Apotheosis

The history of the After can be thought of as the history of the human imagination itself, or even of human belief. When the ideas of an afterlife started to be bantered about by certain protigious “almost-humans” like the Neanderthals, the foundations of the After began to take shape. These primitive peoples, seemingly so backwards in everything, were among the first to hold funerals for their dead. They wanted to remember those who had passed away. With that first memory, the After was born.

There is an old quandary which wonders if there are any Neanderthals in Heaven. Well, Heaven does not exist, but there are Neanderthals in the After. Their collective memories were strong enough for them to exist after their deaths. Granted, they did not know what to make of this life after the mortal one. Most ended up just wandering around desolate wastes as they did in life. They may have had funerals, but they lacked a good deal of imagination.

Perhaps the oldest idea, the oldest Theo, who still exists in the After is Eve. The Mother Goddess image was among the first to be worshipped by the beginnings of human civilization. Other gods came and went, and some are only known to a handful of boring old archaelogists and historians. As belief in different gods waxed and waned, so did their appearance in the After. Eve was, at first, the only constant. Eve, though she was not called Eve, knew she was just an idea. This self-awareness of her position was quite helpful. She often visited the human civilizations who worshipped her in human disguise, hearing the stories they told of her, and delighting in all the fuss. She lacked the power to influence the mortal realm in any great way. For one thing, she didn’t have so many believers, and for another thing, she hated to interfere. Her greatest joy cane from seeing how far the human imagination would stretch.

As Eve gained power, she also saw the appearance of many new gods. Some were outcroppings of herself, and they added to her power. But others were human inventions, and when they began their rise into Theo-hood, Eve found that she could not keep up with them. They did not understand her insistance on non-interference. They offered all sorts of stories to the humans about how they were created, how this god or that god created the universe. Ego had come to the After.

The only thing Eve delighted in during those days of competition for belief were the shades who arrived in the After. The mortal humans, who wished so much to be somehow immortal, to be remembered, managed to place their dead loved ones into the After as well. Eve was amused by this, and she began to create elaborate realms for the shades. It was her idea to change the After to fit the shade’s ideas. If the soul wanted to see a great paradise where no one needed to toil hard in the fields, Eve molded the After that way. Soon, belief itself took over, and Eve didn’t have to recreate the After for each soul.

Everything seemed fine and dandy in the After, until the monotheists arrived on Earth.

The monotheists, those who wanted to believe in one God, one Creator instead of a handful of gods, each designated with various tasks, created a dilemma in the After. Their burgeoning God began to take over a large section of the After, and the monothesist beliefs were terribly strong. So strong, in fact, that they began to force their neighbors into believing the same things they did. Eve had never seen a mass dissipation in the After before. It frightened her immensely. Gods without followers soon became nothing more than shades themselves, never to regain their former glory.

Eve herself was relegated to just another character in a story, and not a very good story to boot. The Creation story, in which God created Adam first and then Eve, was a serious blow to Eve. No longer was she the powerful Mother Goddess or the Triple Goddess. She was just the betrayer of mankind.

Eve had been alone over the millenia until Adam was born. Adam sprung full-grown from the ideas of the monothesists. At first, Eve had a difficult time convincing Adam that she had been first and had actually created the After they now both resided in.

“It is God who creates, silly woman,” Adam grinned sympathetically at her. He often patted her head and treated her like a small puppy dog who didn’t understand the ways of the world. Or, even worse, as a small child.

“Silly man!” Eve countered, her eyes staring daggers into Adam. “God only exists because humanity wills it so!” By this time, the foundations of Heaven and Hell were only just being built. The angels were already placed in the After, and their jobs were the various menial tasks that God didn’t feel like doing.

“Betrayer,” Adam grumbled. When he had nothing else to say to Eve during their many arguments, he resorted to calling Eve names.

“I did not betray anyone,” Eve sighed, rolling her eyes. “I never partook of that fruit and I never listened to that serpent. It was a story! Do you not understand?”

Adam just patted her head again.

It took Eve all of her inner strength not to give Adam a wildly dramatic makeover. Perhaps give him three heads, paint him purple and make him walk about on four legs.

Eve once believed that if she could only speak to the entity created and believed by many mortals to be God, she could sort everything out. Then she remembered that this idea violated her tenet of non-interference in mortal affairs. So she backed off. To this day, she has no idea where God is in the After, but she does know his work. At times vengeful, at other times merciful, this God was an enigma, a strange creature who wishes to love mortals but at the same time wants to strike them down at every opportunity. Eve has also seen the visions of Heaven and Hell. Mortal creations which do not exist in the After, unless the shade believes that they do.

When a mortal dies and believes that he or she will be punished and burn in Hell for eternity, well, that’s what happens. The power of belief is so strong, especially the belief in religious concepts, that Heaven and Hell are real places in the After, even if they do not actually exist for all mortals to see.

Hell, once only thought of as the absence of God (and that used to be punishment enough for any shade), only started to become the complete and total absence of hope and love when more and more shades arrived asking to be punished for their sins. They, of course, had no idea that Hell was of their envisioning, and when they boiled in lava or was flayed for eternity, well, that was right and good because they were sinners of the deepest variety.

Heaven also only exists in the beliefs of the mortals who wish to visit there. If a mortal dies believing that she will go to Heaven, she will go to Heaven, and she will see whomever she wishes to see. Since all souls are linked up to other souls, it isn’t a difficult task to meet all of your dead family members in Heaven. Even if Uncle George didn’t believe in Heaven, Uncle George would still be in Lucy’s vision of the After by virtue of their close relationship while they were both alive.

