What the Hell? - Final Part!

First part of this story is here. Please do read before you continue this!

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With that, he fell silent. His enthusiasm slowly started dissolving. He felt even stupid for wanting to stay here longer. The meaning of ‘hell’ that he learnt when he was alive slowly started a feel of him.

“You can see the future of your loved ones and the mistakes that they are committing day by day. You’ll know when your son will fell down and break his arm, but you can do nothing to stop that. You’ll feel the pain that he feels when he sleeps. When your wife has a headache and takes a tablet, you’ll have a headache when she sleeps. When your daughter falls in love with a total psychopath, you’ll know what plan he has for her. When you watch your dog hit by a car or a bus. When you watch your best friend getting divorced. When your sister gets a cancer. You’ll feel happy when your son tops his class. You’ll never be able to see your loved one’s faces – just the image of them that you saw before you died. You’ll see your son at the age of 18 and you’ll still see his 8 year old face. Pain or gain – whatever you loved ones go through during the day time in their world, you’ll feel the same in their night time.”

Tears started flowing in his cheeks and he shouted “Why? Why? WHY?”

His father, reduced his flying speed, took a glance at his son with a face full of emotion – one that says ‘sad’ all over it – said “Because this is hell, son”.

For the next twenty minutes or so, he was just following his father and let his mind go blank. He now understood why they call it hell. He now understood that the super power he has here is not a power, but a curse. He now wants to get the hell out of it as soon as possible. All he wanted now was to meet God and beg for his sins. And if he doesn’t forgive, atleast, he’ll have his father’s company here – he should be here as long as he would be. His father, after reading his thought stopped short in the mid-air.

“Son, there’s two more things that I’ll have to tell you.”

“What more is there?” he said so assuming nothing’s worst when you almost watch only terrible things and feel terrible pains.

“This is the last time I would be talking to you. After I leave you at the gate of the God, we would not see each other. You’ll be spending your time here – alone. Although we share loved ones, we would not be together. You’ll not see me and I’ll not see you. We share pains.”

Now he understood why he said “use this one precious hour” earlier. He also understood that this is a world, mostly filled with regrets and pains. Ofcourse, there’ll be pleasures too when their loved one has, but he will not have anyone to share pain or pleasure.

“One hour is all I got with you? Is that the last thing you want to say?”

“It’s down to ten minutes now – we’re almost here at Argentina. The last thing is – you’ll be meeting all our relatives who departed earth and are still here in hell. You’ll be meeting them at the gate of the God – your mother among them. This would be the second time I’m meeting her here. You’ll have less than ten minutes – you can’t talk to them as you are doing with me now – you can just see them. Remember when I said you can only see the image of your 8 year old son’s face when he’s growing up? You can see his actual face only when he dies. That’s the sad part – the utmost punishment a soul can get – to wait for your beloved one to die to see their face.”

Those last words of his father felt like the accident that caused his death sometime before – terrible pain. With utter silence, he saw his father descending and followed him to what looked like a dense forest. They reached the gate of the God and he could see his mother, uncles and aunts, his best friends. Tears were flowing in all of their eyes – some of them waved and he waved back. There was a big tree which stood like an Eiffel tower. They were standing just in the banks of a river for which he didn’t know the name.

His father said “It’s time son. Good bye to you. May you see a happy future and reach heaven.”

“There’s one last question before you go” he asked his father “Who is God?” 

He pointed at the Eiffel tower like tree and said “He is”. And then, one by one everyone disappeared, waving their hands towards him.

The gates opened up and the tree started talking. “Can’t say welcome to hell – do you know why you are here?”

“I died and came to hell”

“Yes. Do you know the sins you committed?”

“No”

“Pollution of the very earth you lived upon and for cutting down trees”

“You mean Gods?”

“I’m not a tree if that’s what you mean – I’m just a representation of nature.”

“Nature is God?”

“I know, right? The world once believed nature is God!”

“Why do we have Jesus and Allah and lot of other gods like Shiva, Vishnu?”

“They are my messengers. You can’t blame me for your belief”

“What is a heaven and where is it?”

“You’re standing in one!”

“Who goes to heaven?”

“If you ask current statistics, only babies come to heaven. People are rare, not very rare, but they do come.”

“Why do you make us born again if you think we’re polluting the earth?”

“A chance and risk I’m willing to give or take”

“I was able to talk to my father a little more than an hour before. Why can’t I talk to my father afterwards? Why do we have to suffer this much in hell?”

“Every time before someone dies, one of the relatives or friends will be chosen for them to guide the new leaf to me. As for the suffering, it’s the punishment for your past crimes”

“Why do you make us forget this suffering and knowledge that we gained here before we born again? Don’t you think the memory will help us avoid polluting earth again?”

“You not only gain suffering and memory here, you gain another lifetime experience. With that memory, I know you can live without polluting the earth, but the experience will only make you a better person than you were destined to be. The mistake that you commit during your lifetime becomes an experience – imagine you commit no mistake at all – where’s the fun in that and what do you learn? Believe me, if you were born again with the memory of this world intact, you’ll wish you let me forget!”

“I don’t understand!”

“I don’t expect you to.”

There was some awkward silence and finally when God spoke, “You lived for 40 years, 2 months and 26 days. You spent 15 years, 8 months and 8 days in sleeping. You planted trees which benefited the earth – that gives you 15 months. You once volunteered for channeling a river – which went on to fertile a village. That gives you 2 years and 16 days. You’ll spend the rest of your 21+ years here in hell. Your knowledge will be updated with the approximate figures shortly.”

He now knew that he had to spend 21 years and 3 months in hell.

“What should I do to end up in heaven?”

“That doesn't depend on your actions. It depends on how the world changes as you progress these 21+ years. Know that I cannot completely erase your memory when you leave this world and born again. Some of your memories will become your dreams. That’s why most of the time you don’t remember a dream! It’s when the world starts to understand their dreams – when they realize the potential danger that awaits them – when they stop polluting the world, slowly, everyone will come to heaven.”

With that, God stopped talking and he realized why he called this place a heaven. When you start planting trees, you’re actually giving a soul a heaven. He then was left alone in hell with his prayers for a greener planet.

The End.

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The 'hell' thoughts described in the story were inspired by Dan Brown's "Inferno" book - the 'visual' he describes of Dante's "The Divine Comedy" (Not a copy from the book. You can check both Inferno and The Divine Comedy books!). The "God" character is inspired by the 'tree monsters' in the Lord of the Rings movie.
Honestly, I had a lot of questions that I could ask "The God". The thing is, when I started making the second part of this story, I felt like it was going on and on and the end was no way near my thought reach. I'm not a novelist or a mega story writer - I decided to end it somewhere. So, I had to reduce the questions for the God. Please input your comments about the two parts!