The Business of Perdition Ch.1 - Genesis

I’ve seen Hell, and it’s not a fiery eternity of suffering. Nay, 'tis a sinister place, swirling about under our very nose and woven into the fabrics of our mundane day-to-days. Therein, the demons - the true demons, are not behemoths and leviathans but rather a meandering, malignant trudging of a repulsive continuum left to suppurate in the soul like some abhorrent spiritual sickness.

Times spent amongst the crawling haggard paupers of the London outcasts left a festering wound on the heart. On a morning stroll, one might find those dapper, fat aristocrats en route to tend to their own daily affairs. However, amongst the dark dead ends and beneath the dreary windowsills, forlorn shadows leaned motionless against ashen walls. Disregarded like strays, you’d see them there, day after day, longing for some mutual warmth or consolation of their extreme misery. They were victims of vice and circumstance discarded upon the stoops of the London workhouses, reduced to a degree of desolation and wretchedness that destroyed even the energy to beg. They had not the strength to struggle for bread, and rather settled for starvation over the activities which the ordinary mendicants would employ. Thereupon that waning existence, they seeped through the cracks of social order to be cast into pervasive mires of repugnance.

In those gutters, the beggars and urchins were the upper echelon of a bleak society, there to care for the inferior souls of those old, frail folk. Thus, the mendicant might be called upon to do their part, giving a morsel of what they had managed to beg to those less fortunate than they. So it was that such meager lives were prolonged with stale tea and bread or perhaps on better days, a flyblown bone. This subsistence however, diminished them to some lethargic state which I scarcely imagine is preferable to death itself; constantly dozing, yet never truly asleep.

It came upon a dull and uncommonly dreary afternoon when the commotion among those emaciated crowds below disturbed the ever mundane and never-ending ledger keeping of the day's business. My office on Drury Lane granted me an oppressive panorama of the destitute daily hardship of those downtrodden folk. Whistling and whining through cracks in the building spirited away the respite and warmth from the coal fire burning in the hearth. The roaring wind outside swirled about in unseen eddies. The occasional rag or tattered, discarded bit of rubbish darted through the street below. 'Twixt those weathered and weary residents of the London back alleys, pallid, frail and failing sunlight struggled to illuminate the gray and tired street, offering only the briefest breaks of dreariness through the intermittent cracks in the low, heavy clouds. Aside from the unusual power of the wind, like most other days, it was the same. However, there came among that ferocious torrent of wind, a howling. 'Twas a hellish and hateful cry of such fervent, angry bloodlust that shook the foundations of my spirit.

Commotion among the crowds of Drury Lane was common, but I had never heard such raucous, desperate wailing. 'Twas peculiar, almost devilish that in that moment of such grated and feverish screaming, the roaring wind had ceased. Having ascertained all I could from the view of my upstairs office, my imploring interest in the commotion outside had not been satiated. I pulled away from the window and hurried down the tight, creaky, and cracking staircase of my coin-counting workroom.

In the common room below, my aged and unkempt assistant stared out the windows of the lower offices, mouth agape as he squinted down his knobbled, crooked nose. His yellow fingernails scratched the top of a balding, gray head in contempt for the disturbance for the day's work, but the commotion sparked his curiosity as much as mine.

"What's going on Mr. Pickett," I asked him, leaning over his shoulder for a better view of the outside.

"Don't know, sir," he replied with that strangely hollow, raspy tone that elderly folk all seemed to share.

Satisfied, he slunk back into his creaky chair, fluffing absurdly puffed sleeves of his dingy shirt that was much too large for his bony figure. His pointy chin jutted out as his face curled in frustration. Black, beady eyes narrowed as he stared out the window once more scoffing at the ruckus. Such were his conversations. Mr. Pickett was a man of few words; markedly abrasive and quick to temper, even to me.

I was not so easily sated. I'd snatched my waistcoat from the brass hook on the wall and forced my hands through the sleeves as I rushed out the door. I was greeted by the din of the overcrowded street of Drury Lane. Cold air stole away the breath in my lungs as I stepped out into the ruckus. The brass bell on the door jingling behind me as it swung shut.

