Scorched by Another's Flame

I’ve come close; I’ve danced in the flames of another; a hel mine own, I remain to see.

Hel is a place on Earth. Heaven may exist there too but you’re far more likely to wander into hel than cross the threshold of those pearly gates. Just as it is our responsibility to build our own heavens on Earth, we create our own hels; places of personal torture, places of pain and suffering, places we cannot bear to revisit, places that rend one’s very soul from their body and cremate it before their own eyes. It could look like anything, be anywhere and its never the same place for everyone. Everyone’s idea of hel is different and thereby, it exists in multiple states, in multiple places, tailor made for everyone.

Hel is easily recognisable. It’s a place where one goes to torment themselves, to punish and torture, a place where one can only bear to be for a short period and, perhaps most importantly, a place one vows never to return to unless there is no other option. People claim they’ve found their hels and perhaps they’ve come close but they always stumble at that last criterion: Return. To most, their workplace is their hel but still, they return. Although indentured servants to a capitalistic society that qualifies as its own hel, the option to leave, a door to slam, always exists. In this case, the grass is deader in another field. A punishment for the hubris of a generation long since deceased, perpetuated forth leaves most in a situation so close its indistinguishable; the sins of the father persist.

I’ve seen hel. Not one of my own creation but one belonging to another. A place where a day feels like a month, a place filled with the torment of cherubs, a place where betterment is so readily available yet… just out of reach; I’ve seen what it did to its owner. Such irony that a place of devout worship, bedecked with holy iconography of the highest order, a blessed place, would become a believer’s hel. A supposed haven warped to the antithesis of itself. Each and every visit challenges my resolve; to survive, one must adapt; but, it gives me solace, a strange hope because despite the pain, despite the suffering, despite everything, I know that I will survive and I’ll be better for it. Hel is a place built by its creator and I’ve come close; I’ve danced in the flames of another; a hel mine own, I remain to see.