Apotheosis

Clouds. Clouds in the sky, drifting ever so slowly onwards. Always
recognisable, yet never the same. Always change, always. And faces,
floating above me, obscuring my clouds. The precious, illusory clouds.
Dirt on my face...in my face. Something wrong...my leg...gone. Gone in
a flash, all gone. Nightfall, the clouds melting into the night sky,
stars forming in the brilliant afterglow of the sun's departure.

*

You're dead.

Where am I?

Waiting.

What's happening?

Dead and waiting.

Waiting?

Yes. Not long now.

Dead?

Yes. Now.

*

White steel, stretching up into mist. Brilliance all around me,
surrounding me, enveloping me, binding me. But nowhere to go, nothing
to see or hear or understand. Just steel gates, above and below me.
Nobody to open the gates for me.

Up, the best way to go by far. Up, further...further. No distance, just
endlessly climbing, higher, higher. Until I am at the top, and there is
no further to go.

The pinnacle, where all things meet and begin again. Light all around
me, pinpricks. The sky and my Earth, full of stars. I know each
one.
I climb over the gates, and fall, fall, endlessly downwards, and then
stop. Standing amongst others. Shouts, movement, arguments, running,
violence, despair, fighting. This should not be here.

"Where am I?"

The old, grey man looked at me with tired, curious eyes. "You are at
the end of your journey. You have...arrived now."

Where had I been travelling to? What had happened to me? Travelling,
yes...not to here, not this place. Somewhere else - home. Travelling
home - driving home. Yes, driving. And the ice on the road, and
then...and then -
"You are home now."

"Where...where is here?"

The old man looked around him, sadly gazing out through soul-hungry
eyes at the destruction and impossibilities taking place around him.
The blood, staining the stars, flooding them, overwhelming them. Red...
Red... Red. Drowning in...red. He looked back at me.

"Welcome to Heaven, my son."

No. Not possible. It shouldn't be like this. Not this terror, this
hatred. Why was I here? I had never even believed anyway. Why me? Why
here? Why now?

"If this is...where is he? Where is...He? God? Where is God in all
this?"

The old man smiled kindly at me. "My son, he is...no longer with us. He
is now...elsewhere. The time is yours now. I pray you do better with it
than others have done."

*

Cannot leave it like this. Cannot, must not and will not.

Control...all we need is control. Destroy the anarchy, restore the
peace, the way it all should be. Only one place to go. His Throne,
where all must bow down.

I go to it. Before me. Huge. Power. Control. Force them to listen, then
make them understand. Stop it all. I reach out and grasp the arm of the
Throne, I feel its power racing through every vein, every artery, feel
it in every cell, every pore, all over my body and within my body,
every opening.

I turn and lower to sit. The Throne glows, burning, burning, covered in
fire - flames, over me! Flowing through me! Burning! Burning! Every
vein, every artery, every cell, every pore, over me, in me, bursting
with flame, bursting, bursting!

FALLING. Falling, falling down. Down and down and down, spiralling,
falling, turning, falling, spinning, strains, forces, pain - tugging,
stretching, ripping, tearing - falling!
The flame. The fire. Horror...nothing but horror.