect and I, of course, was this wretched man that she could use anytime she pleased. Her life was going up and up. Mine was heading, without her, to nowhere. The specifics of my sexual praises for her are a matter between her and me. But they were not of a normal sort. For I have never been the type to think of marriage, the PTA and such as anything more than a bold attempt at looking away from reasonable pessimism and the desperate futility of our actual lives. All meaning for me is provisional. I believe only in this: The world is cruel. But further, and maybe more so because of my love of things “BDSM,” I have thought so much about our ideas of honor and dignity and what that prevailing theory of the self is really doing to the human race. These are the very things ripped from a “slave” as he or she becomes more defeated by the dominating love.

I have been a violent man. I know about revenge. But in the interrogations of love that I have had at the hands of women, I have thought about more than me. I have thought about all the notions we have. I have thought about Hell.

Now, Hell is where all the bad people go who have transgressed against my own perfect ego. The people who have harmed me and injured me will face a day of judgment. But it won’t just be a day. It will be for eternity, because my ego is perfect and enduring, and, therefore the punishment for transgressions against that ego must be perfect. It will require an eternity for my enemies to amend for their ways. It will be a perfect Hell.

But if my ego really did pervade the world right now, couldn’t I come into the presence of my enemies right now, unseen? Couldn’t I bring them all the Hell they deserve right now –swift as magic?

But this would, indeed, be a magic thing. Sadly, this magic Hell really is the popular view of Hell within the theory of the self that most everyone believes. It is a magic thing to believe that my ego lives on and on, or that your ego lives on and on –or that anyone else’s does, either.

Really, though, I don’t believe in magic. However, I do believe in human cruelty. This is our sad marvel and our war on Planet Earth. When I am not seduced by the common ideas, it is comforting to me to know that my enemies live and are not harmed. For, if what I believe is true, there is hope for me and there is hope for you. For I also believe our deaths are permanent. I believe the ego model will fail with death. But as I say, I have never been normal. I do not see the end of consciousness as particularly bad, given how mean the world is. I am a psychological nihilist.

When last I talked with Carmen, she had just graduated from law school. Like I say, I was never sure of just what her magic age might be. She was making plans.

“I bet you have a lot of things on your mind right now.” –I typed to her.

She said that she did and how she would have to move and how she may have to go back to the hinterlands of Romania where she was born if it did not all work out. I sensed the undertow of drama and social expectations, the clashing of egos, a world away in Romania. It is a universal theme that even wise Woman is no better at than Man. The story of revenge is as old as our oldest human stories. They give us meaning. And they bring us blood and death. This is our sad “magic.” It is empty, and yet it is the tears of all our history. And the magic thing that Hell must be? Believe in magic if you will. But, if you do, believe in the sad drama that revenge actually is and how it is based on a lie about yourself.

Carmen said how she was keeping things a little under wraps. I imagined her passing relationships as she packed to move, as life was changing for her.

“... And people you’d like to get even with, too?” I typed.

“You amaze me. How did you know?” –she typed. Maybe it was magic. But I don’t believe in magic. I just believe that people are mean. When in doubt, guess at that, and you’ll be right.

Carmen, wherever you are, good luck.

--Written in the Internet Night. novelvision