All about me, the chaos one might expect of the busy streets of London whirred about, but it was not the ordinary chaos, this was of some disdain or disgust. All panicked and rushing about, they darted away down the street like a herd of prey animals escaping a pack of wolves. All but those crawlers and dozing destitutes who barely offered more than a weak and tired glance.

Pushing my way through the currents of the panicked crowd, I pressed through the small gaps between folk, one after another, zigzagging my way through to find what might have caused such a stirring uproar. A hard bump in the shoulder or accidental footfall on my toes would press me backward but I fought against the crowd to which opened a circling of wide-eyed onlookers.

It bounded around in the front of a ramshackle gin palace, well known for its prostitutes and drunken fisticuffs. Upon the stoop lay a gentleman, motionless and crimson. His black waistcoat and trousers stained even blacker from blood, but that was not what vexed me. Straddled atop him, a mud caked indigent curled over his body, crumpled there like wrinkled paper. I couldn't see what he was doing curled the way he was, but he snarled and growled like a rabid mongrel.

A horrid, tearing sound carried over the gasps and cries from the crowd. Teeth ripped away skin and flesh as he raised his filthy head from its hunkered position. The sound skittered and slid into my ears with a soft yet sharp and wet noise that turned my stomach. The man's milky white eyes were as wide as a full moon as he cackled with that chunk of bloody muscle pinched between yellow teeth. All about that circle of disgusted onlookers, both men and women collapsed, feinting there in the street from the horror. I couldn't bear the scene but nor could I look away, until those hollow and milky eyes met mine.

He paused for a moment. His cutting eyes stabbed into my flesh like fire pokers. Red cracked lips spit the raw, torn flesh away as he arched his back and laughed. Streaks of blood wormed their way between his teeth and down the creases of his dirty chin.

"Happy are those who are called to his supper," he hissed.

His voice was a razor edge through flesh, honed and keen. It sliced through the commotion as slick and wicked as a serpent's skin and stabbed my heart with a thousand icy needles. Again, he doubled over and that soft, wet, gnawing spilled through the cries of shock and disgust until the host of police arrived.

They pushed through, opening the panicked crowd like a knife through linen, clubs raised as they pointed and shouted at the ragged, crazed man. He hardly noticed them at all as he continued feasting on that poor dead gentleman beneath him.

A surge of bodies jetted forward and came upon him like an avalanche. Grunts and shouts bellowed through the jumble of men. The occasional scream of pain would pierce through as the undulating mass of bodies flexed and struggled to restrain the man. Officers darted away, clutching their faces, marred with jagged teeth marks. Blood trickled between their fingers as they cursed and spat obscenities. All the while, the crazed man wailed and laughed, taunting them into a frenzy, until he went quiet.

They ripped him away from that now wholly encrimsoned stoop where that dead man lay. His mangled face, peeled away like the skin of a fruit, revealing the hot red tissue beneath the skin. Wet and grotesque it was, flowing blood like a stream of scarlet onto the cold stone steps.

The police clubbed and kicked at that motionless pile of the lunatic they'd pulled away, cursing and shouting at him until they tired. His figure was twisted and broken from their heated battering. He lay there motionless in the mud all the while his face seemed transfixed on me. Those frenzied smoky eyes branded my skin but his haunting, bloodied grin was a waking nightmare. Like the cold, harsh light of a crescent moon, it pulled across his face, stretching the skin like dogs fighting over a piece of cloth.

Unusually gruesome though it was, it was not long before the waning afternoon carried on, edgy but nonetheless wholly unperturbed. The police cleared the crowd of mortified onlookers and dragged that vile smiling man away. There would be inquiries, investigations, and perhaps an interrogation of one witness or another, but I knew there'd be no closure to that grotesque, inexplicable violence. Thus ended another day in the gutters of London - another death, another coin in the coffers. It was morbidly continuous and tiresome. That ghastly spectacle was a harsh schism from the grinding, scraping tedium, nevertheless the days carried on. Such was the life of those lowly sods. Some came and went; others came and were never seen again.

