Souls of Men

This week's Assignment
By Marcy

I don’t remember a whole lot from before when I fell. My earliest memories have been taken over by darkness now. But I vaguely remember light; very bright light … brighter than sunlight, and radiant. Sometimes when the heat from the stone floors around the magma pools splits and blisters the pads on my feet, I think about that light. When I am alone at night in my chambers, I imagine that light like cool water washing rock chips and dried blood from my cracked, bleeding feet. I meditate on the light. It engulfs me from toe to head, cooling the blood in my veins, calming the agony in my heart, drowning the cries of the tortured from my ears. I hold the light around me for as long as I can, before I have to go back to work. It helps me through the day, through my work, torturing souls eternally.

I try often to think about how I got here; it’s fuzzy in my memory, like much before my fall. I remember nothing of what I did, which I find ironic, as the whole point of this place is supposed to be about suffering for one’s ills for eternity. Whatever I did, He must have been justified in sending me here. His forgiveness only applies to the souls of men; not a luxury afforded to those of us who were part of his host.

Others have fallen, probably none more famous than our Master down here. And some of those others are nearly as twisted as the Master. But some of us aren’t. We do our jobs because we have to, we can’t remember why, and we hope that someday He sees fit to grant forgiveness to those of us without souls of men, who have no recollection what crimes we’re atoning for, but will spend eternity doing just that. In the meantime, I think about the light as I drift to sleep at the end of my shift. And I try never to forget it.