I look across the dungeon beneath the temple, past the disfigured corpse of the king, and the pit that is now blocked by the broken head of the Molech idol. Across from me on the steps sit Taur and Liana, who look up at me in wonder. The woman has Taur's fur cape wrapped around her and cradles her newborn against her breast. Taur and Liana are an unlikely pair, a slight albino girl with snowy hair and a bald muscular giant of a man with a bald head and a scar between a pair of bull's horns where a tattoo was burned off of him. I can sense that they care for each other, and someday they'll have children of their own.
“Remember the psalms!” I shout as the whirlwind swirls around me. Millions of motes whip around me. I am the nucleus, encircled by speeding electrons, but bit by bit pieces of me separate and join the cloud spinning around me.
“Beam me up, Scotty.”
The tornado lifted Dorothy out of Kansas, and I'm being lifted from an unknown planet and transported across unimaginable distances, passing through flickering lights and the mosaic lens of a kaleidoscope until I arrive. I am still in the eye of a whirlwind as I take shape on a boulder, gradually assembling, gaining mass and solidity.
I am lying on a boulder in the sun, with a waterfall behind me and a stream coursing beside me. I am surrounded by mango trees, and I can smell the fruit as well as hear the water splashing and falling. The air is rich in oxygen from the trees in the surrounding jungle, where monkeys scamper high up in the tallest limbs.
I realize I'm still a gecko, but I'm okay with that. At least I'm not a lizard, ha ha. That was a little joke there, playing on my stupid vanity. By the grace of God I am what I am and can experience this wonderful day.
I spin tightly, with my head nearly touching my tail, and vault to the next boulder, bounding over a rivulet of water slipping between the rocks. I spring again, sailing across a shallow pool and gripping the sheer rock face. I scramble up the mountain with the cascade of water to my left, feeling the cool, moist air roll over my skin as it's carried by the breeze. My sinuous spine curves and bends, enabling my long thin body to follow the contours of the rocks as I climb up the mountain, until I reach the stone cliff edge. I slither over the lip of the cliff and lie on the flat butte, looking with wide eyes across a valley of impenetrable green.
The water roars and thunders in the pools far below me, and the valley extends to another set of falls. A moth as big as a monkey-eating eagle flaps across my gaze, and my predatory eyes fix on it. My tongue shoots out and hauls it on, but it's a big one, and I feel like I'm a fisherman who's caught a marlin. My hands and feet dig in, straining against the rock, as I reel the enormous moth into my snout.
The typical moth I can devour in a single gulp, maybe coupled with a few bites, but I've got to chew this one. The dust on its wings is like the sugar on a powdered doughnut, and I can't describe how delicious it is. I consume every bit of that gargantuan moth, relishing every bite and every gulp.
“Tuk-urrr! Tuk-urr! Tuk-urr! Urrr...urrr...urrr.” My cry echoes across the valley, and the monkeys scampering in the trees grow still.
I recall the psalm in the old language:
Ang siyagit sa Ginuo sa atong mga kasingkasing ang imong tingog
Your voice is the cry of God to our hearts.
I leap outward, spreading my arms and legs. Technically, they're all legs, but the human in me thinks of the forward set of legs as “arms.” The folds of skin at my sides snap outward to catch the wind and billow like a sail. I am soaring above the trees, steered by subtle movements of my tail, riding a thermal current that streams up the cliff face. I am flying, and the feeling of joy and freedom is indescribable. With my arms and legs spread wide I notice that the shackles that were fused to my wrists and ankles by the heat are gone.
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I sail through the air in the direction of a mango tree, the branches of which are laden with ripe fruit. I snag a yellow fruit with my snout as I glide downward and touch down onto the soil. I use my tail to help me position the fruit so that I can bite it and peel away the golden flesh from the pit. This mango tastes almost as good as a moth.
I've eaten well, finishing off both a gargantuan moth, which would have been perfect for the Godzilla versus Mothra movies, and a mango. In fact, why not do monkey-eating moth versus giant gecko? I can't spit fire, but I can spray acid, which I think is still pretty cool.
There are footsteps behind me, and my side-mounted eyes with the vertical irises immediately spot the source, a man in a gray suit striding out of the jungle, complete with a black tie.
“Rod Serling?” I ask.
“I am.” The man stands in front of me with his arms crossed. “I need to use a form that you would understand.”
He appears to be Rod Serling, the narrator of the Twilight Zone, but I know that He is God. He's just used the tetragram, the four-letter word the Hebrews use for God, which is YHWH, sort of shorthand for “I am.” This was the revelation to the ancient Israelites, that God doesn't have a name, because He can't be labeled, can't be confined or encapsulated by a word. When asked by Moses to identify himself, God simply replies, “I am.”
This human form of Rod Serling that He has assumed makes sense: He is the narrator, the One who is outside of the drama and understands everything within it. He is the one who helps the viewer understand the bizarre events that unfold during the show and their meaning.
“More purgatory?” I ask.
“No,” He replies with a shake of His head. “As a human, you're bound to sin—it's the weakness of all mortals. What counts is that you fight against it. You recognize sin for what it is, without excuses, and you fight with all your being.”
“Then I'm afraid I've let You down, let myself down, let down Juvy and Max.” This place is a paradise, but I feel a heaviness weighing on me, like someone just turned up the gravity.
“When you were in purgatory, do you think I was making you suffer?” The voice is Ron Serling's—deep, resonant, and authoritative. His face is lined and his black hair is slick. He looks at me with utter sincerity.
“Why, yes,” I reply in confusion. “Isn't that the point of purgatory?”
“How did you feel pain if you didn't have a body?” He places his hands in his pockets and looks at me.
I swear it's like the room is spinning. It should have been obvious—when I went to my home on Worthington as a ghost I had no body. How can you feel pain if you have no nerve endings? How can you burn if you don't have a body?
“You felt the pain of your own guilt, Vic. Many see their sin, shrug their shoulders, and move on.” Here He shrugs His shoulders as if to emphasize His point, then He aims His finger at me. “But your love was so great for Juvy and Max, and your sense of shame was so great that you needed to, demanded to, punish yourself.”
“But...” There has to be justice, I know it.
“Yes,” He says, because He knows what I'm thinking, “but there's also mercy. You don't deserve it; you can't earn it. All you can do is accept it.”
The tears flood my eyes and run down my snout. “Thank you, Lord. Sorry, I'm getting blood everywhere.”
“It's okay; it's an old planet.” He smiles, and like Rod Serling, he's seen it all.
“Max? Juvy?” I need merely mention their names, and He knows what I'm asking.
“No.” He shakes His head. “You have one life, so you have to make the most of it. But you'll all meet again.”
I remember the scripture. “Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting?”
“Exactly.” He walks forward, and the crease of his slacks is perfection. I can smell his Old Spice aftershave, just like my dad used to wear. “You can stay here in this paradise until the Last Day...”
“Or?” I cock my head as I follow him out to the smooth boulder beside the stream.
“They have turned their faces against Me and worshiped the dark gods. The world cries out for a champion. Will you serve?” He crosses His arms and waits.
“Yes, Lord, I will serve.”
THE END