It was that living hell that sparked an imploring interest to know what great eternity waited beyond this grueling, belligerent toiling. It started with seeking comfort in the bible, but year after year, the anemic platitudes felt hollower and more unwelcome. Attending mass only seemed to exacerbate the emptiness. I recited the words and prayed the prayers, but it was unfulfilling and lonesome. That day of communion however, when the reverend gave me the eucharist, it lingered on like a festering abscess in my memories. Dark and cloudy it was, but his voice remained, haunting and echoing like called from a cavern.

The nave of St. Paul's church was as always was during mass, a stormy sea of anguish. Dissatisfied well-to-dos and disenfranchised paupers all sat in those old, uncomfortable pews. Penitant and longing for some divine absolution from what fueled their impudent woes. It was a forlorn cacophany in such a holy place. All of us there to somehow will the holy spirit to deliver us from the cesspool of perceived misery to which we called home. Sullen and sad hung the air of the congregation. An exquisite emptiness loomed there like a great and heavy cloud of smoke. Unseen and unrelenting but palpable as the polished marble floor. High above, on the great vaulted ceilings, grandiose depictions of heaven and promises of blissful paradise hung pristine and proud. Fitting, as it was so discernibly out of reach of us accursed earthbound souls.

'Twixt the bowed heads and forlon worshippers, our reverend stepped through the sullen congregation. Feeding the body of Christ to each follower and reciting his droning litany. Each member recited back the prescribed response; a hushed and monotonous Amen. It had finally come time for my holy communion. He stood there before me, placing that contemptible bread in my mouth.

"This is the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper."

Those words—those same hideous words hissed by that frenzied indigent, again sliced my heart like serrated steel. It was dark and wicked, and what little of my hollow faith remained was stolen away, haunted and wounded by those filthy words. I choked on that foul and wicked wafer he slipped between my lips. What spiritual healing a faithful might have received was little more than ashes in my mouth, dry, sour, and wholly dissatisfying. I could not bear to be in that dreadful place anymore. I spat that filthy bread onto the floor and gathered a newfound resolve to find meaning.

"You do not share fellowship with Christ!" He scolded me as though his voice might somehow shout faith into my soul. He had failed.

There among that dreaded, speechless crowd of the faithful congregation, I stood in the long, varnished pews of St. Paul and met eyes with the offended priest. Deep wrinkles and fissures curled in his face as his brow creased in distaste for my transgression. His gentle gray eyes however did not reinforce his fervent resolve. They cowered at me, frigid and fearful and somehow never quite directly meeting my own. It was though he were looking at the devil himself, afraid but angered that I stood in his hallowed garden of wayward, gullible souls.

"I do not share fellowship, Father," I said. I gave him a reassuring pat on his shoulder. I was unsure why I made the gesture, but the taunting of such a disillusioned fool felt wonderful. "I'm afraid he would not like my company today."

I wrapped myself in my waistcoat and the shocked silence in the cathedral was cut only by the knocking sounds of my purposeful steps making for those doors.

His rushed and angered footsteps pursued behind me before stopping on some metaphorical high ground. "Now the spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils," the foolish priest called, stern and angered to the congregation.

I no longer cared for the scriptures, but my mind still recited the chapter and verse.

1 Timothy 4:1.

I smirked at the idea that somehow his faith was any better than those foretold doctrines of devils. I turned around and laughed at his unwavering vanity.

"And those among you," I said, raising my arms to those luckless fools and followers, "Those of you who are without sin, let them cast the first stone."

Flamboyant though it was, my arms stretched out wide as though I were Jesus on the cross. My head tilted before I lowered my arms and bowed to him.

I no longer cared of the opinions of those ideologues nor the opinions of God. I turned back around, satisfied with winning the joust. The warm glow behind those saintly depictions of the stained-glass windows above dwindled and grayed, one after another as I made again for the doors. Doors to a new beginning—my own Genesis.