It is that link, that connection with others that the infamous Theos covet more than anything else. Broken off from the memory web, the infamous are doomed to a life of solitude by virtue of their own hate-filled hearts. It doesn’t matter if they believe they are going to Heaven, or if they believe that they were truly doing the right thing. All in all, their souls are tainted with one thing. Malice. Whether they realized it or not, their actions during their lifetime began a chain reaction which ended up with them not being able to see or sense anyone else. This is truly Hell for the megalomaniac.

An infamous Theo has no power. It is worse off than a regular shade. A regular shade, even without the powers of remembrance that a Theo can garner, is still linked to others. They may visit anyone else in their realm of the After, and even if they cannot go and see the Wizarding World detailed in the Harry Potter books or the mountains of Burroughs’ Mars, they are usually content with reconnecting, reuniting with loved ones.

An infamous Theo is little more than a ball of energy, floating in isolation in the After. They cannot be perceived by the normal souls who dwell in the After, and Theos must look hard to see infamy.

And that is how the After is seen as today. It is really just a collection of memories and ideas brought together by the beliefs of mortals. It seems to be indestructable, and perhaps, the After could go on forever and ever, as long as there is a mortal life who has an idea or a memory of a dead loved one.

Unfortunately, the recent problems with the infamous has threatened to destroy the tranquil balance of the After. If the Slouchers, as Claudius has called them, gain enough power, they will band together and undo all the planes of existence, from the mortal ones to the After. There will be no imagination, no memory, and indeed, no thought if they take over.

Which is why Claudius is so keen on trying to stop them. He’s heading for a very good source of information. At least, he hepes that it’s a very good source of information.

Claudius is going to Heaven.

One of the advantages of being a Theo is that Theos can travel through the different realms of the After. Eve has issues with non-interferance in mortal affairs. Claudius, who was once mortal himself and still can’t leave anything concerning mortals alone, has no such issues. He’s standing at the Pearly Gates right at this very moment, awaiting an audience with God.

“Listen, Rocky,” Claudius begins.

Peter, sitting at the small desk in front of the gates, looks more like a secretary for a talent agent than a saint. In fact, if Claudius had ever seen an episode of Saturday Night Live, he would have immediately thought of David Spade’s charater, the one who wouldn’t let anyone famous into his office. However, Claudius has never seen an episode of Saturday Night Live. He has never seen an episode of Saturday Night Live because Claudius is a fantastic dullard with a severe lack of a sense of humor.

Peter leans back in his chair, his headphone microphone perched sturdily against his right ear. “Rocky? Oh, yeah...I’m Peter. The Rock. I should really just put the smackdown on you for that.” Peterr, like many of Heaven’s denizens, is quite additcted to American television.

The wrestling joke is completely lost on Claudius, who only watches the History Channel and an occassional episode of Survivor. “I don’t think that’s quite neccessary,” he says. “I need to see God and I need to see Him right now. It’s urgent. It involves Earth. You’d think that He’d be quite interested in that small piece of the universe, wouldn’t you?”

Peter smirks. “God doesn’t take in visitors. Either you believe in Him or you don’t. And if you don’t, then you can’t get in through there.”

“I really don’t care about rules,” Claudius grunts. “I want to know what God’s opinion is on the End of the World!”

“End of the World?” Peter hmmms a little and rifles through his day planner. “Nope, that’s not scheduled until the day after April Fool’s Day 4932 A.D. Are you sure you’ve got your facts straight?”

“You git!” Claudius fumes. “You can’t even see what’s been going on in front of your own eyes! Look, waves of people are being reassigned. They’re no longer what they once was. And it’s the fault of those infamous Theos.”

“We in Heaven do not endorse other belief systems. You know, we’re all for religious tolerance, but really, in the end, you’ve got to accept Jesus as your own personal savior to get in.”

Claudius manages to keep his mouth shut about how he thinks Jesus is just a self-righteous Theo with nothing better to do than to convert others to his point of view. This takes a lot of Claudius’ effort and he’s visibly shaking. “Fine,” he says finally. “I just want you to know that the Antichrist will be born quite soon if we don’t figure out how to stop that from happening. Now, I know you’d like nothing better than to end the world so that everyone who is promised eternal life gets that eternal life. Well, that’s not going to happen! Do you know why?”

Peter smiles pleasantly.

“It’s because THAT Anticrhist will be the embodiment of all the infamous Theos ever to arrive in the After! Can you imagine? That huge amount of charisma, megalomania, and malice all rolled into one being? It’d be worse than your Revelations because it’s not just Earth that will be destroyed. It will be everything! The After will fall apart, and your precious Heaven with its neverending stream of ice cream socials and choir singing will be destroyed along with it. Do you really want that?”

Peter grins, clearly trying to humor the madman. If only he believed. Then this madness would be over. “I can probably fit you in next Friday.”

“No,” Claudius sighs, exasperated. “It’ll be too late by then. I’ll see if I can get any reaction out of the, um, Other Side.”

Peter gapes at Claudius. “You’re not going, down there, and talk to...to...to...that vile retched betraying used-to-be-angel?”

“Why not? I’m sure he’d listen to me. Unlike any of you stubborn-heads up here.” With a small wave, Claudius jumps off the neareast cloud and disappears down, cast into the pits of Hell. But, by choice.

“Oh dear,” Peter gulps. “Perhaps he WAS serious about the entire thing.” He presses a button. “Um, Lord of all Creation, what do you know about a group of infamous Theos trying to instigate the Apocalyspe?”

The resulting silence coming from Peter’s headphones doesn’t make the apostle feel better. Suddenly, the headphones crackle to life and two words are spoken. Two words which chill Peter’s soul right down to its core.

“Oh, shit...”

Posted by Michelle at November 14, 2002 9:30 AM