"A license to Create"

I wrote, or should I say, I distorted Poe's work, 'The Raven', in order to meet a challenge. It was great fun, actually, trying my writing alongside some crazy gifted minds.

While replying to the age-old question of why his work still inspires all members of every generation, which was posed by my lovely reader D. Alexander Porter, I was blown away. I just kept on having inspiration after inspiration about the poet's work. As if one can never get enough of the emotions conjured up by the depth of Poe's creative soul.

What does this have to do with Dante's Inferno, you may ask. Well, because, as I mentioned, inspiration after inspiration kept making themselves known within my over stimulated brainwaves. Poe led me to think of Vocal, Vocal led me to Dante. The entire top of my screen is covered by Googling everything at once. It was really marvelous to behold.

Then I realized, that is exactly how I feel about Vocal. But more like being in a 'Beautiful version of Dante's Inferno'. The stories are the nine circles of Hell, and we the creators are the souls trapped in the Inferno.

A fellow writer Grz Colm, refers to Vocal as 'A Beautiful Cult'. I name him 'Sir GRZ of COLM'. On account of his Australian name sounding like that of a knight. I wonder if that is his real name?

Is writing not the most beautiful thing ever imagined by a creative mind somewhere. So now, that question led me to Googling "Who invented writing". I got:

"To the best of our knowledge, writing was invented independently at least three times: Sumerian cuneiform in Mesopotamia (ca. 3400 BCE), Chinese characters in China (ca. 1200 BCE) and Mayan glyphs in Mesoamerica (ca. 300 BCE). Of these, only the Chinese script is an unbroken living tradition". It further states that this explanation is just the tip of the iceberg when answering this question, so many unanswered questions still tarry.

So then I wanted to write a story about who invented writing. So now you follow my drift. One thing kept leading to another, then another, much like Dante's journey through hell.

SO THEN I REALIZED THAT VOCAL HAS GIVEN US "A LICENSE TO CREATE". Kind of like how James Bond has a "LICENSE TO KILL".

Absolutely outstanding and marvellous (English spelling, let spellcheck scream away).

Now let us delve into Dante Alighieri's Inferno.

I now find myself mired in the putrid waste of the worst of mankind. What had I gotten myself into, I wailed silently to the heavens.

I had known Dante for a long time, we had spent many a night speaking of redemption for our sinful souls. And so I followed closely behind, he had no idea that I followed, shrouded in a long dark cloak, he could not identify me as Mikka, his old friend. He had a famous guide, I could see, quietly I moved like a ghost through the fog and shadows.

For his journey through Hell, he is guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen".

(As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, and the recognition and rejection of sin).

It is Maundy Thursday, shortly before the dawn of Good Friday. Dante and I are both thirty-five years old, and thus "midway in the journey of our lives", half of the biblical lifespan of seventy. We are lost in a dark wood, astray from the "right way") of salvation. I follow them as they climb directly up a small mountain, but the way is blocked by three beasts we cannot evade: a leopard, a lion and a she-wolf. These are the beasts that represent unrepentant souls who are awaiting their place in the three divisions of Hell; violence, fraud and incontinence (lack of self control).

Incontinence is the she-wolf. Violence and bestiality is the lion. Fraud and malice are the leopard.

It is now the dawn of Good Friday, April 8, with the sun rising in Aries. The beasts drive us back despairing into the darkness of error, a "lower place", where the 'sun is silent'. However, Dante is rescued by a figure who announces that he was born and lived under something about Augustus Caeser. Virgil, acting on divine advice, leads us on a journey into the underworld.

And so we pass through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription ending with the phrase "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". We hear the anguished screams of the Uncommitted. These are the souls of people who in life took no sides; the opportunists who were for neither good nor evil, but instead were merely concerned with themselves.

Mixed with them are outcasts who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels. These souls are forever unclassified; they are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron. Naked and futile, they race around through the mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner (symbolic of their pursuit of ever-shifting self-interest) while relentlessly chased by swarms of wasps and hornets, who continually sting them. Loathsome maggots and worms at the sinners' feet drink the putrid mixture of blood, pus, and tears that flow down their bodies. This symbolizes the sting of their guilty conscience and the repugnance of sin. This may also be seen as a reflection of the spiritual stagnation in which they lived.

After passing through the vestibule, Dante and Virgil (with me close behind) reach the ferry that will take us across the river Acheron and to Hell proper. The ferry is piloted by Charon, who does not want to let Dante enter, for he is a living being. Virgil forces Charon to take him by declaring, ("It is so willed there where is power to do...That which is willed"), referring to the fact that Dante is on his journey on divine grounds. I step on the boat behind them, Charon naturally believes that I am a member of the party.

The wailing and blasphemy of the damned souls entering Charon's boat contrast with the joyful singing of the blessed souls arriving by ferry in the Purgatorio. The passage across the Acheron, however, is undescribed, since Dante and I both faint and do not awaken until we reach the other side.

And so we pass through the nine circles. It was terrible indeed to behold. They now know that I am with them.

At about 6:00 p.m. on Saturday evening, Virgil, Dante and I begin our escape from Hell by clambering down Satan's ragged fur, feet-first. When we reach Satan's genitalia, we pass through the center of the universe. When Virgil changes direction and begins to climb "upward" towards the surface of the Earth at the antipodes (the direct opposite) we thought that, in his confusion, Virgil was returning us to Hell. Virgil indicates that the time is halfway different— that is, 7:30 a.m. of the same Holy Saturday which was just about to end. Dante is confused as to how, after about an hour and a half of climbing, it is now apparently morning. Virgil explains that it is as a result of passing through the Earth's center into the Southern Hemisphere, which is twelve hours ahead of Jerusalem, the central city of the Northern Hemisphere (where, therefore, it is currently 7:30 p.m.).

Not confusing at all!!!!!!!!!!

Thus we have escaped Hell and have made peace with our wish of being let into Heaven!

The End.